When news of the end of World War 2 reached
the islands of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago,
jubilant masses swarmed the streets. Garbage bins in
hand, they danced and sang while beating the bins
with anything they could get their hands on. Then
some people realised that different sounds were
produced when one hits the drums at certain places
with a particular type of stick. Experimentation was
to follow. "Today you have a drum which is now tuned
and called a steel pan," said Hollis John Clifton,
practical music teacher at Rainbow Secondary School.
The one and only musical creation since the start of
the twentieth century, the steel pan, like jazz
music, is a creation by Africans in the Diaspora,
Trinidad and Tobago in particular. "There's nothing
else that's new on the face of this earth in terms
of musical instruments except the steel pan, and it
was created by Africans!" said a proud Clifton.
Pioneered since the 30s, after the banning of skin
drums and the tamboo bamboo (bamboo sticks used as
drums), by the likes of Eric McKenzie and Winston
Spree Simon, the steel drum has today become popular
at tourist sights in the Caribbean and other
regions.
Movies and tourist promos of the Caribbean are
incomplete without scenes of people dancing to live
tunes courtesy of a steel band. Close to home steel
bands have been doing the rounds at functions in and
around Gaborone. This past Saturday the children of
SOS Village in Tlokweng had their turn experiencing
this global music. Divided into tenors, sopranos,
double seconds, guitars, cellos, and bases, the
steel pans, and drums are feats of African
ingenuity. "For example, the tenor pan has all the
notes that you can find on a piano. There are
sections that are equivalent to any conventional
orchestra in the world," said Clifton. The smallest
orchestra sets are made up of 10 panists, 150 for
the largest sets.
Separated from the African drum of their native
villages, the blacks of "TNT (Trinidad and Tobago)
came up with a steel "drum" just as unique as the
animal skin and wooden ones of their ancestor. "I
don't know how to read music, I just play it by
ear!"...That's African jazz if you like it! Popular
wherever you find people from Trinidad and Tobago,
the steel pan is now taught in some parts of Europe
and the Americas, even Asia (Japan in particular) is
hip to it. Africa is yet to jump onto the steel pan
wagon. "That's what I'm doing, I'm teaching it here!
Wherever we go we carry our culture, and this is
African culture!" And teaching he has done. The
first lesson Hollis John Clifton gave in Botswana
was to our very own Mpule Kwalegobe. "When I first
arrived with my wife and three kids in 1999, my
family was staying at the Grand Palm. They were
having the rehearsals for the Botswana leg of the
Miss Universe.
"Asked to assist with the choreography and
dancing, he promised to teach the winner the steel
pan. "When Mpule mentioned the steel pan in Trinidad
and Tobago, she became the favourite long before the
competition." Mpule was eventually given the key to
the city of San Fernando, where Clifton was born.
Since 1999, he has taught kids starting at Marang
CJSS, and now at Rainbow Secondary. A creative arts
school, attached to the University of the West
Indies, exists where people from all over the world
attend to learn to read and compose music on the
pan. Apart from the two schools in Gaborone where
the steel pan is taught and played, there is also
the Clifton Steel Pan Ensemble, made up of Hollis,
his son, and two daughters. | 
