Cliff Alexis

Alexis strives to help homeland
from humble NIU Panyard

by Mark McGowan

Cliff Alexis stands outside the old Wurlitzer piano factory, scanning the scarce traffic for his 10 a.m. visitor.

Past the door that heralds the “NIU PANYARD” inside, Alexis offers a crash course in the building and tuning of steel drums – skills he is known for around the world – and eventually pulls a worn three-ring binder from his locked toolbox. Inside are design specifications, many hand-drawn, for various types of steel pans.

One of the plastic-covered pages holds a yellowing newspaper clip, probably about Alexis, but something obscures the photo and the headline. Such humility is typical of Alexis, named a Legend of Pan in 2000 and inducted last fall into the Pan Hall of Fame.

“I see people on TV getting inducted (into halls of fame) and getting awards, and sometimes they’re lost for words. It’s the same feeling. There’s so many millions of people in this world, and you get picked. I guess the one word is, ‘Wow,’ ” said Alexis, longtime co-director of the world-acclaimed NIU Steel Band. “I remember getting the call for Legend of Pan. I say, ‘Me?’ and the guy says, ‘You.’ ”

The latter recognition came from the Trinidad and Tobago Folk Arts Institute of New York, a group that bears the name of the country both Alexis and the steel pan itself call home.

Alexis now focuses much of his attention on his native land, trying to improve the state of music education there from his workshop here in DeKalb.

“From a financial and musical literacy standpoint,” Alexis said, “the steelband in Trinidad is at somewhat of a disadvantage when compared to the United States.”

Many children of Trinidad are taught to play the steel pan, but never learn to read music. Instead, they usually learn by rote: Someone shows them how to play a song, and they duplicate it. Some professional bands in Trinidad spend hours in rehearsal working on just one song – or even just a fraction of one song – while a band of music-reading pannists can master many tunes in the same time period, providing they have equal or similar playing technique.

Change is taking place – albeit slowly – prompting Alexis and NIU colleague Liam Teague to action. Alexis has been involved in various capacities as an arranger, educator and tuner in both the high school and collegiate system for 29 years.

“My intention was always to take steel pan further in terms of the educational part of it,” Alexis said. “I want to see a kid come to NIU, or any other (U.S.) university, and join a steelband with a knowledge of music that’s coherent. I want to see them be competitive.”

Alexis hopes students from Trinidad who are fortunate enough to study in the United States will return home to teach young people. He also is trying to make their stay here longer.

Most come for graduate studies only, completed in half the time of cost-prohibitive bachelor’s degrees. The Trilla Steel Band Fund provides some students with dollars necessary to enroll for NIU master’s degrees, something Alexis is grateful for and appreciates, although more students call than the scholarship coffers can handle.

Meanwhile, “two years doesn’t really give them enough,” he said. “We would rather see them for four years so we could mold them a little more.”

He also is working with Pan Trinibago, the governing body for the steelband in Trinidad and Tobago, to encourage the idea of collaborating with the government to teach the pan in elementary and secondary schools.

Unfortunately, Alexis said, some groups in his homeland are resistant to the notion of using the pan – their national instrument – as the main instrument in learning music in school. Many were stunned to see the NIU Steel Band use music stands during their unprecedented second-place finish in the 2000 World Steelband Music Festival, he said.

“They are protective in Trinidad. This is their instrument, invented by them, and if you put (Western) music to it, you’re going to lose it,” he said. “We want to say, ‘No, you’re not going to lose it. You just take the other part of it, getting coherent musically.’ ”

7-21-03