Global - Amrit Samaroo was born and raised into a musical family being the son of renowned arranger, Jit Samaroo. He started playing steelpan at the age of six with Samaroo Youth Steel Orchestra which existed for approximately two years. During Amrit’s formative years as a musician, he won first place at San Fest and
the School’s Music Festival in 1992 and 1999 respectively. In addition to having been raised in a musical family, Amrit has received formal musical training, having completed an Associate Degree in Performing Arts from COSTAATT
(The College of Science, Technology
and Applied Arts of Trinidad and
Tobago), and a Bachelor of Arts in
Musical Arts from the University of
the West Indies.
Although Amrit enjoyed success as a solo musician in his early days, his passion is arranging. He believes his dad inspired him to be an arranger, and arranging allows him to express himself more freely through a band. For Trinidad and Tobago Panorama 2011, Amrit had a full quota of
steel orchestras for which he arranged. The bands are Trinidad Nostalgic (single pan), Nutones (small), Melodians (medium) and Our Boys (large). He arranged two
of his original compositions for
2011,
Showdown and
T.K.O. for Melodians
and Our Boys respectively. He was
very excited by the prospect of
arranging for these bands - until
Boxing Day 2010 when a calamity,
which could only be described as a
freak accident, occurred. The
resulting X-ray revealed that he had
sustained a broken fibula. Amrit
immediately knew that his Panorama
season was not going to be how he
wanted it to be. The management of
all the bands were contacted and
informed of his misfortune. They
were all sympathetic but insisted
that the arrangement still had to be
done by him - one way or another.
Amrit recalled a conversation he had with, Natasha Joseph, a fellow panist, about how the Percussive Harmonic Instrument (PHI) could greatly assist the panist in the scoring and recording of music. He then pursued acquiring a PHI to use for the
panorama season, since he knew it would greatly reduce the amount of time it would take to produce an arrangement for a band using a keyboard or entering directly into the scoring software.
The use of MIDI technology and the familiar interface allowed him to score and arrange his music twice as fast as he would have done before. He also states that, “the PHI has allowed him to feel what the players in the yard are playing”. Amrit
believes
that
“motion
is
everything”
for
the
panist,
particularly
body
positioning
and
hand
movements.
He
used
the
PHI
to
facilitate
his
note
strikes,
using
his
natural
playing
style,
to
record
and
score
music
on
the
computer
through
software
such
as
Finale
which
he
is
using.
The
PHI,
similarly
to
any
other
MIDI
instrument
communicates
with
scoring
software
that
runs
on
any
computer
platform.
This
mode
of
arranging
and
composition
is
commonplace
with
digital
keyboardists
and,
through
the
use
of
the
PHI,
is
now
available
to
all
panists.
Amrit had no problem in adjusting to the PHI as its 36 notes are laid out in the
‘circle of 4ths and 5ths’
used on most tenor pans. This standardized note layout along with the ergonomic design of the PHI enable panists, such as Amrit Samaroo, to make an effortless transition to the instrument. In addition, it allowed him to relay the score sheets and audio tracks he produced to the bands in a much shorter space of time. He is thankful for the PHI and sees himself using it to score for the National Steel Symphony Orchestra and other international steel bands after the Trinidad Carnival season.
Amrit Samaroo sees the PHI as being a necessary addition to the panist’s
“tool chest” - especially since there are a growing number who own studios and read music. Having a tool such as the PHI has always been a dream for him and being able to use it as he dreamt was a “surreal moment”. Amrit states that he is doing “just PHIne” and the PHI has significantly decreased the time he takes to do an arrangement with a more realistic feel.
Courtesy
P.H.I. News
Amrit Samaroo on
the PHI
