Josiah Collett, a 10-year-old autistic boy from Broxbourne, England, had always struggled to interact with society. But things were getting worse: At school, his peers were telling him he shouldn’t be alive. He would spend nights crying, unable to explain to his parents what had happened.
“He lived in his own world,” his mother, Georgia, told me. “We couldn’t get him to understand us, and he couldn’t get us to understand us.”
During a family trip to Belgium, the Collettes heard a “gorgeous, hypnotic sound” in the distance. As they walked down the street, they spotted a busker playing something that sounded like a cross between a caveman’s tool and a flying saucer. The busker played an instrument called a “handpan,” creating drum-like rhythms and delicate harmonies.
This blend of percussion and melody intrigued Josiah’s mother, Georgia, who thought Josiah had always been prodigiously musical and had taught himself to play the drums at age 2. She wondered if this new instrument, similar to a drum but more expressive, might be good for Josiah.
The family went to a handpan gathering in England, where a musician handed Josiah an instrument. He placed it on his lap and began to play. Elegant music filled the room, and people gathered to admire his improvisation. Bystander Kyle Cox was moved.
“It was like he was letting out something he couldn’t put into words,” Cox recalls. “It was mind-blowing.”
The musician asked Josiah how long he had been playing and was shocked to learn that Josiah had never played the instrument before.
“At that moment, I discovered what I was born to do,” Josiah said.
Yuki Koshimoto, one of the most popular handpan musicians on YouTube
Although the handpan may look like a Stone Age relic, it was actually invented about 10 years ago by Swiss artists Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer, two steelpan makers who came up with a new instrument they called “Hang”, which means “hand” in Bernese German.
Instead of mass-producing the handpans, Rohner and Scherer did something innovative: They asked potential buyers to write handwritten letters explaining their desire to own the instrument.
Rohner and Scherer founded the company PANArt in 2000 to sell their creations. Orders began pouring in and they soon found themselves unable to keep up with demand: they were getting thousands of inquiries a year, but only making a few hundred instruments a year.
The artists didn’t want to mass-produce the handpans, so they did something innovative: they asked potential buyers to write handwritten letters. A select few were invited (travel expenses paid) to a PANArt workshop in Switzerland to buy the instrument directly, where buyers learned about the hang’s history, uses, and care.
Rohner and Scherer are isolationists, avoid interviews and shun the spotlight — a stance that not everyone likes, and some handpan players argue they should be more transparent about taking on students.
“I don’t think they ultimately wanted celebrity status,” Cox says, “and instead chose to embrace it and focus inward to avoid being distracted from their work. At least, that’s my take on it.”
Rohner and Scherer have since stopped making hangs and are working on a new instrument, the Gubal, which they plan to sell in the coming months.
As PANArt began to gain traction and demand far outstripped supply, other companies began trying to copy the instrument. Cox, a former steelpan maker, met his business partner at a local tool-making company. Cox happened to be making steel drums when contractor Jim Dusin came into the shop for a meeting. Dusin watched as Cox hammered the iron into shape.
“He kept shaking his head,” Cox recalls. “I stopped and asked him what he thought, and he said, ‘There’s a better way.'” The 15-minute meeting stretched into a full day. “We were both late for dinner that night.”
The two then invented their own version of PANArt’s Hang, the Halo, and founded a company called Pantheon Steel to produce it, even coining the term “handpan” to describe their new instrument (“Hang” specifically refers to the PANArt handpan).
People on the list wait anywhere from six months to three years, and there are websites that explain how to get a handpan.
A dozen or so companies have sprung up since then, but this industry is different from others. In fact, it may be one of the strangest industries of its time. Companies are effectively alienating customers, and the “competitors” aren’t actually competing with each other.
“We really are a big family,” Cox says, “and there will always be unique things about the business and operations, but we share more than we keep secret.”
Like PANArt, other handpan manufacturers have rejected mass production, believing that it would result in a decline in quality. “You can never tune a handpan by machine,” says Marc Guilliou, sales manager at French handpan manufacturer Metal Sounds. “It’s absolutely impossible.”
But the reliance on craftsmanship constrains supply. Learning how to make a handpan takes years and requires patience, strength, dexterity and a keen ear for pitch, Cox explains. His company, Pantheon Steel, sells parts to individuals who want to try their hand at home assembly. These sales come with warnings that make making a handpan sound more like war than retail.
Before I take a cent from you, please know that not everyone will succeed…
Creating a playable instrument will almost certainly require hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of practice and experimentation. Be prepared for countless failures and mistakes before you succeed…
It takes more than money (a lot of it!) — it takes time, sweat, pain, frustration, disappointment, determination, belief, and a single-minded love of the art.
But manufacturers are reluctant to raise prices, which already range from hundreds to thousands of dollars, because that would limit purchases to the wealthy, so they’re sticking to a highly unorthodox business model that relies on waiting lists and lotteries.
People on the list can wait anywhere from six months to three years. The situation is getting more and more dire. Videos of people playing the handpan have gone viral, and more and more people are getting hooked. There are websites that explain how to get an orb.
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Josiah (Colette Family) playing the handpan
After hearing Josiah’s improvisation, his parents knew they had to buy him a handpan, but they didn’t know how to do it — the waiting list was too long, and second-hand ones on eBay cost thousands of dollars — so the Colletts posted on a handpan forum asking for advice.
The family began receiving calls and emails from a Spanish man named Luis Eguiguren. Unable to overcome the language barrier, they ignored his messages. Georgia happened to mention him to Cox, who explained that Eguiguren was an artisan in northern Spain who made bell-art sound sculptures (Eguiguren prefers to call them handpans). Eguiguren had a three-year waiting list and was not accepting new clients. Josiah was willing to make an exception, but it would require the Colletts to travel to his workshop in Spain.
So they wandered for hours through the mountains of Spain, lost and exhausted. They were about to give up when a woman in a passing car asked them for directions. The driver cried out, “We’ve been looking everywhere for you!” It was Eguiguren. He drove them to his workshop, and Josiah finally got his instrument.
“It was truly nothing short of a miracle,” Georgia says.
Since Josiah (now 13 years old) got his hands on Bell Art, he has grown into a calmer, happier boy who is able to let go of his own feelings and be with others. His confidence has skyrocketed and he has met many friends through the handpan community.
“My son’s world has completely changed,” his mother said. “He’s with us again.”
