The Hang drum is a type of musical instrument also called a handpan, fitting into the idiophone class and based on the Trinidad & Tobago  steel drums instruments (in a convex form).

It was created by Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer in Bern, Switzerland.

Whats makes a good handpan and how much do they cost?

Manufacture of handpans is time consuming and labour intensive.  They are hard to tune and keep in tune.

How much should I pay for a handpan?

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.

Stable even sounding notes from a handpan come from excellent tuning.  Excellent tuning takes hours and hours!  Therefore a well tuned Handpan with clear Fundamental note, octave and the fifth above the octave (12th)…will cost more than a roughly tuned instrument.

So…

If you are into tuning your instrument and have the 10000 hours of training needed…buy a lower price unit and tune it to be stable and sonorous…this may take you quiet some time (but I commend your efforts)!

At Drum Lessons Canberra, Symmetrical Drumming, Mark is working on his handpan tuning skills…being able to maintain the tune of your pan yourself is a major plus…check in later to see how he's going with the tuning.

In meantime book in for a lesson on your handpan and learn rhythmic and harmonic fluency to make your handpan sing (rather than random blonkey plonk tonk) !

https://symmetricaldrummingaustralia.org