Steel Pan

The playing surface seen from above: three rings of note areas, each an octave above the ring outside it, laid out round the rim in fourths and fifths (or chromatically). A note glows as it rings; the ones you did not strike are ringing along through the steel.

The amplitudes of the note’s three tuned modes over the last two seconds. Struck hard, the dome pumps energy from the fundamental into the octave and twelfth and back again; struck softly, or with no dome, each mode simply decays.

The tuned modes’ shapes over the note, seen from above (warm up, cool down, white lines the nodes), and where the stick lands (✕). A stroke on a mode’s node cannot excite it.

The tuned partials sit on the harmonic grid at 2 and 3 × f₁ (or 2 and 4); the plate’s upper modes fall between. Struck hard, the octave rises to meet the fundamental.

After a hard stroke the octave line swells for a moment after the fundamental’s: the dome handing it energy. A roll shows as a comb of strokes.