Bertie Marshall Speaks on the Steelpan
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They beating too hard
Trinbagopan.com Staff Article
Interview Recorded: March 13, 2005
Posted: March 18, 2005
It seems like people only listens to the tenor pan. People are very sentimental you know, and they don't know that, they are not conscious. The band could be beating whatever it want, they feel is competition, as and the band finish playing, they say, "we win". Sentiment does cause that. Even though you know your band not playing as good as Exodus or one of the other bands, you saying so, and you doing harm to your band by doing that. As I said, bands does play too hard. Instead of them getting together with their committee and telling them, "look, the pans and them sounding good you know, but the fellahs beating the pans too hard." They don't say that, instead they blame the poor tuner and tell them that the tuner didn't tune the pan hard enough or strong enough.
You know another thing I see, if they have a meeting and all panmen in the meeting, they don't say exactly what they want. They will wait until the meeting done, and get under the streetlight in the road and 'shoo shoo'. They not coming out in the open and say, well we dissatisfied with so and so. They not brave enough to do that, and that does cause a band to break-up. I believe the pan-men are just as important as the instruments, because if you don't have any players, you don't have a band.
Some steelbands musical directors or arrangers suppose to communicate this to the band, they put their arrangements and thing for you, but they don't concentrate on that too much. When the band coming up, he is telling his girlfriend, "look my band coming up and we will win", that is all he saying. But he doesn't realize that when they were practicing, they were beating the steelpans too hard, so they had the pan off balance. The whole band off balance and that is the worst thing you could hear, unless you are tone deaf.
Competition does cause people to be doing all kinds of funny things. As simple as that Pan Trinbago there now, I don't know how they haven't 'lick up' Arnold and them as yet. If it was long time, they would have gotten 'buss face' and thing. It have bands that loss, that crossing a line with Pan Trinbago, although the band themselves pick the judges. That is why they tell you the judges leave to go home very quickly. They have to leave before they announce the results. A 'caller' of a band will cause the bacchanal. He will call and say, 'look one of the judges!, leh we beat him'. A mob is a funny ting, it easy to start a fight, especially if you are a good talker, you would cause a big bacchanal there. That is why they tell you the judges disappear early, but they have a right to, because it doesn't have to be the band actually beating the judges, is the supporters.
They should get a different type of competition instead of the Panaroma competition, because most people against it. You see this judging in the panyard, they will have to stop that. Although it is saving money, the point is, when a young fellah come and beat pan, he glad to go on the stage and play in the Preliminaries. You see this Pan Champs in Concert what "Boogsie" was arguing about, Boogsie Sharpe say there are a lot of people in his band that went to Tobago already, and don't care to go again. However the youngsters who would come up to the panyard and sacrifice the time to come to practice, that is what they are playing for, they are looking forward to it and you can't be vexed with dem, because that is all they are getting. They really can't pay a band, but he stick with the band. He didn't sign any contract, but he could leave your band anytime and go to a next band. I haven't seen "Boogsie" to talk to him, because I would tell him to see if he could borrow some money or someting and carry the band to Tobago. Still, it would have been the better way to 'sh*t' up Pan Trinbago, because you have to take money out of your pocket, although you were the winning band. The point is to try and get the people the little trip, especially the youngsters.
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