Ace Tobago pan tuner and former Pan Trinbago president Patrick Arnold has added his voice to the raging G Pan controversy.
Late last week Attorney General Anand Ramlogan had threatened to take legal action against Prof Brian Copeland who claimed to have invented the G Pan. The Attorney General said legal proceedings would be initiated by the government against Copeland and others for marketing the G Pan as their own and making profits from the venture.
Arnold, who has himself been a long outstanding pan tuner with a big international reputation, has been exporting pans to different parts of the world.
“It was Tony Williams, the former Pan Am North Stars captain who introduced the 4th and 5th style of pan tuning which revolutionised and standardised the notes arrangements on the steel pan instruments,” Arnold said.
He added, “Before Tony Williams’ time, it was the Ellie Mannette style which was used as the standard in the note structure on the steel pan, however the notes were all over the pan and in no particular order. What Tony Williams did was to introduce a style called the fourths and fifths which had the notes on the pan following a particular order. It is this fourths and fifths pan tuning style which the entire world has adopted and it came from Tony Williams in the St James/Woodbrook area.”
Arnold noted, “It is the very Tony Williams pattern of notes arranging on the pan which was used by Copeland on the G Pan.”
“Although the G Pan is larger and has a few more notes that the standard steel pans it still follows the fourths and fifths style and even in terms of size. We have a picture of Tony Williams making a G Pan decades ago. If anyone deserves to be compensated for revolutionising the steel industry, it is Tony Williams,” Arnold insisted.
He recalled that when as head of Pan Trinbago he visited Tony Williams at his home in Woodbrook, he found him living in virtual poverty with the roof of his home falling down and the great steel pan innovator was living a hand to mouth existence.
“I did a lot for Tony Williams to help ease his situation because he is the one who came up with the intellect to standardise the musical structure of the notes on the steel pan.”
Arnold dropped a shocker when he revealed that Copeland is not a pan tuner. Copeland was given the nation’s highest award under the regime of former Prime Minister Patrick Manning.