Handpan clip

[yoni]

Hi all,
Here is a recent clip of me playing a new handpan built by my great friend and neighbor, Nobuya Yamaguchi. He had sold this handpan and wanted to video me on it before he shipped it off the next day. He filmed it on my cellphone. It was the first time I touched this handpan and scale. Enjoy. By the way, I'll be at the NAMM show in Anaheim, California from January 23rd to the 27th, not with a handpan but to help kick off the re-introduction of my late father's famous minimalist Gittler electric guitar to the world market. I will bring along a darbuka and hope to play on whatever else may be available. Hope to see you there!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh2VKFdTl8o

[JohnnyConga]

Very Beautiful Yoni!..and Welcome back!..I know it's been awhile...MAN WHAT AN INSTRUMENT!...where can one be got?.. Handpan?...is the name? or is it just a one piece deal made by your friend? that was beautiful Bro..Thank you!...

[OLSONGO]

Also called a hang drum.
Peace
Olsongo

[jorge]

Beautiful music you made on that handpan. I can believe you never played that particular handpan before, but you must have played other handpans a lot to develop your skills on the instrument.
I am glad to hear you are reviving the Gittler minimalist guitar. After moving, setting up and breaking down at least 500 pounds of audio gear to do sound for a rumba yesterday, I was due to be reminded about your dad's minimalist philosophy. We could all learn a lot from that.

[yoni]

Thank you, gentlemen, for your kind and wonderful replies! I'm all choked up It's like meeting old friends - I haven't been around here in a long time.

Johnny, like Olsongo said, it's also called a hang drum ("hang" means hand in a Swiss dialect). They were first made by a small company in Switzerland called PanArt which can't even be reached by internet now; they closed their site, as they got so swamped by orders and apparently they have a waiting list that goes for years. I was very lucky - once when I was in Switzerland someone sold me a used one. I brought it back here and showed it to my friend Nobuya, a master Japanese iron sculptor married to an Israeli and living here over 20 years with their family... He had already been building steel drums for a couple years, got into building percussion instruments after we first met over 10 years ago. Anyway, he checked out my Swiss handpan and started building them himself about a year ago. Several others in other parts of the world now make them also but I find Nobuya's to be the best I've heard so far. He sells them for about 5,000 Israeli shekels (I think that's about $1,000 dollars) and he builds them by hand, in different scales, according to which scale the buyer wants (there's a site called Pantheonsteel.com which also makes them and has sound samples of many scales these things can be built in). Nobuya's email: yamaguchi.art@gmail.com

So Jorge, yes, I did have experience on handpan already before I played this one. Thanks for your kind comments on my father's instruments - he actually stopped playing his Gittler guitar after a discouraging failed business venture here in Israel (with 2 American "partners") where he first tried to get them mass-produced. He went back to building electric guitars from wood, at home on his own, without "big business". These wooden hand-built models are also beautiful (photos of them can be seen on my facebook page) and I think one is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, as well as the steel Gittler, which is in several museums and collections. Anyway, a man in New York approached me by email a few years ago to help revive the Gittler, with several improvements, and now it looks like the project is coming to fruition.

As you guys may know, I hadn't owned congas for some years (though I managed to keep my LP bongos til now) but recently I was able to treat myself to buying a pair of Pearl Primeros. JC, I don't know if you still endorse Pearl but I removed the insignias (hope u don't mind ), as I don't much like labels. They are kind of small but at least they are of wood, and eventually I want to replace the buffalo heads that came on them with better sounding skins.

Thanks again for the warm welcome back!

All the best,

Yoni

[CongaTick]

YONI! So good to hear from you again. Welcome home. And I hope the guitar venture goes the distance this time.

[Luis]

Man, that was nice! I'm not sure but I think I was in a trance for a few minutes there. Thanks for posting.

[yoni]

Thank you, CongaTick and Luis!

So glad you enjoy.

[JohnnyConga]

Hi Yoni ..no problem I'm no longer a Pearl artist..I have been a Volcano artist for the past 4 years and will continue to be...JC

[yoni]

Whoooaaahh!!!! Voclano congas! Super!!! Volcano rules!!!

Once when I was in Hawaii someone brought their volcano congas for me to jam on at each gig. Nothing like them, but I guess you know that by now.

All the best to you, Johnny.