Bertie Marshall
Bertram Lloyd "Bertie" Marshall (born February 6, 1936 in Laventille ; † October 17, 2012 in Port of Spain ) was a Trinidadian musician and steel-pan instrument maker.
life and work
Marshall was born on St. Vincent Street in Laventille and grew up in Port of Spain, where he attended St. Phillip EC School. At the age of 14 he was already playing in a steel band and spending a lot of time in the backyard of Panbauer Winston "Spree" Simon .
Since the steel pan was invented in the 1940s, instrument making was still in its infancy in the 1950s. Steel pans had rudimentary bumps that were arbitrarily formed on the back then only slightly driven in bottom of oil barrels. Bertie Marshall dealt intensively with these sounding bumps and discovered the existence of overtones in the tin. Marshall then began to work on his instruments in a targeted manner in order to create harmoniously correct relationships. Marshall introduced his concept of the harmonic tuning of Steel Pans in 1956. He also developed the double tenor , a soprano instrument .
As the band leader and pan builder of the steel band Laventille Highlanders, he achieved innovations that were widely used in Trinidad, such as: B. the use of small moving trucks to transport large instruments at the carnival . Marshall also ensured that his instruments were not exposed to direct sunlight or rain through roofing. These roofs (English canopies ) also allowed better control over the sound of an orchestra.
In 1965 Marshall was the first to amplify his steel band with contact microphones. From 1970 he was pan builder of the Desperadoes Steel Orchestra in Laventille . Together with their band leader and pan builder Rudolph Charles, Marshall developed the instruments Quadrophonics, Six Pan and Twelve Bass. In 1982 Marshall was part of a research team at the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute , which, together with the Saab company in Sweden, examined a possibility of machine prefabrication of steel pans.
In 1992 Bertie Marshall was awarded the Chaconia Medal in gold. He was also awarded the highest order of Trinidad's Order of the Republic by President George Maxwell Richards in 2008 in recognition of his achievements .
In 2012 he died in the family of the consequences of longstanding diabetes .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Trinidad Newsday of September 1, 2008: Doctors of pan honored. Retrieved February 14, 2017 .
- ↑ Trinidad Express of October 18, 2012: 'Steelpan genius' Bertie Marshall dies ( Memento of October 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Marshall, Bertie |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Marshall, Bertram Lloyd (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Trinidadian musician on the modern steel pan |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 6, 1936 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Laventille |
| DATE OF DEATH | 17th October 2012 |
| Place of death | Port of Spain |