Acoustics of Caribbean steel pans.
Uwe J. Hansen, Thomas D. Rossing, D. Scott Hampton · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1992
The foremost musical instrument in its home country of Trinidad, steel pans are becoming very popular in the United States and Europe as well. Steel pans are usually played in ensembles ranging in size from 6 to 8 players to 100 or more. Steel pans are usually fabricated from 55-gal oil drums, and are known by various names, such as lead, tenor, double tenor, guitar, cello, and bass. The sound spectra are rich in harmonic overtones, which appear to have three different physical origins: (1) radiation from higher modes of vibration in a given note area; (2) radiation from nearby notes whose frequencies are harmonically related to the struck note; and (3) nonlinear motion of the note area vibrating at its fundamental frequency. Modes of vibration of both single note areas and the entire drum have been studied by holographic interferometry and by modal analysis with impact excitation.