Trinbagonians often boast of the value of things homemade, but at the turn of the century, the national musical instrument of Trinidad and Tobago and the sole instrument to be invented in the 20^th century, remains grossly underdeveloped.

"When you talk about pan advancement, al of that will come from Europe as everything else. Because Trinidadians are colonial in their thinking. We are the architects of our destruction," Jomo Wahtuse declared.

An inventor of several pan instruments, Wahtuse is among numerous steelpan enthusiasts who lament the meagre technological advancements of the instrument almost a half a century after its discovery.

As for the innovations for the pan developed within recent times, he says little respect has been paid.

There has been the invention of the lectrapan - a pan which can be amplified through any sound system like an electric guitar - invented by Dr Brian Copland and a team of UWI engineers. Still, there is yet to be standard amplification of pans, Wahtuse observes.

The xylopan, engineered by Wahtuse two years ago, to develop the pannist's dexterity, sits underutilized at the Ministry of Culture.

Moreover, Wahtuse shares the view of some that there is an urgent need for standardization of the alloy used to make the instrument, note placement and length of the skirt (cylinder) of the pan, and even an alternative raw material for constructing it.

An aircraft engineer by profession, Wahtuse was fascinated with the pan since childhood and conducted his own experiments. He said some still treat the steel drum like something magical rather than an object to be studied scientifically.

"They don't realize steel has hundreds of alloys - nickel steel, chrome steel and the need to identify the ideal type of steel to make the ideal pan? Do we have to wait for someone from the US to tell us that when we have places like the foundries? We have people at the University; can't they advise that the metal that is used was not made for steelpans? That they were made for industrial use and the man who manufactured them made them out of the cheapest metal?

"Why don't we buy a sheet of metal and make the pan? Suppose the man who is manufacturing these drums starts making his drums out of plastic, what is going to happen to the pan movement? Suppose he makes his drums smaller?"

At present, the 18-gage drum made of cold rolled steel usually makes a "good" pan, according to Pan Development Officer at the Ministry of Culture Clifford Alfred. The drums are purchased from a subsidiary of National Petroleum, but Alfred admitted that it was difficult to control their consistency.

Such inconsistencies cause problems in tuning the pan. Wahtuse insisted that a technological paper on pan tuning be developed and made available to pan tuners.

Wahtuse believes the few advances in pan technology stem from a combination of inertia on the part of Trinbagonians and poor management. There had been limitations as the development of the pan was left to the grassroots.

"No one asked anyone to design the steel pan, it happened by circumstance. The first pan was probably the doodoop (a drum which gave variation to notes by Winston 'Spree' Simon). Then the ping-pong (a small pan 13-inches in diameter with three notes). Later there was a pan with four notes. The development was left basically to the panman in his limited knowledge.

"Technology as such was not there, it was just creative instinct."

Tracing the significant breakthroughs for the pan over the years, Wahtuse cited one of the first as Invaders' Eddie Mannette's sinking of the pan and adding convex (raised) notes.

"What I found out was that Eddie was technologically advanced. He was a trainee at the Eastern foundry and it offered such a wide degree of technological training, that I believe that Eddie was able to identify metals and the behaviour of metals. He was significantly ahead of the rest," Wahtuse said.

Another product of the cutting edge technology of the Eastern Foundry, Tony Williams, then leader of Pan Am All Stars was also an innovator according to Wahtuse.

Williams not only introduced the spiderweb pan with its fourths and fifths (notes), but the jumbo pan. Wahtuse felt the tonal quality and clarity of the notes of pans Williams tuned are yet to be surpassed.

He said despite the constraints, Bertie Marshall also contributed significantly to the development of the pan.

"In his humble surroundings, he did a lot for the quality of the instrument. He came up with the double seconds. And when he amplified the instrument 20, 30 years ago, he had taken the pan to another dimension."

But no one recognized the value of Mannette's innovation or need to propel the instrument forward, although other countries at the time were gainfully engaged in developing satellites and rockets, Wahtuse claimed.

He bemoaned that while such innovators had vision, they lacked the proper facilities to excel even further.

Wahtuse said society's continued apathy to the advancement of the national instrument was reflected in the response to his pan inventions.

"The response to the xylopan has been the most hurtful. I saw Boogsie Sharp taking several pans around him and playing them. He did this because he could not get the range he wanted. I started thinking of how I could help. At great cost I sacrificed to make the instrument and at great cost we launched it. At the launching there were more lay people than panmen.

"Later I went around and showed it to panmen. They saw it more as an awesome thing than as a challenge. We launched a two-day-workshop for Christmas at the Creative Arts centre (UWI) and not one panman showed up.

"Until Pan Trinbago changes up their management, like the Copyright Organization and have a proper board of directors, really projecting a vision will be a problem and someone is going to take the pan from us," Wahtuse said.

Launched in August of 1997, the xylopan is the largest instrument in the world. It s made up of a conventional tenor pan with eight satellite pans supported on circular chrome frames. It allows the pan virtuoso to explore the full range of his skills as he has a wide range of notes (around 50) at his disposal.

Wahtuse also came up with the manitone a few years before, where the face of the pan was separated from the skirt. The instrument demonstrated that as long as there is continuity or the surface kept rigid, the tune surface remains. The manitone would also reduce transport as well as storing space.

The jomoline, Wahtuse's first invention was designed to incorporate as many notes as possible using an alternative to the oil drum. The jomoline consists of notes beaten into sheet metal and tuned resulting in a combination of tenor and bass pan. It was invented in 1974.

His most recent invention is the collapsible pan rack, which will reduce cost of transporting and storing steelpans.

Musician/arranger, Pelham Goddard too, admitted to the inertia of the pan movement and society at large.

"Everyone else is getting it together in terms of technology and up to now, we haven't come together to figure out where we will go.

"The panmen are only playing for points in Panorama. And those who go to Panorama are only interested in the lime."

He said each band has a different format for their instruments, which results in a problem of poor tonality. "Everything has to be consistent - the size of the note, the width of the pan skirt."

He informed that with the standardization of pan tuning, pannists would have greater versatility (playing different instruments) in their own band as well as in other pansides.

He said the primitive methods of amplification currently used for the instrument, adversely affected the quality of the sound generated by pansides.

"At the last Pan festival I heard the wind blowing through the microphones on stage and this distorted the way the band sounded."

In 1990, the then NAR government promised a $7 million grant to the steelband movement. President of Pan Trinbago, Patrick Arnold, recently expressed concern that panmen were still owed $4 million.

Alfred confirmed that $7.5 million dollars was promised and that half of the money was still due to Pan Trinbago.

He said the body had since used the funds they received to establish the Pan Investment Company (PANVESCO), an investment company which offered loans to steelbands. He was, however, uncertain of efforts to technologically develop the steelpan.

Insisting that the Ministry was 'very interested' in the development of pan, he informed that it held annual courses in pan technology where pan tuning was taught.

Clifford admitted that the two-day seminar held last November at the UWI Creative Arts Centre as an introduction to the xylopan was poorly attended.

He reiterated that in order to find a standardized rational pattern of note placement, there was a need for tuners and arrangers to come together.

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