Overview:
The Hang, pronounced "hung", also referred to as a Hang drum, is a relatively new musical instrument. Descended from the steel drum, it resembles a cross between a steel drum, gamelan, and gong. The range of sound it can produce is very wide, sounding like a gong, steel drum, or even vibraphone. Hang means (human) hand in the Bern language. Appropriately enough, it is generally played using the hands, with different sounds created using different parts of the hand. It is also made and tuned by hand in Bern, Switzerland by creators, Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer of the PANArt company. At the writing of this article, orders are only being taken on a limited basis and each Hang is unique. Despite these seeming limitations, the Hang is enjoying immense popularity. A recent search on Youtube turned up 226 videos of the Hang. Several fan sites have also grown up around the instrument.
Construction of the hang:
The Hang is made from two hemispheres of chemically-strengthened steel joined together, resembling a flying saucer. The two sides are referred to as the Ding and Gu.
The Ding side contains seven to nine "tone fields", which look like dents in the surface, arranged in a circle around the Ding itself, a smaller hemisphere in the center. The "tone fields" are the notes of the hang. The scale of the notes are chosen by the owner when the Hang is constructed. The Ding can also be struck to create a deeper, gong-like note.
The Gu side has no notes and has a hole, also called the Gu in the center. The Gu can be used to modulate sounds from the Ding or can be played like an udu (a traditional African resonant drum).
Further reading:
- das hangblog is a blog in German and English about all things hang. It also has the very helpful article How to Buy a Hang as well as The Hang Internet Index, which is probably the most comprehensive listing of Hang resources online.
- Hang-music.com is a site devoted to all things related to the hang. They have a Hang Players Directory, which you can use to find a Hang player near you or register as a Hang player so that others can find you. Even more impressive is the HangBox, a free, online music jukebox of nothing but Hang music.
- Oddmusic, an online museum for rare and/or odd instruments have a page devoted to the Hang, which includes details of its construction as well as sound samples.
- The Pang Instruments - Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer- PANArt AG - A fairly technical article by the creators of the Hang. The abstract of the article reads: "The Pang instruments are all made of gas-nitrided steel. The stronger material led to a new shape and new edge conditions which allowed the construction of these new resonance bodies. A series of new instruments has been developed." Also includes other highly technical articles that go into detail about the physics of the Hang and similar instruments.
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