MPR’s Connie Goldman reports on steel drum concert of pop music as part of a summer enrichment program. It allows junior high students to play the drum without much music training; they play on parts of the drum marked by numbers.
Listeners react at the St. Paul Arts and Science Centner, and students describe the experience.
[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER 1: What do you think of that sound?
SPEAKER 2: It's really great. I really like it.
SPEAKER 1: Heard anything like that before?
SPEAKER 2: No, not really.
SPEAKER 1: How about you?
SPEAKER 3: Huh-uh.
SPEAKER 1: What do you think of that sound?
SPEAKER 4: Never heard anything quite like it. You think of steel drums. You think of the Trinidad kind of thing down in the South Atlantic. But not classical and so on. It sounds more like a pipe organ.
SPEAKER 1: That's part of a curious crowd at the main entrance of the Saint Paul Arts and Science Center. They're listening to a group of junior high students from the Saint Paul school district playing a concert on steel drums. The musical instruments are modified oil drums and they first became popular after the Second World War in Trinidad.
The Summer Enrichment Program has been a quick course for the kids. They really don't have to know anything about music because they play by numbers painted on parts of the drums that make different sounds. Instant music, instant rewards. Two weeks of public performances.
SPEAKER 5: These are all tuned to a pitch pipe. And they're pounded in and then they're cut off in certain places depending on the tone you want.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 1: You read music? I see that all the sections of the drum are-- oh, I see. They're all marked.
SPEAKER 6: You really don't know what the notes. Are you just know where to go. That's about it. It's not really memorizing either. It's just different.
SPEAKER 1: You feel like you're musical or is this your first adventure in music?
SPEAKER 6: This is the first thing. And I didn't even know how to read notes or anything. This is my first thing in music ever. I got stuck with the lead drum.
SPEAKER 1: How about you? Have you played steel drums? I see you're playing two of them at once here.
SPEAKER 7: No, I haven't before this summer school session. This is the first time I've ever played them.
SPEAKER 1: Do you have to listen to what the other people play or do you just listen to yourself?
SPEAKER 7: Well, it helps when you listen to them. But you have to know where you're going to hit them.
SPEAKER 1: How about you? Is this your first adventure in steel drums?
SPEAKER 8: No I took it before. I had it for a quarter during the school year.
SPEAKER 1: Are you very musical? Do you play other instruments?
SPEAKER 8: Yeah, I play clarinet and some other things.
SPEAKER 1: These people seem to feel they don't need to know very much about music to do this. Just learn where the notes are and memorize them.
SPEAKER 8: You don't have to read music.
SPEAKER 1: What is the reaction of the audience when you go out, when you take it out on tour?
SPEAKER 6: They're really amazed. They think there's a hidden organ or something, but there's not. There's not a hidden organ or something. They ask where the hidden organ is. You just say, if you find an organ, you can keep it or something like that cause--
SPEAKER 1: They're really surprised when those kind of sounds come out of these kind of drums, huh?
SPEAKER 8: Yeah, they really are.
SPEAKER 1: Can you make me a little music, just anything?
SPEAKER 6: 1, 2, 3, 4.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 1: Another innovative summer program for young people in Saint Paul. The steel drum band. This is Connie Goldman.
Materials created/edited/published by Archive team as an assigned project during remote work period in 2020
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