Like many musical traditions in the Western Hemisphere, the history of the Steel Drum is a merging of elements from a variety of cultures. The inhabitants of Trinidad and Tobago, home of the steel drum, have ancestral roots from Europe (England and France), Africa, India, China, other islands in the Caribbean, and Latin America (primarily Venezuela).
Nineteenth century Trinidad was a European plantation society. The French and English brought inhabitants from Central and West Africa as slaves for their plantations. Naturally, the Africans brought their musical traditions with them, rich with drumming, other forms of percussion (bells, rattles, mbiras), and singing. The drumming practices were to have a profound impact on musical styles to come, including the steel drum ensemble.
Africans used their music in Trinidad in the same way as in Africa; for celebration, for religious ceremonies, as "work music", and for communication. The power of the drumming alarmed the plantation owners. They knew the Africans could communicated with their instruments, and they feared the possibility of slave uprisings (which did occur from time to time).
Drumming and singing were also used to accompany "kalinda", or stick-fighting gangs. These groups would walk the streets of Trinidad playing their rhythms and singing songs (one of the first setting s for Calypso singers to perform). When they encountered another kalinda gang, fights would often take place. One more reason for the Europeans to feel intimidated by drumming; eventually drumming was outlawed.
Without their drums, these Trinidadians turned to other resources for their musical instruments. Drawing on the influence of kalinda, musicians began using all sizes of bamboo sticks to play their rhythms. They would stamp out rhythms on the ground and use bamboo sticks to play counter rhythms on the bamboo tubes as they paraded through the street. To replace the African bell parts, glass bottles with spoons as beaters were used. These groups became known as Tamboo Bamboo bands. Again, these groups would often accompany singing.
Keep in mind that for most of the year, plantation workers were forced into long hours of work in the fields. Christian holidays (when the Europeans held celebrations of their own) were the times of the year when the plantation workers enjoyed more freedom, and were allowed to participate in celebrations. Christmas and Carnival season (the period just before Ash Wednesday and the Christian period of Lent) were marked by many celebrations; singing, parties and much parading.
During the Christmas season, martial law was declared, and all freemen of Trinidad were required to join militia units. These units were more of a public spectacle than a means of law enforcement. The militia, with names like "Royal Trinidad Light Dragoons" and "Diego Martin's Chasseurs and Infantry", would dress in colorful military garb, and parade the streets, playing military marches of their ancestral counties (mainly England and France). The units would have their own emblems and their own flags. The plantation workers, drawing on their roots in African Royal processions and fusing some European elements too, formed into regiments of their own, complete with their own regimental colors and uniforms. These are the earliest forms of parading that would explode into the large-scale exhibitions during Carnival season.
Around the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Tamboo Bamboo was the dominant type of band during Carnival season. These groups would parade nearly non-stop for the two days prior to Ash Wednesday. Just imagine two solid days of pounding bamboo tubes on the ground and playing on glass bottles. The energy of Carnival was such that you would play very loudly, but whenever a rival band was encountered on the streets a competition would follow, and then these groups would play even more aggressively. So , naturally, many pieces of bamboo and glass bottles would be broken along the way. A band member wouldn't want to spend the rest of the day without an instrument , so he would pick up whatever he could find off the street, usually some kind of metal; garbage cans, garbage can lids, oil cans, biscuit tines, automobile parts. As this continued, musicians realized that their metal instruments were more durable and projected the sound more strongly than bamboo. So a shift in the instrumentation began to take place, and by the mid to late 1930s all metal bands or "Iron Bands" were parading the street during Carnival.
Again, through trial and error, musicians filled out the different voices of their bands with different kinds of metal drums, tins, and car parts. Larger drums (35 and 40 gallon) for the bass parts, olive oil and biscuit tins for middle voices, small cans and graters for higher voices and scraper parts, and automobile brake drums for the bell part. There were so many such Iron Bands, but Alexander's Ragtime Band is one of the most well-known groups.
Chronology of Steel Drum Development