Why HandPan?

There are several reasons why to get a handpan or at least learn to play this instrument. Here are some of the most interesting:

Combining melody and rhythm

The basic division of instruments in standard perception is into melodic instruments (such as violin, bass, piano) and rhythmic instruments (such as djembe, drums, cajon). In the case of a handpan instrument, these two directions merge into one. The strike with hand determines the rhythm when you hit the note. Same time it defines the melody on which note to hit. With this simple view of the instrument one can apply the previous experience of either rhythmic or melodic instruments and just extend it into another area.

Activation of unused parts of the brain

When playing the handpan, it is important that both hands play an equally important role and that the dominance of one is equal to the other. This approach activates new connections in the brain that have not been activated and used before. Separation of the movement of hands plays in this very important task, so that after a certain time of exercise the player controls the movement of both hands in particular and thus develops new connections in the brain and thus utilise unused parts of the brain capacity.

Suitable for non-musicians

Handpan is smaller in size than its predecessor steel drum and therefore does not contain all notes in chromatic scale. This fact actually creates its advantage that the instrument usually contains only notes belonging to the selected scale, eg D minor or F major. In this case, any sequence of available notes is still in that key and the player doesn’t even have the chance to play something not in key. Of course it is very easy to play with other instruments that contain all tones, only these instruments have to accept that the handpan only has notes from the selected scale, so they also have to play melodies or accompanying chords only from the selected key.