How to Play Melodies on Steel Drums

Video Transcript

ALAN MARK LIGHTNER: Hi. I'm Alan Lightner with Expert Village. We're talking about playing steelpans and fitting into various musical situations, playing with different types of ensembles. Right now, I'd like to talk about more about leading an ensemble and playing solo on the steelpans which you--one thing that you want to be aware of is the melody that you will be playing and choosing a melody and learning that melody that works well on your particular instrument, on the steelpans. Remember that your instrument is a drum. So you're going to be tapping these melodies out. You can roll, obviously you can roll, we'll talk about that in technique, but your instrument is a drum and so you're going to have that kind of attack as opposed to let's say, a violin, where you know the attack is going to not be as sharp here. Here, you're almost always going to have a sharp attack on your melody. So when you're choosing melodies, let's say, you're trying to choose a pretty melody to play, you do have to be aware that you actually can play pretty, but you are going to have an attack. It's going to be different than if a violin played that or even a flute where it's more legato. You've got specific attacks here. Even when you play rolls, you've got attacks. You want to choose you melody accordingly. Remember, that if you let me--while you're listening to the melody and choosing when I like to play this song, would that song work on a drum? Is that going to have the impression that you want to bring about playing it with attacks as opposed to your voice which you may be able to sing between different notes and glide smoothly. This one, you've got ring between notes but there is that attack that you got to be aware of, and the best steeldrummers that you hear always choose the melodies that sing nicely on the drum and are played--that sound great when they're played with an attack. So you have to be aware of that.

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