Cavalier Steel: From the Beginning - An Interview with Dan Ruckman & Dane Newlove

CAVALIER STEEL: FROM THE BEGINNING - AN INTERVIEW WITH DAN RUCKMAN AND DANE NEWLOVE

SARAH WATERS, OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY

Starting a steel band is one way you could bring a different facet of music education to your program. This article will help those interested in starting a steel band and explains how Coldwater High School did it.

Pan in Ohio

Steel band has its origin in Trinidad and Tobago starting in the 1930s and 1940s. The colorful history of this instrument is well-documented, and a quick Google search will yield plenty of results. Of particular note is the 2014 documentary, Pan! Our Music Odyssey, which won several awards and is the story of the steel drum. Watching this film with your students, boosters, and administration would be a great way to begin the journey to starting your own band.

Ohio has a strong history of steel bands; there are around 55 college and high school steel bands in Ohio (Dr. Brandon Haskett: https://weteachpan. org/resource/schooldirectory/), and Ohio boasts one of the leading U.S. manufacturers of steel drums. Ron Kerns and Shelly Irvine established Panyard, Inc. in 1990 in Akron. Panyard is now one of the leading steel drum manufacturing companies in the world. Another excellent resource is Chris Tanner’s The Steel Band Game Plan: Strategies for Starting, Building and Maintaining Your Pan Program. Tanner (Miami University, Ohio) is the president of the National Society of Steel Band Educators (NSSBE), ), a group dedicated to advancing steel band education in the United States—a terrific group for people just like you!

As music educators, we try to achieve our music standards in creative ways. Participation in steel band will help students to achieve these standards and more!

• perform a varied repertoire of music representing diverse genres and cultures alone and in ensembles (Ohio Music Standard HS I: 1PR).

• perform an appropriate part in an ensemble demonstrating well developed ensemble skills (Ohio Music Standard HS III: 4PR).

• discuss how people differ in their response to musical experiences based upon culture, environment, values and personal experiences (Ohio Music Standard HS IV: 3RE). https://weteachpan.org/

Any student could be taught to play in a steel band—not just percussionists. In addition to these specific standards, many musical and life skills can be taught. For example, in the Wild Steelions, a band I started with students from the Ada and Lima areas, the students have learned how to present themselves in public, perform, set up, and tear down efficiently; to improvise, listen, and groove; to play without a conductor, and to read and arrange music.

Dan Ruckman, band director at Coldwater High School, stated his reasons for starting a steel band:

“I had always wanted to start an ensemble at our school that was not the standard band, orchestra, or choir. Additionally, I liked the fact that this would be a unique sound to our concerts that not many other schools have. This was a selling point to our boosters, community, and administration. I talked to several people for their insight and guidance. To begin, I spent weeks looking for videos on the history of pan, the building of pans, and most importantly, the amazing performances.”

Coldwater Exempted Village School District, located in Mercer County, consists of one K-12 campus divided into three schools: K-4, 5-8, and 9-12 and has a total enrollment of 1,300, with 404 students in the high school. Ruckman is beginning his 23rd year of teaching, which is his 17 th at Coldwater. Coldwater uses a modified block schedule.

Preliminary Work

What do you need to get started? Money and time; Plan on at least $10,000 and about two years to see it through. Ruckman explained:

“For funding, I put together a multi-year plan to steadily build our ensemble. We budgeted about $10,000 to get our starting set of pans. This covered the instruments, mallets, stands, and cases. We plan to add 1-2 instruments per year until we reach our goal of a 12-16-person ensemble. We estimated a total cost of $20,000-$25,000. With this plan, I was able to secure the commitment of our band boosters and school to purchase the instruments necessary to get started.”

You will also need adequate space. Dane Newlove (retired St. Mary’s band director and now percussion instructor at Coldwater) said, “We were able to dedicate a practice room to rehearse and store our cases in, so we did not have to set up and tear down the instruments each day.” Ruckman hopes that with “more exposure and growth we can encourage our school to find a more permanent space with enough room for bass pans.”

Finally, there will be ongoing financial costs. It is of utmost importance to find a qualified tuner. Tuning costs can run up to $1,000 per year. Other costs will include proper stands, cases, mallets, and music.

Purchasing the Drums

So now that you have funding and have a place for thedrums, the next step is to purchase them. The best course of action would be to contact directors near you (see the NSSBE website). Ask those directors, “Who tunes their bands? Who made their drums? What is their timeline for delivery? Do they offer school packages?” The NSSBE website has a list of steel drum makers: https://weteachpan. org/resource/tuners/.

I recommend starting with three lead pans (melody), two double seconds (harmony and rhythmic strumming), and one cello set (three drums that play harmony and rhythmic strumming). This combination will give you a good balance, and by adding electric bass, auxiliary percussion, and drum set, you will have a full-sounding band. Ruckman recalled his experience:

“The final challenge was to find a manufacturer for our instruments. Having not purchased steel pans before, I was at a loss as to where I should purchase them. I spent quite a bit of time researching the different manufacturers. I was shocked to find that almost everyone I looked at had a 12-24 month waiting list! I was disheartened to say the least. Fortunately, Sarah Waters introduced Dane and I to Steve Lawrie, the owner of Pantuner. We visited his shop in Akron and were impressed by his craftsmanship and beautiful sound of his pans.”

I had recommended they contact Steve Lawrie because he is my tuner, builds quality instruments, and tunes the pans he builds. Ruckman was also able to request specific paint colors.

This brings me to some critical insider knowledge: Steel drums are not in stock. They are in high demand and are built by hand. You might find inexpensive and readily available pans on the Internet but BUYER BEWARE! The amount of money you will spend on tuning on a lousy drum could have been spent on a quality instrument.

Implementation

To create excitement for steel band, take your students, their parents, and your administrators to see a performance at a nearby college or high school. Directors would welcome you and they might be able to hold a pre- or post-concert demonstration session for you. Ruckman and Newlove could not wait to get the buzz going at Coldwater. Ruckman stated: “While we waited for our pans from Steve to come, we borrowed a couple of lead pans and a double second to at least introduce our audience to what they could expect in the future. . . . the audience loved it! We had to stick around after the concert for audience members to get a look at the pans.”

Newlove recalled: “Some of my concerns in helping to run the steel band program was a lack of knowledge on my part and proper storage for the instruments. I gained a lot of confidence and first-hand knowledge while playing along with the students and soon realized the similarities between band/percussion ensemble and a steel band are many. Proper sound production, rhythm, dynamics, and balance are similar between the disciplines. Technique and “finding my way” around the pan came quickly and was less of a challenge for the students than for myself, quite frankly.”

This brings up a familiar concern: “How do the kids practice at home?” Using a cardboard circle or a 23” drum head, draw the notes as they appear in your drums. The students can then practice patterns and memorize where the notes are located. You and your administration will determine when your group can meet: before or after school, during lunch periods, or during the school day. Coldwater uses Period 6, alternating with music theory class.

Newlove stated: “Cavalier Steel meets during the school day as a separate class from the high school band. This ensemble was started as a way to get more students involved in the music program, and this is a real benefit while teaching a life-long appreciation of music. It is our hope to one day start a community group, which will even further the philosophy that music is for a lifetime.”

Dr. Sarah Waters, Associate Professor of Music at Ohio Northern University, has written several articles for Percussive Notes, Music Educators Journal, and TRIAD from her research and performance experiences in Africa, China, South America, Europe, and the Caribbean. Her music is published with C. Alan Publications and Per-Mus Publications. The CD Shreds: Music for Trumpet and Percussion, (Waters and colleague Dr. David Kosmyna) was released through Centaur Records in 2015. She and her husband, Rob have two boys, Donald (16) and Robby (14).