The handpan is a musical instrument which captivates the listener with a strong hypnotic attraction and whose timbre is unique. This instrument is still intangible in its acquisition. It has its origins in the steel drum family, imitating the traditional steelpans of the Caribbean islands.
In this comprehensive article, you will learn the true origins of the handpan, hang drum or even the pantam.
What is a handpan, hang drum or pantam?
Handpan, Hang Drum, Pantam and UFO Drum are different names for a family of relatively young and closely related musical instruments. The instrument consists of two convex steel sheets glued together. They contain tuned notes on the upper half and sometimes on the lower half, which can be played with the hands.
Each instrument is tuned in a single scale, such as major, minor or harmonic minor. No knowledge of music theory is necessary to make beautiful music, as there are no wrong notes in the unified scale. This also allows the musician to improvise from a more emotional and kinetic inspiration that is released from the mind. Many performers use these instruments for personal meditation, sound healing and more traditional group compositions.
Each high quality instrument has notes with tuned overtones that can be played individually, as well as a tuned hole in the lower shell that creates a Helmholtz that can be played like an Udu drum.
Some designers refer to this hole as a ‘port “ or ”gu’.
This overtone-rich instrument has an ethereal, hypnotic sound that radiates in all directions and often captivates listeners.
The history of the handpan, the hang drum and the pantam
1) When and where was it invented?
The developmental path of this instrument has travelled around the world and is closely related to other musical instruments, some also very young and others centuries old.
Most people agree that the founders of the handpan were Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer of PANArt Hangbau AG in Bern,Switzerland. Both were builders of steelpans as well as inventors of many other musical instruments. Felix started building steelpans in Switzerland in 1976 and supplied numerous instruments to the steelbands that emerged in Switzerland in the 1980s and 1990s.
In the late 1990s, Reto Weber (hand percussionist) approached Sabina and Felix with the idea of transforming a steelpan into a ‘steel sound pot with hand-playable notes’. The aim was to mix the sound of the South Indian ghatam with that of a steelpan. After many tests and experiments, Felix and Sabina gave birth to the ‘Hang Mother’. More information can be found on wikipedia).
2) Origin of the word ‘Hang’'
The word ‘hang’ comes from the Bernese German for ‘hand’. The instruments were commonly referred to as ‘hang drums’, an expression that is still very common today, although PANart strongly discourages it.
3) Hang PANart production
Felix and Sabina stopped producing the steel pan and started producing the first generation of Hang Hangs in 2001. One of them can be seen in the photo above right. In the same year they presented the instrument at the Frankfurt Music Fair. From 2001 to 2005, they offered the instrument in about 45 different sound models, mainly focusing on ethnic music scales such as Ake bono, Hijaz, Pygmy, Melog and Zhi Diao. All instruments had eight tones arranged in a circle around a central tone, which they called ‘ding’. Felix and Sabina are said to have made more than 5,000 first-generation dangs.
The first generation Hang was mainly sold at selected dealers around the world. In 2005, the popularity of the instrument skyrocketed when people started finding videos of these instruments on YouTube. Even today, we hear the same words from people discovering this art form for themselves: ‘I saw the video of this amazing instrument and I knew I had to have one’.
As PANart went on to produce the second generation of Hangs and eventually the third, it became increasingly difficult to get hold of a Hang. PANart began asking each potential buyer to send a handwritten letter explaining their motivation and desire to purchase the instrument. Buyers would wait for months or even years without receiving a reply, hoping that they would be contacted and invited to buy a Hang in person in Bern (Switzerland).
During the production of the Hangs, PANart published a series of excellent papers on mood, design, materials and shaping methods, which can be found HERE.
‘More collaboration between art and science is needed if there are to be other Hang makers in the future’. - Felix Rohner - 2007
4) Is the Hang a handpan?
PANart has repeatedly said that the Hang is not a Handpan or Steel Pan. They claim that the Hang is tuned in a way that is not used in the tuning of handpans or steelpans, especially with regard to the structure and architecture of the notes. However, this claim has been directly refuted by one of the foremost authorities on the steel pan, Anthony Achong, author of Secrets of the Steel Pan, Unlocking the Secrets of the Science, Technology, Tuning and Operation of the Steel Pan.
Achong states unequivocally and directly at the end of this commentary in response to PANart's assertion: ‘The hang is a steel pan with a limited musical range (low register only) due to the chosen method of direct hand playing’.
In general, most people consider Hang, Handpan and Pantam to be a single family of instruments, although of course each company has its own brand.
Before the Panart Hang: the early history of the steel pan
First of all, there is Trinidad and Tobago, the birthplace of steel pan. On these islands, musical instruments were banned at the beginning of the 20th century. As a rebellion, the inhabitants started to look for other elements to play the drum. As the island produces a lot of oil, it didn't take long for the residents to start drumming on the oil barrels.
After some time, some people began to shape the drums to produce a number of different sounds on the same drum. Years later, young Ellie Mannette, considered the father of modern steel pan, spent years turning the oil drum into a musical instrument. When Mark Garner met them in 2012, Ellie said: ‘I wanted to be able to play Mary had a little lamb or any other song on the steel pan’.
These early instruments were tuned by ear as they were formed in the mosquito-infested swamps of Trinidad, before ‘frying pan yards’ became more common on the island for steel pan making. The following image is an old photograph of young Ellie and the Oval Boys at work in 1944.
Ellie Mannette passed away at the age of 90 on 29 August 2018. We are immensely grateful to Ellie for her incredible life of contributions and dedication to singing steel. We are all here because of her.
1) The Steelpan matured
After years in which Ellie, as well as Winston Spree Simon, Anthony Achong and many others perfected the instrument, it continued to evolve. From what we have heard, in the 1960s the first person began tuning an octave harmonic for each note along with the fundamental frequencies. After 10 to 15 years, it became more common for manufacturers of the higher quality steel pan to also tune another frequency on the now shorter axis perpendicular to the octave axis. This third frequency eventually became the fifth compound frequency found in the highest quality frying pans and hand pans.
Even today, there are manufacturers of steelpans and handpans that tune the frequencies corresponding to a 2nd, 3rd or 4th octave step on the short axis, but this tends to result in a ‘squeaky’ sound and what is generally considered an inferior instrument. There is magic in the primary harmonic relationship of a fundamental, an octave and a compound fifth.
2) The frequency ratio 1:2:3 in the steelpan and handpan notes
If we consider basic wave physics, the fundamental is a wave, which could be represented as the top layer in the diagram below. The octave is made up of exactly two waves of the same length as the fundamental, which could be represented as the second layer in the diagram.
The composite fifth is made up of exactly 3 waves of the same length as the fundamental, which could be represented as the third layer in the diagram. This 1:2:3 ratio is the most basic harmony possible, and is perhaps responsible for some of the magic of the steelpan and handpan sound.
3) Tuning more frequencies on the steelpan
In the 1990s, the best steelpan makers, such as Ellie Mannette, started tuning additional frequencies at the edges of the big notes. These frequencies are known today as ‘shoulder tones’. Early steelpans with shoulder tones usually gave the tuner an overtone of the second octave. For example, if it was an E3 fundamental with an E4 octave harmonic on the long axis, then the shoulder tone would ideally be an E5. The second octave has exactly four loops in the same space as the single loop of the fundamental.
Although we have seen some early strands with shoulder tones that were very close to intonation, the first handpan builder to systematically and intentionally tune shoulder tones specifically for the midrange was Victor Levinson, creator of the SPB. Ezhan, of Echo Sound Sculpture, was not far behind. Mark Garner began learning to tune shoulder tones in 2013.
4) History of the Gong and Gamelan instruments
The technology of the handpan, hang and pantam is very similar to that of the steel pan, as both are tuned and constructed with incredibly similar variables, but there are other influences that also have a great impact on the handpan. Another important influence is the central dome structure of gongs and some gamelan instruments.
These dome structures go back hundreds of years for both instruments. PANart also used the dome structure in the 1990s to control the upper diaphragm partials and achieve a warmer, more controlled sound and timbre on their steelpans. It was a natural transition for PANart to use the same structure in the development of the Hang.
Origin of the names ‘Handpan’, ‘Pantam’ and ‘UFO Drum’
1) The name ‘Handpan’
Shortly after the Hang was distributed, other people started trying to build a Hang. We learn that Marco Della Ratta was the first person who tried to build a similar instrument back in 2002 or 2003. Around 2007, Kyle Cox and Jim Dusin of Pantheon Steel, Luis Martin Eguiguren Garrido of Bellart, and Philippe Maignaut of Spacedrum tried to build similar instruments.
As more and more people began to build these modified steel pans, PANart publicly stated that they did not want the trademarked term ‘hang’ or ‘hang drum’ to be used for anyone's instruments, and that the term should be reserved for their specific instrument. This occurred at the same time as a rather large disagreement on Hangblog.org, where it was also stated that the blog was specifically for the Hang, which was built by Panart. Shortly afterwards Handpan.org was created, whose name was invented by Kyle Cox of Pantheon Steel.
‘It was clear that the creators did not want their brand to be used as a generic term, so one had to be invented. As the mother art form of the steel pan originated in Trinidad and Tobago, I made a respectful effort to include the word ‘pan’. Since it is played by hand, it seemed obvious to call it ‘hand pan’. - Kyle Cox
2) The name ‘Pantam’
The term ‘Pantam’ was originally used by an Israeli PANart Hang dealer to describe the Hang. The term is a mixture of steel pan and ghatam, the latter being a South Indian clay drum. The term ‘pantam’ became popular when Victor Levinson, the inventor of the SPB, began using it to describe his own instruments in 2014. Since then, many manufacturers and musicians have followed suit, while the terms ‘handpan’ and ‘hang drum’ remain considerably more popular.
3) The name ‘UFO Drum’
This term seems to be the result of people trying to find out what the instrument is called by searching for its name on the internet. The shape of the instrument probably resembles preconceived notions of an unidentified flying object with aliens inside. Even today, it is very common to hear people say: ‘That looks like a UFO’ when we show them the instrument for the first time. However, it is very rare that people use that name for the instrument family.
4) Which term should we use today?
Today, the terms handpan, hang drum and pantam are used interchangeably by many musicians and even by some manufacturers to describe not only these types of instruments, but also reed drums. Some manufacturers prefer their instruments to be given one of these specific names, while others simply don't care.
So far, Google trends show that the term ‘hang drum’ has dominated by far for years, however, ‘handpan’ has become equally popular since the beginning of 2017. These two terms are by far the most popular. The rise of the term ‘pantam’ in 2018 is closely related to the launch of the ‘Pantam Stand’, which is an instrument stand for handpan, hang, pantam and cane drums. Perhaps in 100 years' time, one of these names will dominate.
Are handpan, hang drum and pantam ‘drums’?
Technically no, it is not specifically a drum in the correct use of the word in acoustic physics. The handpan, hang drum and pantam are technically included in the class of idiophone musical instruments. Most percussion instruments that are not drums are actually idiophones, which produce sound by vibrating the instrument as a whole. Drums are technically membranophones, which function by using a stretched material that vibrates when struck with a mallet or hand, or when excited or plucked by friction.
Why are handpans, pantams and hangs called ‘drums’?
For the simple reason that it is the term most people, including musicians, commonly use for many types of percussion instruments. Terms like idiophone and membranophone are very rarely used and even less understood. Imagine trying to find the name of an amazing instrument made by PANart called ‘Hang’. You search for the word on the internet and find a wide variety of search results, but none of them have anything to do with the Hang or the Handpans. In fact, this is why the term ‘hang drum’ has become so popular.
Most of the more avant-garde players of handpans, hangs and pantams use techniques borrowed directly from the playing techniques of frame drums and tablas or from the rhythms of congas, djembes and drums. The popularity of these instruments, especially among drummers and percussionists, is only bridging the gap between these words, even if they are not technically correct.
End of Panart's discontinuation
In 2014, PANart ceased production of the Hang to focus on new instruments, including Gubal, Gudu, HangBal, Pang strings and other instruments from its Pang hardware.
Exponential explosion of handkerchief makers
Although many people missed the Hang and were disappointed by the end of its production, it inspired a new generation of builders to delve into the latest chapter of tuned steel. Some of them picked up where PANart and the steel pan builders left off, while others explored new possibilities.
This new generation of builders has continued to develop and evolve the art form with more notes on the instrument, new layouts, improved stability, additional tuned frequencies such as shoulder tones, new shell forming methods and research into alloys that do not require nitriding for oxidation resistance. Players and designers generally agree that the instrument is still very young in its development and that there are many more directions for development.
ZenaPan, the perfect mix of quality and price
Before entering the German market, we saw that hundreds of people were buying completely out of tune handpans, regularly sold for more than 2,000 euros on ebay, Amazon or even Cdiscount.
So we decided to give new musicians the opportunity to buy high quality handpans and tongue drums at a very attractive price. The idea is that as many people as possible can discover this percussion instrument.
