Playing Steel Drums

Part of the Video Series How to Play the Steel Drums

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How to play steel drums; get expert instruction on playing drums and percussion instruments in this free music lesson video.

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All Videos in the Series, How to Play the Steel Drums

Member Comments

Posted by hugo4892 on Tuesday, 29 January, 2008 at 7:35 PM

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thank you im new tto the steel drum instrument i just recently tried out for the steell band!!!hopefully i make it!!!well anyways wanted to stop by to say hi and thank you again!!!where could i buy the steel drum sticks at any drum store??well thanks for your!!

Video Transcript

Playing Steel Drums
Hi, I'm Alan Lightner. I'm here with Expert Village and were talking about the art of playing steel pans. We've gone through a whole list of things that you need to know in order to become a good steel pan player. Everything from finding the correct notes, finding the correct placement of the notes, finding a good instrument, choosing the correct sticks, how to hold the sticks, stick control. Techniques that you can use to make the drums sing. Whether you let the note ring, whether you roll on them. Your stick control, whether using doubles or singles. I'm going to play now and kind of put everything together. So we'll be talking about the differences between the intensity that I strike this note as opposed to this note. I'll be demonstrating that, I'll be demonstrating multiple strikes with one hand. Single strokes and then we'll go between everything. And it's not going to be a song, it's going to be just playing. But hopefully you'll get an idea about what you can do with this instrument. That's one way you can play the steel pans. So I hope that you can see that and take my examples and apply them to the steel drum and find yourself making some beautiful music. Each of those different techniques will take a lot of practice, but once you do master them, I think that you'll be able to make the most beautiful music that you could imagine.

About the Expert

Expert: Alan Mark Lightner is a master faculty member at the East Bay Center for Performing Arts where he served as the director of the steel pans and drum set departments. Read More