The steel pan is often created with industrial drums. The pitch of the drum is determined by the depth and curvature of the pan, with the sound usually produced by hitting the pan with rubber mallets. There are generally eight types of steel pans based on pitches of notes and size: the 4 pan bass, the cello pan, the guitar pan, the quadrophonic pan, the double second pan, double tenor, low tenor, and high tenor. The image below is an example of the high tenor pan note layout. Anthony Williams is credited with inventing the spider web pan, which had notes in cycles of note intervals of fourths and fifths.

Now that you’ve heard what the instrument sounds like and learned a little bit about it, you may be able to recognize its presence in some more popular music. Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville and Soulja Boy’s Crank That are two notable examples.