That year the Newtown Tamboo Bamboo band led by Lord Humbugger, discarded their lengths of bamboo and took to the streets for J'Ouvert with a full complement of metal containers. These included garbage bins and covers, biscuit drums, paint cans, brake drums, chamber pots and bottles and spoons. They took the name of Alexander's Ragtime Band from an American movie of eh same name and caused a stir in Port of Spain. By Carnival Monday evening most of the bamboo bands had followed suit and the streets resonated to the raucous sounds of people chanting to the accompaniment of clanging, metallic sounds. Tamboo bamboo was soon relegated to village activity before disappearing under the onslaught of the new and popular metal bands, which now ruled the streets on any occasion that Creoles could justify taking a good jump-up.
Controversy still surrounds the issue of the first person to play a tune on the pan.
The ping pong was a small hand held pan cut from a paint tin or carbide container. The indentations made by striking it with wooden sticks, were pushed upwards to form small bumps, which were then tuned to different pitch notes. Totie Wilson tuned his four notes to the chimes of the QRC clock. Who did it first is not important as the range of the ping pong gradually expanded to accommodate the growing adventuresome of the young pan musicians. Up to that time the steelband was mainly a percussion ensemble, although the ping pong could carry a melody they were used along with the five-note tenor kittle to provide a rhythmic motif or riff to accompany a chant, which the crowd carried with encouragement from the band's chantwells.