Handpan research

Handpans are magical sounding musical instruments that have a percussive quality and playability to them. I first saw a handpan way back around 2012 and was really enamoured by the instrument. Back then only a handful of makers were creating beautiful handpans and they costed a fortune(Anywhere from $2500 to $10000), especially if someone bought them to sell in ebay.

Since then i have seen a great number of makers spring up all over the world and share their knowledge and creations. This has led to also new forms as well, like tongue pans. These tongue pans are simpler in that they have a bunch of steel tongues cut in the shell and tuned to various notes of a scale. Tongue pans are usually way cheaper in cost and affordable to really explore the sound of handpans. I decided to buy a tongue pan and below are the list of makers and their pros as per my opinion. The below list is based on my research on the topic and the opinions are my own. I don't intend to belittle the work of these artists by pointing out the shortcomings of the instruments or the makers (based on videos,forum chats or personal communication with them). Do your own research if you intend to buy something and not hold me responsible. This blog is just for my own documentation, but any visitor can use the list here as a starting point for their own research before buying. The rates mentioned (as of Oct 20,2018) are indicative and might change/depend on model/scale. I have also not included many tongue drums in the list which have a more visual beauty to them, but did not appeal soundwise to me as a potential customer. Many of these drums are used for healing purposes, meditation or general musical exploration. So choose a drum based on your purpose. I wanted one for musical exploration.

1. Rav vast - https://rav-vast.com/

The rav-vast sounds like a bunch of tuned bells. The sound is extremely pleasing and the quality of the instrument is top notch. This also seems to be one of the most popular alternatives to a regular handpan. This is the creation of a Russian master artisan, Andrey Reymannikov There are around a dozen scales that a customer can choose from and it starts at $650. The representatives say they wont build custom scales.

2. Vadjraghanta - http://vadjra.com/en/

The Vadjraghanta is the creation of Oleg Veshi. This is probably the most visually stunning piece of sound sculpture you will ever get to see. The sound is more meditative and the master experiments all the time with various metals and alloys to create newer versions of the instrument. The cost starts at $450. Oleg responds to mails fairly often and says can build any custom scale.

3. Guda - https://gudadrum.com/

The Guda is one of the sweetest sounding tonguepans. Built by Dmitrii Gubarev, there are some disputes between the maker and his seller(another website that also sells instruments by the same name). Now the artist sells these on his own website listed above. There are various versions such as the Freezbee, Overton , Standart etc. These sell for $300 and above. Dmitrii build any custom scale possible. Communicate with Dmitrii on his etsy page.

4. Kaa tone - https://www.etsy.com/listing/605298089/kaa-tone-drum-tonguepan-steel-tongue

This is built by Aleksander Kasinsky and is a popular tongue pan. It has petals shaped like a leaf and Aleksander is very nice to communicate with(on fb). The drum costs $450 and custom scales are possible.

5. Rammerdrum - http://www.rammerdrum.com/en/

This is the definition of a top tier instrument based on the limited videos i have seen on youtube. The pricing is also top tier. Made by master artisan Marco Tirino, this is a beauty. The master says custom scales would need to be discussed with him.

6. Sound Watching Drum(SWD) - http://www.swdrum.com/

This is by Massimo Tirino, who is Marco's brother. The drum sounds very sweet and costs upwards of $450. The master also builds handpans and custom scales.

7. Orion tongue pan - https://www.instagram.com/oriontonguepan/

This is another cute sounding drum from Russia. It comes in 2 sizes, mini and regular and starts at $350 for the mini. The makers claim to also deliver custom scales.

8. YW Pulsar - https://www.yudinworkshop.com/

Maksim Yudin, who also built the popular Triton tongue pan is the creator of YWPulsar, an extremely beautiful instrument, that has a sweet wooden quality to the sound. The scale is customisable as a customer desires and Maksim has a nice scale creator on his page. The cost of the instrument is dependent on the scale and the instrument can accomodate a maximum of 13 notes.

After researching the above makers and their creations I was drawn towards Maksim's YW Pulsar. The Pulsar allows for custom scales, has an amazingingly resonant sound and a very pleasing timbre(almost wooden instrument like). The above aspects made me choose the pulsar when it came to buying a first handpan/tonguepan for myself.

The next task was to choose a good scale. Maksim said he could not place a full scale (ie 12 notes from an octave) since there would be cross-talk(one note getting activated while another note is playing). Also, having a full scale would mean i, as a musically ignorant individual would have to learn music to play this instrument like any other musical instrument. The main beauty of handpans have been the ability for utter novices to pick them up and create some music, knowing only basic tapping. The reason for such ease of playing is that handpans allow prebuilt scales. Each scale allows only a subset of the full octave, and thereby only certain combination of notes when played in sequence leading to nice melodies. I wanted sufficient variability in the instrument, which means the scale would have to be flexible while being easily playable as well. Scales such as Aegean( Amritavarshini in the Carnatic music tradition), though easy to play become restricting over time since they play only 1 raga. Many expert players prefer scales such as Minor(Natabhairavi),Integral etc. mainly because they offer variability to play as the player evolves with practice.

It is here that i referred to the Carnatic music tradition to see whether the popular scales used in handpan fraternity had an equivalent to the Carnatic raga system. Another idea was then to design a scale that would be created out of a melakarta raga that had the maximum number of janyas. I also wanted to try and explore playing some of my favourite ragas. This led me to thinking whether i could design a scale with 13 notes that would cover multiple scales, allow me freedom to play my favourite ragas(by covering some notes, and hence creating the scale i wanted) and also fit the scheme of the zigzag layout of notes that a handpan usually has. These ideas led me to a mathematical optimization problem :-) which i shall describe below and finally end it with the custom scale i designed.

As mentioned earlier, I wanted to choose a scale based on Carnatic ragas and the best starting point seemed to be the melakarta chart. The melakarta ragas can be described as a set of generative scales, each leading to various janya(birthed) ragas. Melakarta ragas also have all the 7 notes within an octave(Sa,Ri,Ga,Ma,Pa,Da,Ni). Hence i went looking for the melakarta ragas that had a high number of janyas. The following link had a list of melakarta ragas and their most popular janyas(I am not sure whether more janyas are possible, but some music expert must help me on that).

https://sites.google.com/site/mathematicsmiscellany/appendix-1

Based on the list above - Harikambhoji(108), Kharaharapriya(108), Shankarabharanam(68), Natabhairavi(44) and Mayamalavagowla(58) seem to be the melakarta ragas with large number of janyas. Many of my favourtite ragas such as hindolam, abheri, brindavanasaranga, reetigowla etc. fall into one of these melakartas. So I would have to find a way to incorporate as many of these ragas as possible within the scale i was designing. For this, I went with the note distance pattern - ie. the distance between adjacent notes.

For example: Kharaharapriya has : S, R2, G2, M1, P, D2, N2, S :

Its note difference pattern(NDP) would be : 2 ,1, 2, 2,2,1,2,

Kharaharapriya is the Carnatic equivalent of the Dorian scale. In the same manner, the adjacent note difference patterns for all the major melakarta ragas reveal an interesting idea.

Multiple melakarta ragas can be derived by creating a NDP for 13 notes such that a subset of notes would make a melakarta raga in itself. Based on the above ideas i created a NDP pattern of

2 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 1 2 2

This starts with the subset: 2212221 - Dheerashankarabharam (Major scale)

The next subset starting with the 2nd note is : 2122212 - Kharaharapriya (Dorian scale)

The next subset starting with 3rd note is : 1222122 - Hanumatodi(Phrygian scale)

The next subset starting with the 4th note is : 2221221 - Mechakalyani(Lydian scale)

The next subset starting with the 5th note is : 2212212 - Harikambhoji (Mixolydian scale)

The next subset starting with the 6th note is : 2122122 -Natabhairavi(Minor scale)

The above pattern allows for a huge number of janyas possible(short of writing python code to compute the same!) based on my hand calculations - 376 ragas.

The below 6 figures show the scales possible(Figures are based on Maksim's website). The notes that are coloured is an indication of leaving them out while playing( by covering them with magnetic cloth). From Figure 3 onwards, i have retained the ding note to play as a root note/base note.

I shall add figures in the future for myself for various ragas/scales that I wish to use. This article was to not only share my research on the makers, my ideas on scale creation for handpans, but also as a reference for myself for future.

Finally my handpan is found in the link below

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo8ckHKAZRE/?taken-by=yudinworkshop

Having received my Pulsar on 23rd October,2018 I must say I'm blown away by Maksim's workmanship. The pan is an absolute masterpiece.

Below are some popular ragas/scales and their configuration on my pan.

Dheerashankarabharanam janyas

1. Bilahari - CDEGACDEGA / Full scale (Aarohanam/Avarohanam)

2.Hamsadhwani - CDEGBCDEG / GEDCBGEDC

3. Kadanakuthoohalam - Full scale

Kharaharapriya janyas

4. Abheri - DFGACD / DCBAGFED

5. Abhogi - DEFGBD / DBGFED

6. Bageshri - DFGBCD / Fullscale

7. Reetigowla - DEFGBCDEFG

Hanumatodi janyas

8. Bhupalam - EFGBCEFG / GFECBGFE

Mechakalyani janyas

9. Mohana kalyani - FGACDFGA / AGFDCAGF

10. Yaman - Fullscale

11. Amritavarshini - FABCEFA /

Harikambhoji janyas

12. Bahudari - GBCDEFG / GFDCBG

13. Mohanam - GABDEGA / AGEDBAG

Natabhairavi janyas

14. Anandabhairavi - ACBCDEFA /

15. Hindolam - ACDFGA / AGFDCA

16. Saramati - ABCDEFGA / AGFDCA

Other popular scales

17. Hokkaido - D/ GABCDEFA

18. D - Celtic Minor - D/ ACDEFGA

19. Mystic - C/ EFABCEG

20. Mandarin - C/ DEFGCDE

21. Minor Pentatonic - C/ DFGACDFG

22. Major Pentatonic - C/ FGACDFGA

23. Japanese Insen - C/ EFABDEFA

24. Celtic - C/EGABCDEG

25. Aegean - FABCEFGA

26. Pygmy - DEFACDEG

27. Raga Desh - C/ DFGBCDFG

28. Integral - C/ EFGABCEFGA

29. Equinox - C/EFGABCEFGA

30. La Sirena - FABCDEFA

31. Voyager - CEGABCEGA

32. Melog Selisir - C/EFGBCEFG

33. Sabye D(C?) - C/ FGABCDEG

34. Citrus - CDEFGCDEFG