Steel tongue drums

REL-01What is a steel tongue drum, and how does it differ from a handpan?#

beginner

Short answer. A steel tongue drum is a hollow steel vessel with tongues cut into its surface with a slot cutter, each tongue tuned to a pitch. A handpan has no cuts at all: its notes are hammered dimples in an unbroken shell. That single difference in construction drives almost every difference in sound, price and playability.

On a handpan, a note is a shallow dome pressed into a continuous sheet of steel and then tuned so that its fundamental, octave and octave-plus-fifth all line up. The tone field is under tension from the shell around it, and it is coupled to the air inside the two glued half shells, which behaves as a Helmholtz resonator. That coupling is what gives a handpan its bloom and its harmonic complexity, and it is also why handpans are hard to build.

On a tongue drum, the maker cuts a slot in a pattern (usually a spiral, a horseshoe or a keyhole) so that a strip of steel is anchored at one end and free along its edges. The tongue then vibrates rather like the tine of a music box or a kalimba. Pitch is set by the length, width and thickness of the tongue, and tuned by grinding metal away from the free end (raises pitch) or from the root (lowers it). Some designs add magnets or removable weights instead.

The practical consequences:

• Harmonics. A well made handpan note is a tuned chord in itself. A tongue is much closer to a single pitch with an inharmonic ring. Some makers (Guda, RAV) work hard to bring an octave and higher partials into the tongue, and the better ones genuinely get there, but the effect is different rather than equivalent.
• Sustain and decay. Tongues tend to ring longer and blur more. Handpan notes decay faster and articulate more cleanly, which is why fast playing is clearer on a handpan.
• Volume and dynamics. A handpan has more dynamic range and responds to touch across a wider span. A tongue drum compresses more.
• Robustness. Tongue drums are far harder to knock out of tune, because the tongue is mechanically isolated by the cut.
• Price. Cutting and grinding tongues is quicker and more repeatable than hammering and tuning a shell. Tongue drums are correspondingly cheaper.

See also: REL-02, REL-13

REL-02What is a RAV Vast, and is it a handpan?#

beginner

Short answer. The RAV Vast is a high end steel tongue drum, not a handpan. It was designed by the Russian engineer Andrey Remyannikov and first appeared around 2013. It is the tongue drum that gets closest to a handpan’s harmonic richness, but the notes are still cut tongues.

The RAV came out of Remyannikov’s attempt to combine the melodic depth of a Hang with the forgiving playability of a tongue drum. The signature move is the tuning of the tongue itself. RAV’s own material describes later generations as carrying up to seven audible overtones per tongue, achieved partly through internal tuning work on the underside of the shell as well as the usual external grinding. Compared with a budget tongue drum, a RAV sounds far less like a struck bar and far more like a bell with a body behind it.

The standard instrument is around 51 cm (20 inches) across with nine tongues plus a central note, and it is sold in a long list of named scales rather than in the raw note lists you sometimes see from handpan makers. RAV has run through several design generations; the visible changes have been the move to the current tongue layout, the addition of internal tuning, and a shift from a hydrophobic coating to a more durable painted finish. There have also been thicker steel variants sold under a “2” suffix and a separate RAV Pan line. Because the model naming has changed over the years, check what the current line-up actually is with the maker rather than trusting an old review.

Is it a handpan? No, and RAV do not claim it is. It is worth being precise, because a lot of shops list RAVs under a “handpan” heading and buyers arrive expecting a handpan’s articulation. What you get instead is a sustained, resonant, quite reverberant instrument that rewards slower, more atmospheric playing and is much more tolerant of being hit with mallets or with the flat of the hand. Many players own both and use them for different jobs.

Price sits well above a typical tongue drum and well below most handpans, which is exactly the gap it was built for.

See also: REL-05, REL-06

REL-03Guda, Hapi, Zenko, Idiopan and Beat Root: what is each one?#

beginner

Short answer. They are five separate brands of steel tongue drum, not five types of instrument. Each is a company with its own construction, materials and price bracket, and knowing which is which stops you comparing a 100 pound toy with a 900 pound instrument.

Guda. Founded by Dmitrii Gubarev and sold through guda-drum.com and gudadrum.com. Guda describe their instruments as a hybrid of tongue drum and handpan, and the tongue geometry is deliberately complex so that octave harmonics are present in the sound. The range is wide: Guda 2.0 and its Plus and Fx variants, Guda Double (two tuned sides), Guda Ortus, Guda Coin, Guda Freezbee and Guda Neo, in stainless steel, brass and aluminium, usually with heavy decorative etching. Several models take internal or external pickups. Note that the brand has been produced in eastern Europe and the corporate location has shifted over the years, so buy from the official site rather than assuming a country of origin.

HAPI. An American brand, trading since 2008 from Oakhurst, California. HAPI use a proprietary steel alloy around 2 mm thick with rubber isolation feet and a bottom sound port. The range runs from the tiny Tini and Trinity at under 150 US dollars up through Mini, Aura, Slim, Origin and Omni at a few hundred, mostly in pentatonic tunings. HAPI also sell an instrument they market as a handpan, which muddies the naming; check the construction, not the product name.

Zenko. Made by Metal Sounds in France from stainless steel. The same workshop makes the Spacedrum handpan, so Zenko is one of the few tongue drums built by a company that also builds handpans. Typically nine notes, sold with a bag and sticks, aimed squarely at the accessible end.

Idiopan. A product line from EnSoul Music Designs in the United States, made since around 2010, and unusual for being genuinely tunable by the owner using small magnets placed on the tongues. Models include Bella (6 inch, 6 notes), Lunabell (8 inch), Domina (12 inch), Dominus (14 inch) and the Dual-Tone, most available with a pickup.

Beat Root. A British brand best known for tongue drums with wooden bodies and steel tops, and for an electric model with a built in pickup. The wooden shell gives a warmer, drier voice than an all steel drum.

See also: REL-07

REL-04Do steel tongue drums go out of tune?#

beginner

Short answer. Far less readily than handpans, and for a different reason. A tongue is mechanically separated from the rest of the shell by its cut, so it does not carry the stored tension that makes a handpan note drift. In normal use, most tongue drums hold pitch for years.

The stability comes straight from the geometry. On a handpan, every tone field sits in a stressed membrane; hit one hard and you deform steel that is also holding its neighbours in shape, which is why a single heavy strike or a drop can move several notes. On a tongue drum, deforming a tongue takes a plastic bend of the tongue itself. That is much harder to do with a hand, and a mallet strike that would detune a handpan usually does nothing at all.

What does move a tongue drum’s tuning:

• Physical damage. A real bend from a fall, something heavy dropped on it, or standing on it.
• Corrosion at the root. Rust or pitting at the anchored end changes the tongue’s effective stiffness. This is the main long term risk on painted carbon steel drums that have been left damp.
• Added mass. Anything stuck to a tongue lowers its pitch. That is a defect if it is a sticker or a lump of tape and a feature if it is a tuning magnet.
• Temperature. Pitch shifts slightly with temperature on any steel instrument. It comes back.

Retuning is also more tractable than on a handpan. Because pitch is a function of the tongue’s free length and mass, a competent workshop adjusts it by grinding: material off the tip raises the pitch, material near the root lowers it. This is destructive and irreversible, so it is a job for the maker, not for a file in your kitchen. Idiopan is the exception by design, since its magnet system lets the owner move pitches around and undo the change by taking the magnet off.

One caveat worth knowing: cheap unbranded drums are frequently sold poorly tuned from new, and “my tongue drum is out of tune” is much more often a manufacturing shortfall than drift. Check the instrument against a tuner in the first week, not the first year.

See also: MYT-10

REL-05Is a tongue drum a good cheaper way to start?#

beginner

Short answer. It is a good way to find out whether you enjoy playing a melodic hand percussion instrument, and a poor way to learn handpan technique. Buy one because you want a tongue drum, not as a rehearsal for something else.

The honest case for it. Handpans cost from roughly 1,000 to 3,000 euros or more, and that is a real amount of money to spend on a guess. A 150 to 400 euro tongue drum answers several useful questions cheaply: do you like sitting with an instrument in your lap for an hour, do you find pentatonic and minor scales satisfying or limiting, do you actually reach for it in the evening, and does your household tolerate the sound. Those questions matter more than most people expect, and plenty of would-be handpan buyers discover the answer is no.

The honest case against it. The physical skills do not transfer as directly as the shape suggests. Handpan playing lives on a fast, light, rebounding touch on a small target with precise damping. Tongue drums reward a broader contact and a slower phrase, and they are far more forgiving of an inaccurate strike because the target is a long strip rather than a small dome. Several months on a tongue drum can leave you with habits that a handpan teacher then has to undo, particularly a heavy hand and a tendency to let everything ring.

A more useful way to think about it. If your budget will reach a handpan within a year, save. If it will not, or if you genuinely want the tongue drum’s sustained, bell-like character, buy one and enjoy it as its own instrument. The middle option is the RAV Vast or a good Guda: expensive for a tongue drum but musically substantial, and unlikely to feel like a stepping stone you outgrow in a month.

One thing not to do is buy the cheapest unbranded drum you can find and let it decide the question. A badly tuned drum with dead tongues will convince you that you dislike the whole category when what you dislike is that particular object.

See also: REL-07

REL-06Can you play handpan technique on a tongue drum?#

intermediate

Short answer. Some of it. The rhythmic hand vocabulary transfers reasonably well. The parts that depend on a handpan’s fast decay, precise tone field and shell resonance mostly do not, and forcing them produces a muddy result.

What transfers. Alternating hand patterns, ghost notes, the basic thumb and fingertip alternation, ostinato left hand under a melodic right hand, and the general habit of thinking in a scale laid out around a circle. The layout logic is similar enough that a handpan player picks up a tongue drum quickly and vice versa. Slaps and rim work on the shell also transfer, though the shell tone is different.

What does not. Three things in particular.

Damping. On a handpan you shorten a note by resting a finger, a knuckle or the heel of the hand on the tone field, and the note stops almost immediately because it is a small stiff dimple. A tongue rings on. You can damp it, but you need to press the tongue itself, often with more contact and more anticipation, and rapid alternation between ringing and damped notes is genuinely harder.

Speed and clarity. Handpan rolls stay legible because notes decay quickly. Run the same roll on a tongue drum and the sustain of each tongue accumulates into a wash. On sustained instruments like the RAV that wash is the point, so players adapt by phrasing more sparsely rather than by playing faster.

Touch on the tone field. Handpan players learn to place strikes at specific points on a dimple to bring out the fundamental, the octave or the compound fifth. A tongue’s harmonic content is far less steerable by strike position, though hitting the tip versus the root does change the tone.

What tongue drums add. Mallets are normal rather than controversial, and good mallet playing on a tongue drum is a real technique with its own repertoire. Palm strikes near the tongue root produce a bass thump that most handpans cannot do. And because tongue drums are hard to detune, you can play with a force that would be reckless on a handpan.

The sensible summary is that they are cousins, not the same instrument with different skins. Play each one for what it is good at.

See also: REL-01

REL-07Which should a beginner actually buy?#

beginner

Short answer. Decide what you want the instrument to sound like before you decide what to spend. If you want the clear, articulate, harmonically stacked handpan voice, nothing else will satisfy you and you should save for a handpan. If you want a resonant, sustained, meditative wash, a good tongue drum is not a compromise, it is the right instrument.

Working through it in order.

First, listen with a specific test. Find recordings of a handpan and a tongue drum playing something fast and something slow. Most people can hear immediately that they prefer one. The slow test tells you about tone; the fast test tells you about articulation, and articulation is where the two diverge most.

Second, be realistic about budget and time. A handpan from an established maker is typically 1,000 to 3,000 euros or more, and directories such as Master The Handpan list around a hundred makers with delivery times ranging from a couple of weeks to over a year. That range means the old picture of universal multi-year waiting lists is out of date, but it also means the specific instrument you want may not be available quickly.

Third, if you are going tongue drum, match the brand to the budget. Under about 200 euros you are in HAPI’s smaller models, Zenko’s entry instruments and a large field of unbranded drums of highly variable tuning quality. Around 250 to 500 you get better tuned instruments with usable harmonics. Above that, a RAV Vast or a higher Guda model buys genuinely different musical territory.

Fourth, prefer a scale you can hear yourself using. Whatever the instrument, the scale is a bigger constraint on your playing than the brand. A minor or Celtic tuning is a safe first choice because it sounds settled with almost any note order. Avoid buying a dramatic exotic scale as a first instrument on the strength of one video.

Fifth, buy from the maker or an authorised dealer. Both categories have a heavy counterfeit and rebadging problem, and both have brands whose product names deliberately blur the line.

What not to do: do not buy a handpan sight unheard from a marketplace listing because it is cheap, and do not buy a tongue drum expecting it to become a handpan later.

See also: REL-12, Buying section