Chocolate Love

March 28, 2010.

Chocolate Love is a reggae pans song composed just for us by a well-known California drummer.

"Pans" being steel drums. And "us" being Pans de Leon, my band of happy, gray-headed Sunday afternoon musicians. When the SoCal composer comes to town as a visiting artist, we'll present our interpretation of his new tune.

We are steel drummers (second year, so we must be intermediate) who meet on Sunday afternoons for two hours with Mike and Kendra, two sweet, hip 28-year-old musicians teaching a dozen 50-something students. We meet in the pans room (a portable classroom jammed full of steel drums and other percussion instruments) at Leon High School. Armed with pairs of small wooden mallets, we tap and bang beautiful melodies on shiny silver instruments derived from Trinidadian garbage cans.

Our talented leaders have day jobs teaching music to high school students. They are married to each other and recently moved to Tallahassee from Ohio, where Miami University is a hotbed of Caribbean steel band instruction and performance.

Mike and Kendra possess a matched set of academic degrees in music, with emphasis on percussion. (Living my life over, would definitely major in percussion.) They are brilliantly precise and demanding. Kendra gives us brief "warm-ups" to learn scales and rhythm techniques.

Next, led by Mike who keeps time for us on a snare drum and cymbal, we just play, which at first means stumbling through. We learn two songs at a time. Right now, our first hour is devoted to the reggae classic Jammin' and the second hour is for the brand-new, haunting Chocolate Love.

Last year I played lead tenor, a frantic brain-frying exercise with many fast-note changes in Hey Jude and Island in the Sun. I've switched to double seconds, which is two drums that I "strum," meaning hitting repetitive chords with occasionally melodic bars. Others play drums known as "guitars" (actually three drums), double tenor, and bass (six drums to a player).

Strumming chords is relaxing; hitting an occasional triplet and then a fast succession of melodic notes is a private thrill of achievement. And making our kind of ensemble music is truly hitting a groove. Incentive is our upcoming concert, on stage, with lights and cameras and a wild after-party.

We must be living out adolescent fantasies, the perfect band experience. Serious, intense, with hilarious bonding. No drugs, no drama. In touch with our inner John Lennon and Bob Marley. Peace and excitement of making music together. Soon we may load up the bus and hit the road.