Aspiring music therapist merges love for music, people

Frontline pannist for Nutrien Silver Stars Steel Orchestra Simone Emmanuel said her love of steelpan began in pre-school and has led her to a degree in music, and musical therapy as a career.

Emmanuel was introduced to pan at pre-school at the YMCA, where it was taught to every student.

“When I got to secondary school, I wanted to join the school band to do Panorama, but my mom isn’t really a pan person, so I couldn’t go.

"Then my little brother got involved, and that’s how I got involved in pan, at age 13. My brother loves pan too, and she didn’t want him to go by himself, so that’s how I got to go.”

She initially played with Exodus from 2013-2016, and joined Silver Stars in June 2016.

“When I was looking for a band after leaving Exodus, I was going to All Stars, but the captain of Silver Stars told my teacher at the time, Barry Mannette, that they were looking for players, and they sent me there.

"When I got there, there was only one other person there, as everyone else had gone to St Lucia to play in Panorama. I learned at least five songs in that week.

“In Panorama 2017, there was an influx of new players and the drum master and the captain decided they wanted all the new faces in front of the band to show the other bands that ‘you want to drop your players, we have them now – here are your players, they’re doing better in this band than how you were treating them in the other band.’

"Then I became a section leader for the tenors when the previous leaders stepped down.”

The 28-year-old said it can be stressful to be a section leader, as this involves administrative work, taking note of the pans, updating the drum master on the section and its members and teaching the music to the 30-plus members of the section, but she enjoyed it.

“The band is full of young people like myself. When I got to Silver Stars I felt at home, and that’s what made me stay for all these years, because in my personal opinion I don’t think any other panyard made me feel like I was at home and safe. Silver Stars was welcoming, everyone is around my age group, we have fun when we’re performing together.

“People see us as a band full of vibes and youths, because I think we’re the biggest large band with a lot of youths in it. We get along well with the older members and they get along well with us. We move as one.”

She said some of her best memories with the band were being onstage on finals night, and travelling abroad to play pan in St Lucia and Barbados.

Emmanuel is in the final semester of her degree, and intends to take a year off before going abroad to study music therapy. She was originally doing a business degree at SBCS, but was unable to complete it owing to difficulties with GATE.

“I decided to do what I actually like. I specialised in the tenor steelpan.

“I want to do music therapy because I like to help people, especially those with attention deficit hyperactivity (ADHD) and different disabilities. I realise most people don’t know music works on the side of your brain that math and English and everything else is on, so it helps to develop your brain faster than usual. I am around people with disabilities sometimes and I would like to get into it to help them, as everybody seems to be pushing them to the side because they have a disability, and that upsets me.

“Most schools have students with some kind of disability and they wouldn’t really know until there’s some type of testing to know what type of difficulty they have. They should be running tests on all children so they don’t grow into adults who’re having difficulties in functioning.”

Emmanuel said there are only three music therapists in TT and she hoped to be the fourth one. She plans to move back to TT to practise.

She advised young people who were interested in the arts to follow their passions.

“Whether it’s music, dance, theatre, visual arts, go into it and don’t listen to the society that says the arts can’t get you anywhere, because the arts are what people need to do things. Follow your passions and do what you have to do. Once you have God on your side, you’ll be fine.

“I would encourage parents to have their children learn to play the steelpan. I believe everybody should learn to play pan, because it’s the national instrument. At least learning the basics of it. If you like it and you want to stick with it, you can, and if you don’t, at least you know the basics of playing.”