UPDATE ON THE STEEL PAN WEBSITE

UPDATE ON THE STEEL PAN WEBSITE... (long read)

First off sorry there has been no update on this project yet!! Basically, I managed to film over 9 hours worth of videos and audio that I then had to filter through and have been editing ever since which is why my blog got forgotten :(

Anywho this is what I have done so far! It took a while but I figured out the best filming situation which ended up in my phone sitting on my ceiling fan and my iPad facing me (getting two angles) and my Rode NT1A Condenser Microphone hooked up to my computer via an audio interface. The camera angles were where I ran into a lot of trouble. First off my phone continuously died or fell from the fan mid-recording and I had the worry of 'what was the camera actually capturing, as I couldn't see it.?' So I did a little googling and found out your apple watch can mirror your phone camera! So that became my best friend (you see the reflection of it a bit throughout the videos). With the set-up I had going Apple should have sponsored me!!!

After figuring out the video situation I managed to get a basic plan written out for what my videos were consistent of and how the songs link to the HSC 👇

Mini Tutorials

1 – How to Set Your Steel Pan Up

- Steel Pan Stand

- Putting the Pan onto the Stand

- Setting the Height

- Anatomy of the Pan (Rim, Skirt, Bowl, Belly)

- Different Types of Steel Pans and Design Features

- How to Store it

2 – Equipment you can use when practising, performing, and recording

- Mallets (different kinds = different sounds)

- Steel Pan Pick Up

- 1/4” Instrument Cable

- Audio Interface

- Speakers

- USB 2.0 B (or USB A Printer Cable) > USB 2.0 A

3 – Crash Course in Microphones and your Steel Pan

- Each Steel Pan is different and the type of microphone you use will depend on what works best for the resonance and design of your steel pan (I’ll use mine as an example)

- Polar Patterns

o Omnidirectional (360˚)

o Cardioid (Front and Sides)

o Bidirectional (Figure 8)

o Unidirectional (Top)

- Steel Pan Pick Up

o Magnet and Frequencies

o Works well for performances with me in a group

o Does not work well for recording due to Mallets and Resonance

- Rode NT1A Condenser

o Cardioid

o Works well when mixed with live audio from the phone

o Preference for Recording

- 2 Shure SM58 Dynamic Microphones

o Unidirectional

o Good for performance

o Lots of Work and tends to get in the way

o If not angled correctly notes are louder and some are quieter

Lessons

Lesson 1 – The Notes of the Steel Pan and Basic Mallet Technique

- The Pan is made up of the Whole Tone Scales

- How to Hold your Mallet (Harry Potter Wand Hold)

- A Tone is every second Notes

- A Semitone is opposite

- Learn C Whole Tone

- Learn C# Whole Tone

- Learn Chromatic

o Open Hands no Cross over

o RLRLRL LRLRLR L

Lesson 2 – Major, Minor and Pentatonic Scales

- Scales are easy all you need to know is the following formulas and you’ll be able to play any Major, Minor or Pentatonic Scale

- This is generally all you need for soloing too (podcast on that)

- Tone is every 2nd Note

- Semitone is opposite

- Major = TTSTTTS

o C Major

o Get them to figure out G, D and Bb Major

- Natural Minor = TSTTSTT

o A Minor

o Get them to figure out C and D minor

- Pentatonic Major = 12356

o C Pentatonic

o Figure out G and F

- Pentatonic Minor = 13457

o A minor

o Figure out C and D

Lesson 3 – Playing Techniques

- Mallet Hold

- Types of Mallets and when to use them

- Dynamics and the small range

- Normal Bouncing Hit

- Ba Dum (Double Hit)

o 2 Ba Dum up the C Major Scale

- Rolling

o Left Right

o Slow to Fast

o Even beat

- 2 Notes

o Even

o Bouncing

- 3 Notes

o Next to each other

o Flick of the wrist

o Difficult and takes time

- Muscle Memory

o A lot of playing ends up being muscle memory and when getting a piece of music (especially if fast) it can take time to figure out where to put your hands

Song Tutorials

Cantina Band (Star Wars IV – A New Hope) (1977) – John Williams (Jazz, Music for Radio, Film, TV and Multimedia, Music for Small Ensembles, Music of the 20th and 21st Centuries, Popular Music)

Super Mario Brothers (1985) – Koji Kondo (An instrument and its repertoire, Music for Radio, Film, TV and Multimedia, Technology and its influence on Music, Music of the 20th and 21st Centuries)

Under the Sea (The Little Mermaid) (1989) – Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (An Instrument and its repertoire, Music for Radio, Film, TV, and Multimedia, Music of the 20th and 21st Centuries, Popular Music, Theatre Music)

The Entertainer (1902) – Scott Joplin (Music of the 20th and 21st Centuries, Jazz)

The Anthropologist (2005) – Peatbog Faeries (Music for Small Ensembles, Music in 20th and 21st Centuries, Music of a Culture (Irish Folk)

Moliendo Café (1958) – Jośe Manzo Perroni (An Instrument and It’s Repertoire, Jazz, Music for Small Ensembles, Music of the 20th and 21st Century, Music of a Culture (Spanish/Latin)

How to arrange for the Steel Pan and Tips for the HSC Music 1 Performance for Steel Pan PODCAST

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