Along the way, I made a few videos to share tips for those who want to get into handpan playing themselves.

1st instructional video on handpan: How to choose your handpan

Published 17th Jun 2021. Talking about scales, 440 vs 432Hz tuning, temperature and protection of the instrument. A lot of um and ah in the talking, still a bit difficult to speak fluent in english at that time. At the end I filmed a little gag.

2nd instructional video: Handpan comparison video

Published 26th Jun 2022. Apart from the main goal - sound comparing between the AS Teman, RAV Vast and Meridian handpan, you can also hear in the section of 1 minute free plays, that the microphone captures my jacket making noises. It is those little details that sum up that I have to consider when going for a proper music recording. If you want to know, how an out of tune handpan sounds: Watch the beginning of this video.

On this opportunity, let's talk about the words: Handpan is the overall name for such round metal drums (steel drums aside, as they are bend the other way around). The name hangdrum is registered to a Swiss company that made such instruments first and they are holding the right of that name - so every other manufacturer is not supposed to use this name. A different sub family of handpans are tongue drums, where the areas for each note are laser cut instead of bend (and these have the form of a tongue, hance the name). This makes manufaction easier and cheaper.

The regular handpan is tuned, then put into the oven to put the metal under stress and then retuned. If you buy a cheap one, this is maybe just done once. Which results in an unstable tuning. So to reach a stable quality in tuning, the handpan is retuned and put into the oven again several times, which consumes time and makes quality instruments more expensive.

3rd instructional video: Octaves long version

What is your favourite tone? This piano video may be helpful to feel into the different notes - the one that resonates most with you, may give you an indication, which handpan scales is for you.

Technically each time going up to the next same note (one octave) is giving twice the speed in vibrations per second (doubling frequency).

Especially when sitting in front of a piano, you can soak up all the frequencies with your ears and body - like a soundbath. Here you meet another acoustic phenomenom: Resonance. If you unmute all the strings (pressing down the sustain pedal), the strings tuned to the same note that you just hit will start vibrating and contribute to producing a rich sound. Good electronic instruments try to emulate that, yet the real experience is hard to beat here. And each note has a different quaracter. The long version is made to feel into this, if you do not have a piano at hand.

If you want to explore playing the piano intuitively yourself or want to develop your ears, I recommend doing this yourself (to be repeated on your piano, preferrably a tuned acoustic one).

Uploaded 05. Nov 2022. Played in Kristineberg, piano 2 in 432 Hz.

4th instructional video: Octaves short version

If the sound of each set is shorter, for some it may be easier to feel the difference of the effect of each note played across all octaves on the piano.

Hearing the different notes may also help you with a task like choosing a scale of a handpan for yourself: If you feel a note resonating well or most with you: this may be a good indication of a nice root note for a handpan scale for you.

Uploaded 06. Jan 2022. Played in Kristineberg, piano 2 in 432 Hz.

17th handpan song: The Approach (towards Gimegolts)

Before playing a simple song here, I also share my approach of how I developed ideas at this stage in the beginning of the video. If you play an instrument yourself, maybe this is inspiring for you.

After me gathering ideas, my hands were too cold to continue to play, so I took gloves - why not trying how that sounds, no need to get too uncomfortable for this one. The sound with gloves is alright, but not what I would want on my album.

I like the variation on 3:30. I love how the clouds move in the time lapse, when I do a simple snow figure there.

I intended to go to a different place there, but I realised it was too far to walk in these conditions, so I just played where I was before returning - it was also not the best weather to go full scale. Published 24. Mar 2023.

Continue with chapter 1 or chapter 2 of my handpan diary.


See my youtube-channel for latest videos and other instruments maybe.

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