#99 Vance Umphrey, steel pan player - a podcast by Planetary Gigs Society

Vance Umphrey says, “Music was there before I can start remembering anything.” His mother was a singer and his grandfather was a choir director. Vance began playing with the family’s electric piano when he was 5 and started lessons when about 10-11. He joined the middle school band and took percussion. So, when he went to Humboldt for college, he ended up with a double performance major in percussion in piano, but more importantly, he was introduced to the steel pan and it’s fair to say his life has never been the same.

Vance has played the steel pan ever since. It is really a complex diatonic instrument, and is often played in large steel pan orchestras, with up to 120 pan players! The steel pan was originated in Trinidad and Tobago, where the African population was prohibited from playing drums from the 1880s until the 1940s or so, and based on the need to play, they came up with the steel pan instrument made out of the hammered bottoms of steel oil drums. 

“When I hear a steel orchestra,” says Vance, “I hear the elements of triumph and overcoming oppression.” Vance says, playing the steel pan is “super meaningful” and that, “I am just following music; … music is directing me. …Most of my decisions are actually guided by music.”
He says that the philosophy of Victor Wooten as brought out in The Music Lesson has really impressed and influenced him; “it opened my eyes to the enchantment and magic of music.”

“Internationally, pan has been a huge gift of bringing people together. … Everyone is trying to become one in the band.” He says music gives an appreciation for different cultures. Vance also likes the community aspect of music, and has a vision for music-based community centers for people.

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