This article is part of Choosing best handpan
What determines the quality of a handpan?
The quality of a handpan is determined by several factors. To a large extent by the material and the way the individual tones are tuned. Making a good handpan takes a lot of time. Usually, the number of hours the builder has spent on the handpan translates into the quality. When an experienced and talented maker builds a handpan with passion and the best materials, you have a masterpiece in your hands. Actually, it is similar to a Michelin-starred chef. If a talented, experienced chef uses mediocre ingredients, the outcome will still be disappointing. The same goes for good ingredients used by a novice chef. And what is true for both a chef and a handpicker: the passion and love can definitely be seen in the end result.
Craftsmanship and consistency among handpan builders
Good handpan builders produce the most consistent output. With less experienced or less good builders, the quality of each handpan can vary greatly. Apart from quality, each handpan has a unique character, as each hammer blow changes the handpan slightly.
Let us first look at the mode of voting.
What is mood at a handpan?
How a tone field of a handpan is constructed
The handpan consists of tone fields, each with its own pitch. For those interested: a tone field contains a fundamental and two overtones (harmonics) in the ratio 1:2:3. The two overtones are called octave and fifth (or minor third).
What is crosstalk or crosstalk in a handpan?
The best handpans have tone fields that are well insulated relative to each other. This is ensured by empty spaces. As a result, playing one tone field does not trigger another. This causes an unwanted exchange of both tone fields. In that case, it is referred to as “crosstalk”. The unique thing about a handpan is precisely that when a tone field is struck, the handpan resonates as a whole, but the specific tone field also sounds defined on its own.
Besides the unwanted exchange between two tonal fields, we also know about desired exchange. In this case, different notes share the same frequencies. Thereby, playing one note can pleasantly activate the other.
Why there is a limit to the number of tones on a handpan
The above explains why there is technically a limit to the possibilities of the number of tone fields on a handpan. There are handpan builders who therefore deliberately make no more than nine or ten pitches. Although in some cases, one or two more pitches might have been added, it often doesn't make it any prettier.
Influence of the keynote on the number of tone fields
Moreover, with a low ding, the pitch area is much larger than with a higher tuned ding. This is why, for example, with a B2 on a 53 cm handpan, only eight pitches fit next to the ding. On an E2, easily 11 pitches fit next to the E.
