Panwest Caribbean Steelpan Music Center is at 10855 San Pablo Ave. Compete in multiplayer wars with up to 8 players online. Create endless scenarios using the random map generator. Immerse yourself in a rich single player story campaign, playable from two sides of an epic conflict. He became more active after coming to the United States at age 17 to attend City College of San Francisco and then UC Berkeley, where he was on the varsity soccer team.īest and some friends got together to practice informally, and he eventually turned the pastime into a career as performer, recording artist and teacher. Learn to use flanking and master your army’s hundreds of abilities. Lucia, a small island in the eastern Caribbean, but he said he played the steel drums only casually when he was growing up because steel drumming on the island was concentrated in “some rough neighborhoods.” “One guy in San Rafael makes them, and the biggest outfit in the United States is in Ohio.”īest is from St. “These instruments are still hand-crafted and every steel pan is different from the others,” Best said. The finished pan is often painted in bright colors, or dipped in chrome for a reflective finish.

On average, a steel drum pan needs to be tuned twice a year, depending upon how much and how hard it is played. The bass is made up of six large barrels, Best said. A soprano drum is single drum, the alto is comprised of two drums and the tenor three. The steel drum sound is also determined by the number of drums used. The depth to which the barrels are “shrunk” depends on the tone the instrument is expected to give.īass drums are shallow while a tenor steel drum pan is deep, producing a higher-pitched, shriller sound. Today, drum makers stretch the bottoms of drum barrels, often custom made, into a concave shape using a sledge hammer in a process known as “shrinking the pan.” Steel drums have come a long way since the early days.

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