Attending a rehearsal of Steve Lawrie's, steel ensemble in Akron OH
Steve and I have communicated over the Internet since 1994, but we had never met in person until today.
Steve is a self-taught pan tuner, trained as an engineer. Growing up in South Africa he and some friends taught themselves to play a very old set of pans from Trinidad owned by an ethnomusicologist. Steve's father, the IT director of Rhodes University there expected his son to become an engineer, but Steve had other plans.
He wanted to make more pans for his friends there and set about to try with only Pete Seeger's booklet as a guide.. He found it to be rather more difficult than he had thought. But he persisted, finally spending some time in Trinidad in 1992 where he honed his skills. Returning to South Africa, he built and sold steelpans in several African countries.
In 1999 he emigrated to the United States where he worked with a steelpan business, Panyard, in Akron, OH. After a few years, he formed his own company to build and tune steelpans. He has combined his abilities as an engineer and his talents as an artisan to develop improved instruments, tuning and manufacturing techniques. As a part of his efforts he has done research making measurements to prove or disprove ideas for the improvements.
Steve showed me his shop, then we went to his home where the steelpan ensemble he runs was rehearsing. A really wonderful day, one of the highlights of my trip.
- Author
- John Schmidt
- Created on
- Sunday 21 August 2022
- Albums
- Visits
- 146
- Maker
- Canon
- Model
- Canon EOS 90D
- EXIF
- 2.3
- EXIF software
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 12.1 (Windows)
- Date Time of Original
- 2022:08:21 14:53:35
- Aperture Number
- 6.3
- Exposure compensation
- 0.0 EV
- Exposure Time
- 1/200 s
- ISO
- 2000
- Focal Length
- 11 mm
- White Balancing
- auto
- Exposure Mode
- auto
- Exposure Metering Mode
- pattern
- Exposure Program
- normal
- Saturation
- normal
- Sharpness
- hard
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