Handpan

Davey Jobbles displaying the use of the handpan at the annual Waiamaiea Beach Ska Festival 2020 Jan 2020 NAMM Show.
A handpan from the first production run of Pantheon Steel.
Handpan busker in Tokyo, Japan.
Handpan Maker & Musician Stevan Morris playing handpans

Handpan is a term for a group of musical instruments that are classified as a subset of the steelpan. Several handpan makers and brands have emerged in recent years, resulting from a growing worldwide interest in the Hang, which is an instrument developed by the company PANArt that is based on the physical properties of the Trinidadian steelpan, Indian ghatam, Thai gong, and Indonesian Gamelan.[1]

The basic form of a handpan consists of two metal half-shells glued together, a centre tone field (named Ding) surrounded by a circle of at least seven tone fields on the upper side and an opening in the bottom side (named Gu). Differences between manufacturers include the materials used, the manufacturing processes of the raw forms, the shaping of the tone fields, and the tuning methods.

  1. ^ "The History of PANTAMS". PANIVERSE - WORLD of HANDPANS. 2017-04-27. Archived from the original on 2020-08-15. Retrieved 2019-09-01.