Learn Handpan (2024)

FAQs

How difficult is the handpan to learn? ›

For beginners:

There is hardly any instrument that can be learned as easily as playing the Handpan. After learning the touch technique, which usually takes between 20-30 minutes, you can intuitively start playing right away.

The time it takes to learn to play the handpan will of course vary from one person to another, but in general you need no more than twenty hours of practice on your instrument to feel at ease with it and play beautiful melodies.

Unlike a piano, where all notes are available, the handpan is limited to a few notes. While Hang® by PANArt was built with 8 or 9 notes, there are now also manufacturers who built handpans with over 20 notes.

This is what we call “natural detuning,” which is unavoidable. A handpan can also go out of tune immediately due to external influences. These include impacts, falls or hard impacts of solid objects on a sound field.

For a solid handpan with a standard number of notes (7-8) from a good maker: you should probably expect to pay no less than $1,000-$2,500 (new). For a 'top-shelf' make and/or for more notes: you're looking at around $3,000-$4,000 (new). For anything rare or custom: you can expect to pay more.

A high-quality handpan not only offers better sound quality and playability, but also longer durability and greater enjoyment of making music. If you want to buy a handpan, you should not only pay attention to the price, but above all to the quality of the instrument.

The most common scale

As already mentioned, about 70% of all handpans are tuned in D-Minor.

THE HANDPAN WITH 9 NOTES OR LESS

The best choice for beginners - You are just starting to play the instrument so why make it hard. Note that starting with a 10 or plus handpan notes is by no means a wrong choice. However, you may improve quicker by being familiar with the 9 notes.

As a rule of thumb, we believe that a Handpan should remain in tune for 3 years when played properly and does not suffer any major damage (such as being dropped on the floor or being thrown around a lot).

Can a handpan get wet? ›

If your handpan ever becomes wet make sure to dry it immediately inside and out then clean and treat the surface if necessary.

Steel Drum & Handpan Tuning

Tuning fee for steel drums and Dii handpans start at $200.00. Depending on the difficulty, the price may be lowered or raised after assessed. Price increases will only occur with advance customer approval.

You don't need to be classically trained or to know music theory to play the handpan. Each handpan is tuned to a single musical scale so there are no wrong notes, and no fear of doing it wrong! So, anyone can learn how to play handpans: musicians and non-musicians alike!

- Handpans with 8, 9 and 10 notes

Today, handpans with 8 or 9 notes are the standard models that you will find at all manufacturers. For some years now, some manufacturers have also offered handpans with 9 notes + 1 Ding (10 notes). These models are perfectly suited for beginners as well as for professional musicians.

Reason #1 - Building a handpan is really, really hard.

That's not to say that building your own handpan is impossible, but the sharp learning curve and high initial investment cost (both financial and time) of handpan building have created a world with far more failed handpan builders than successful ones.

Sense and perception researchers have found out that the human brain loves to simplify frequency ratios when it hears it. Since the frequency ratio of the handpan are already as simplified as possible, it has a very harmonizing and calming effect on our brains.