Ingrid - planner & administration
It is with great pleasure that I work at the HandPanShop. You can reach me by phone, WhatsApp or e-mail: I am happy to help you, schedule appointments, answer questions and take care of administration.
What I enjoy most is the contact with customers in the shop and their enthusiastic reactions when they discover that we have so much more than just handpans, a real sweet shop for adults!
I am a beginning handpan player myself, and my favourite handpan is the Octopus A Celtic. Since childhood, Music Was My First Love has been my favourite song, and I now share that love of music with great pleasure.
Ruloff - session facilitator, musician, composer and coach
When I taught music therapy, the ward where I worked had a handpan, back in the days when they were very rare. From the first moment, I was captivated by the sound. What excited me most was how melody and percussion came together in one instrument. It was neither piano nor djembe, but to me it felt like a fusion of both. Especially when creating a calm, relaxing cadence, the handpan proved to be a special enrichment for me as well as for the listeners.
At HandPanShop, I run workshops where people can experience what playing the handpan can do for them.
What I love most about this is that I get to introduce people to making music myself in an approachable and relaxed way. I strongly believe that making music is healthy, but I also see that there is often tension or pressure to perform. As a result, people sometimes don't dare to play (anymore) and I think that's a shame. Helping people lower that threshold is really my mission. The handpan is a wonderful tool to make music (again) with pleasure and freedom. It remains special to be able to be a link in this process again and again.
I also help choose a handpan that really suits someone, and you can find me in the shop to play all the other instruments. I am further involved in whatever else is involved in running this particular shop. I also make videos for the website and socials.
Yourie - session accompanist, handpan player & multi instrumentalist
Ever since I was 14 years old, I have been active with music and in
2007 I first came into contact with the handpan. At the time, it was still quite difficult to get hold of one and I was on several waiting lists. Finally, I was able to buy my first handpan in 2015. My second followed a few years later, and now I have four handpans that I also combine with each other when I play.
At HandPanShop, I deal with guiding customers in finding the right instrument. I also give workshops and consultations, arrange background business in the shop and do warehouse work. Among other things, I make sure that handpans that are sent out are carefully and safely packed.
What I love most about my work is the process of working with people to find a handpan that really suits them. I enjoy it when someone has been able to make a good choice and leaves the shop enthusiastic and happy.
Thanks to my love for the handpan and my personal approach, I am happy to help you find an instrument you really feel connected to.
Caroline - Planner
A few years ago, I attended a handpan concert by Kabeçâo and something happened there I won't soon forget. I was completely captivated by his music, his playfulness and the way he merged with his handpan. It touched me and a new world opened up for me.
Through my husband, Ralf Silvius, I then came into even more contact with the handpan. He is a handpan teacher and player at the HandPanShop and thanks to him I get to enjoy the sounds and the special atmosphere this instrument brings every day. The handpan has a way of quieting, moving and connecting people and I experience that up close. I myself am a singer, vocalist and pianist and sometimes we play together and I sing alongside the handpan. That is wonderful to do!
On Wednesdays and during my colleague Ingrid's holidays, I enjoy working from home as a planner at the HandPanShop. In that role, I often have beautiful, personal conversations with people who tell me why precisely they are so touched by the handpan. These are special encounters that inspire me again and again.
I love giving personal attention, thinking along and really listening. That human contact feels to me like the core of what we do and I also believe that this is what we as HandPanShop stand for and what sets us apart.
Dennis - session accompanist, handpan player & multi instrumentalist
I first heard the handpan in 2003. After being on several waiting lists, I was able to play the instrument for the first time at a friend's house in 2012. And in 2015, my first handpan finally followed. A second soon followed, and after a ceremony, an attendant had a B- Celtic by Timbre with him. I had never heard such a low handpan before!
He had bought it at HandPanShop.co.uk , so I went there to have a look.
Wow! Finally a shop where you could try out handpans instead of ordering and just seeing what you get. I bought a Chaya B-Celtic then, and it is still one of my favourite pans. I had a really nice click with Henk-Jan, the owner, and soon started working for the shop. The best job ever!
I can share my passion for handpans with other people, in workshops or purchase guidance. The shop is one big playground for a musician like me.
I'm still as excited as I was with my first handpan, maybe even more so. It's so cool to get to play so many beautiful, special instruments.
I am also a ceremonial musician at retreats and other consciousness-oriented gatherings, and for example at estatic dance and sound healing evenings.
My strength lies in playing intuitively, sensing what is needed, and letting the music flow through me. The handpan is the perfect instrument for this.
Jesse - shop assistant, multi-instrumentalist & producer
My admiration for sound started at a young age, when I first heard the sounds of a piano I was fascinated, how the notes came together in a chord or how the sound box resonates with your voice.
I never lost that playful curiosity. When I first heard the sounds of the Handpan, I found myself back in that same child's shoes, amazed by the sounds.
In my spare time, I deal with music productions ( acoustic and computer ), electronics projects, radios, synthesizers and spirituality.
Meanwhile, I am studying at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht, where I have learnt and am still learning a lot about both the technical and physics side of sound, as well as the feeling and improvisation side.
At HandPanShop, these worlds come together nicely for me!
So I would love to help you discover that same wonder in your instrument!
Lisa - session facilitator, yoga teacher, and handpan player
In a train compartment, over a decade ago, I heard a handpan for the first time. A young lady took the instrument out of a bag and started playing for a few minutes. Strange sound like that during the train journey. My interest was piqued, as I already played piano, guitar and djembe as a hobby at the time, and thought, this would be fun to add to that! Rhythm and melody in one instrument. After some online searching about the handpan, I was very put off by the price, and left it at that.
Until a yoga school colleague told me that she had done a handpan workshop at the HandPanShop. Not long after that, I booked a workshop with Henk-Jan with a friend, which was in 2017. Needless to say, I was overjoyed again and Henk-Jan was kind enough to lend me a pan for a week. After all, I wanted to use the handpan in the yoga classes I teach, and I was allowed to try this out. Yoga and handpan music naturally go very well together, I soon found out. After some deliberation, I spent my savings and owned a real pan!
With great pleasure, I set to work, practising myself and later some lessons from Sjaak van Dam, learning to play well and using the instrument during the final relaxation of the yoga classes. Much to the delight of the participants! To this day, I regularly take the handpan to the yoga studio, and if I skip it once, there is often someone who does ask me to bring the pan again the next class.
Shortly after purchasing the handpan, I started working for Henk-Jan in 2018. Initially customer contact and scheduling appointments, then also doing sessions in the shop. Eventually, I found my niche in that and have been running the beginners' workshops and sales sessions ever since. It remains special to see someone with no experience coming in and, after a good hour, being able to play a lovely tune with a lot of pleasure.
The sales sessions are special again for another reason: the search for a pan that really fits. Because well, with about a hundred pans in the shop, which one is it going to be? A beautiful and meticulous process, comparing pans and feeling someone's enthusiasm for specific sounds and timbres.
Together we will figure it out, almost everyone finds the choice process more difficult than expected. Sometimes they can't see the wood for the trees; I try to help them through that as calmly as possible. In the end, they leave the shop with a smile and a pan on their back, on to their new musical joy.
In recent years, I have played my handpan as fine mood-enhancing music at various yoga festivals, (yoga) workshops, sound journeys, meditations and ceremonies. Each time, the unique sounds make it help people relax and land inside themselves. So valuable in our busy society!
Ralf - session facilitator, handpan player & teacher
About 15 years ago, I first heard a handpan on the street in Maastricht and was immediately enchanted. At the time, I was studying, so too precious for me to get started.
In 2021, the instrument came my way again and I found HandPanShop, the handpan's Valhalla for me. Started on a D Celtic 9 by Octopus and soon my knowledge, skill and handpan collection expanded. Gradually, my whole life became dedicated to the handpan and I now fill my days with teaching and musically accompanying breath work, yoga classes and meditations, among other things.
At HandPanShop, I teach handpan, private workshops, purchase guidance sessions and group workshops. Behind the scenes, I do some tinkering on the website, social media and photography.
What I love most is to convey the simplicity, and therefore the power, of the handpan to people. To see how the handpan slows down, brings calm and, above all, grabs a lot of people, brings me much joy.
Sjaak - session leader, professional drummer, handpan player & teacher
I first heard the handpan in Barcelona, in Gaudi Park. I later found that this has been a popular place for discovering the handpan! Within my work at HandPanShop, I have heard many times about that one player in Gaudi Park.
I was completely won over, and then started looking for an instrument of my own. This was in 2007, and proved to be quite a challenge. There were hardly any builders active, and at PanART (the builders of the Hang) there was a huge waiting list. Many years later, I got to know Henk-Jan from my work as a drummer. He had a company in drumsticks at the time, and I partnered with it as a player and teacher. We got talking about handpans, and he told me he wanted to do something with that too. Of course I was interested in that, and so I became one of the first customers of what would later be called Handpanshop.
Not much later, Henk-Jan asked me if I wouldn't also like to do some sessions for Handpanshop. I did, and liked it! Now, more than 10 years later, Henk-Jan and I still work together, and I still enjoy doing orientations at Handpanshop.
I provide orientations at HandPanShop. These sessions, where we look for the right handpan for you, can be completely different every time. I really like helping new players find their instrument. The magic of guiding someone to find their first handpan is unmatchable. Guiding experienced players is also very nice to do, there we will puzzle together about the right composition in terms of bottom tones and exact tuning.
Are you looking for a first or next handpan? I'd love to help you find the perfect match!
