Wisconsin State Journal
Jenny Robinson demonstrates how to play a handpan. Robinson founded Isthmus Instruments, LLC, on Madison's Far East Side to create the rare musical instruments, which have an otherworldly sound
Wisconsin, USA - Though Jenny Robinson is only 31, her resume has a long list of former jobs: invasive species control with the National Park Service, package handler at UPS, engraver at a sign shop, a stint as a machinist and work as a quality auditor and production supervisor for Kraft Foods.
And now, handpan builder.
Robinson, who lives on Madison’s East Side, began making the unusual musical instrument after she realized the job would demand many of the skills she had developed over the years.
Modeled on an instrument invented in 2000 in Switzerland, the handpan is made of two half-shells of metal. The finished product resembles a large double-sided tortoise shell (or even a small UFO from an early sci-fi movie).
....Though easy to play, a high-quality handpan is still rare to find. Each instrument takes months to fabricate out of a flat circle of low-carbon steel. It must be finely shaped, hammered, heated, stretched and tuned to create the handpan’s distinctive sound — somewhat like a harp, a bit like a marimba, a mellower cousin of the steelpan drum.
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Replies
Pan Times is reporting Handpan news!
It's been a long time coming because as you see, the Handpan is being sold as some "cousin" to the pan and not as the child of the pan that it is; the red-headed, bastard step-child at that, but anyways!
This is the same agenda that I have been concerned about all along.
So much disinformation which naturally leads the uninitiated to presume that Mr. Eat and Run Felix Runner invented some new instrument that does not owe its existence entirely to the pan!
You know Felix Runner had the nerve to tell me that the "PAN" in PANart does not refer to the Steelpan?!?
Mi just haffi laugh sometimes!
Rudy: Is competition fuh so/trouble in town when the price drop low.
I wonder how this instrument will affect PAN SALES globally.