Final Episode
November 3, 2000
Page 14
Every stage of pan research and development requires close
collaboration between tuners, scientists and scholars attached to other disciplines.
In
the many instances where the language of any one group is alien to another, the
process is slowed.
It
was expressed as anxiety by veteran pannists at last month’s International
Conference on the Science and Technology of the Steelpan.
Conference
chairman Dr Anthony Achong of the University of the West Indies (UWI) and
Professor Thomas Rossing of Northern Illinois University’s Department of
Physics both sough to explain that they were only interpreting in a scientific
way what the tuners had long discovered.
Pan
pioneer Oscar Pyle said he feared that pan tuners would not get enough out of
the discussions, because so much of it would fly over their heads.
Former
Pan Trinbago public relations officer Selwyn Tarradath’s concern was that
Trinidad and Tobago does not have the technology to follow-up on the
information provided by exchanges at the conference.
El
Dorado Senior Comprehensive School steelband manager, Fazal “Moosh” Mohammed,
took quite another view.
“I
feel that we must start the collaboration from the level of the school’s music
teacher and physics teacher, so that a better understanding of the instrument
could come from both sides, with the physics teacher getting the scientific
information and breaking it down for the music students,” he said.
The
Mohammed position is easily the best option here. Even when the proceedings of the conference become available,
there is a good chance that no pan tuner will be able to grasp the complexities
of quadratic equations, or would feel that he has to, just so he could tune the
next instrument.
Felix
Rohner’s experiments with gas nitriding provides us with a handy example of the
gaps that must be bridged, if the conference is to mean anything to the very
artisans whose work the scientists are studying.
Rohner,
a Swiss pan researcher, has adapted a process known in his country’s culture
for the past 80 years for improving the tolerance of steel.
Gas
nitriding – exposing the drum to sub-zero blasts of liquid nitrogen, rather
than heating it over an open flame, has produced measurable results no
different from the rustic procedure.
The
nitriding process gives the pan better wear resistance, increased resistance to
metal fatigue and corrosion and produces instruments with good note stability,
due to the high tensile strength and yield point of the steel.
The
process is hardly a secret, since it is used in Switzerland to make things as
basic as cowbells, but transfer of the technology could prove prohibitive in
cost and a major intellectual challenge for the basic Trini tuner. Rohner’s set of pans cost US $10,000.
To
be able to study the behaviour of notes and improve their shapes and resonance,
your neighbourhood tuner must understand linear, quadratic and cubic forces and
read the results of holographic infometry if he is to appreciate what the
scientists were saying to him at the three-day talks.
But
a lot of that information may not be necessary to the tuner, if the kind f
collaboration suggested by the various presenters at the conference comes to
pass.
Prof
Rossing repeatedly called for pans at various stages of the tuning process to
be sent to his laboratories at NIU for testing at every sequence. Exactly which tuner is going to take up a
$4,000 instrument and donate it to science is unclear, but it is the only way
these processes can be tested or improved.
At
present, research at UWI is largely funded by the determination of those
scientists who care to invest personal funds and time into their projects.
Achong,
Derek Gay, Clemont Imbert, Brian Copeland Fasil Muddeen – to name a few – are
undertaking studies on various aspects of the preparation of a steel pan and
the behaviours of its notes under impact.
For
the conference, they were joined by Prof Rossing, Uwe J. Hansen, professor
emeritus, Dept of physics, Indiana State University, Rohner and others, all of
whom share a commonality of language and perspective.
That
afternoon, talks included findings from studies on finite element modeling of
an acoustics, holographic imaging, sand patterns, and microphone scanning,
modes of vibration, polar response, sound spectra of bass pans, the dynamical
equivalent of the steel instrument, and an electronic “score sheet” for pan.
The
real work that remains, therefore, probably lies with UWI’s professors of
language, who will now demystify the science as a way of replacing
well-entrenched myths about pan.