[1] This helped turn the steelpan into a source of national pride and cultural identity, recognized both locally and internationally.

[2][3] The following year, the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago officially recognised the steelpan as the country's national instrument.

[9] Steelpans developed in the early to mid 1900s, but with roots going back much earlier, including the talking drums of West African cultures.

[10] In the 18th century, people from West Africa were exchanged for goods from African traders and transported to the Americas including Trinidad.

[10] In 1789, Spanish governor of Trinidad José María Chacón issued a directive that all Africans (the majority of the population) would observe Roman Catholic religion and all Christian holy days.

"[10] In 1834, slaves were emancipated in Trinidad and Tobago following the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, but segregation and indentured servitude continued.

[citation needed] In 1937 they reappeared in Laventille, transformed as an orchestra of frying pans, dustbin lids, and oil drums.

Culturally the stigma was focused on the idea that women belonged in the home or with the children and not out in the street with the pan players.

By the mid-1930s, bits of metal percussion were being used in the tamboo bamboo bands, the first probably being either the automobile brake hub "iron" or the biscuit drum "boom".

[citation needed] The Trinidad All-Steel Pan Percussion Orchestra (TASPO), formed to attend the Festival of Britain in 1951, was the first steelband whose instruments were all made from oil drums.

[22] The Caribbean Research Institute CARIRI investigated possibilities to mass-produce raw forms with the use of pressing machines in the 1970s.

Although first results were promising, the project has been abandoned due to lack of finances and support by local pan tuners in Trinidad.

[citation needed] A Swiss steelpan manufacturer (PANArt) researched the field of fine-grain sheet steel and developed a deep-drawn raw form which was additionally hardened by nitriding.

This process, and the new instruments they called pang, were presented at the International Conference of Steel pan and Science in Port-of-Spain in 2000.

Steelpan makers have used strobe tuners since it was discovered that, by adjusting the overtones (first (fundamental), second, and third partial), the pan's sound seemed to sparkle in a way that it did not previously.

[citation needed] A tuner must have great skill in their work to manage to make the notes sound both good and at the correct pitch.

In the beginning of the steelband movement, players would play a single pan only, now commonly called around the neck instruments.

[30] An international festival, the World Steelband Music Festival, has been held intermittently in Trinidad since 1964, where steelbands perform a test piece (sometimes specially composed, or a selected calypso); a piece of choice (very often a "classic" or European art-music work); and calypso of choice, in a concert-style venue.

[33] Since 1978 a national Panorama competition has been held in the United Kingdom as part of the annual Notting Hill Carnival celebration.

[35] Steelpans were introduced to the genre of jazz fusion by players such as Dave Samuels and Othello Molineaux in the 1970s, and Jonathan Scales in the 2000s.

[39] Influential pannists include Ellie Mannette, the "Father of the Modern Steel Drum" and an accomplished panman, and Winston "Spree" Simon, the inventor and a skilled player of the "Ping Pong" pan.

Noted pan tuners and producers include Darren Dyke, Mappo, Bertrand Kelman, and Herman Guppy.