A brief history of the steel pan Published 24 July 2012 Amid the electronica of 20th Century music one new instrument stands out for its simplicity. The steel pan, possibly the only instrument made out of industrial waste, has become an icon of Trinidadian culture. Hammered into the shiny metal surface is a series of dents. Each one creates a different note, subtly different from the ones around it, according […]

What Is Calypso Music? Calypso is an Afro-Caribbean music genre that began in the nation of Trinidad and Tobago and spread throughout the West Indies. A close relative of West African kaiso, calypso music is an upbeat genre based on call-and-response singing and a syncopated 2/4 beat known as the calypso rhythm. Calypso has spawned many subgenres, including soca music, mento, benna, spouge, ska, chutney, and extempo. A central figure in these styles is a griot, a […]

Music is a form of art that involves organized and audible sounds and silence. It is normally expressed in terms of pitch (which includes melody and harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo and meter), and the quality of sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture). Music may also involve complex generative forms in time through the construction of patterns and combinations of natural stimuli, principally sound. Music may be used […]