The sound is unique and captivating to the ears. Shaped like a UFO, the handpan is a relatively new instrument on the music scene. Though this music sounds old-fashioned, it was first created by two steelpan tuners in Switzerland around 2000. The top part has a sound that is played by the hands, and the bottom part is like a resonating cavity.
When Jenny Robinson of Madison first heard a handpan she wondered, “What on earth is that?” and immediately knew she wanted to incorporate the sound into her life. This was the beginning of her quest to not only learn how to play the handpan, but also how to make one.
Today, Robinson is one of only a few women in the world who can make handpans, and certainly the only one in Wisconsin. She acknowledges that it’s been a long process. “I have a pile of about 80 things that didn’t work. I knew I wasn’t going to stop until I had an instrument.” She learned by trial and error, first studying the handpan’s predecessor, the steelpan, which was developed in the 1940s from an oil drum. She also gained knowledge through the internet community.
Making a handpan was no easy task. There were no instructions or tools needed to make a handpan, so she had to make one herself. Robinson worked with a steel fabrication shop in Milwaukee to create a rough oval shape. Once the steelpan arrived at her workshop, she began making indentations and notes, tweaking every detail as she hammered the steel into shape, and then began the tuning process.
Robinson’s handpans are now shipped all over the world, including Japan, China and Argentina, and there’s just as much interest from outside Wisconsin as there is here in Madison. Custom instruments cost between $2,000 and $3,000.
Many have described the music as calming and similar to the sound of water. “Madison sits on an isthmus between two lakes and the sound of water, and I think that’s a really lovely way to think about it,” Robinson said.
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Handpan Music
Jenny Robinson and Shlomo Kravo perform a handpan duet, bringing to life the instrument they created together.
Joel Waldinger
Joel Waldinger is a reporter for the Wisconsin Life project and thinks watching the sun set over Munson Lake’s “Big Island” is the perfect way to end a day of fishing and fun in the Northwoods.
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