ihandpan.comby Ibi Malik

Play · D Kurd · free

Learn to Play the Handpan

The free handpan course: eleven step-by-step lessons that take you from never having touched a handpan to playing proper rhythms and moving between the chords of a D Kurd.

Written for

D Kurd, 9 or 10 notes

D3 · A3 B♭3 C4 D4 E4 F4 G4 A4 C5

The instrument this whole course is built on. Core lessons use only the shared nine (all notes excluding C5) notes, so nothing is missing if you own a 9.

This is where you learn to play. I’ve split the course into eleven lessons, and each one builds on the one before — so start at the top and work your way down. Don’t move past a lesson until you’ve understood it entirely. Trust me, later on you don’t want to stop in the middle of a rhythm and think, “Which one is the ding again?”

Every lesson walks you through each technique step by step, with the mistakes I see most often, and every rhythm comes with a tab you can play aloud, at any tempo, with a metronome. Every lesson lists the notes it uses at the top, so you can tell at a glance whether it fits your instrument — and the whole course is written for one instrument, a nine note D Kurd, so what’s on the page is what’s in your lap. When you want the background to any of it, Study has the long answers.

Put in ten minutes a day and you’ll get through the course in two to three months. Ten minutes daily beats an hour on a Sunday — hands learn by frequency, not by duration.

· IntroductionWhere it all starts: how I’ve laid out the course, why strong foundations matter, and how much you should really be practising.

Part 1 Foundations

Knowing your instrument, sitting with it properly, and getting a clean ding and a bright Tek.

  1. 1 Handpan Structure & OriginsLet’s get to know the instrument: what the handpan is, where it comes from, the names it goes by, the types you’ll come across and its parts.
  2. 2 How to Hold the HandpanHow I hold the handpan, on my lap on the floor or on a chair — which way round it goes, and why the room you play in matters more than you’d think.
  3. 3 The DingThe ding is the heartbeat of every rhythm. I’ll show you how to play it with a deep, long sustain — and the mistakes that make it sound dull.
  4. 4 The TekThe Tek is the bright, dry strike on the steel around the ding. Here’s my technique, how to practise it, and the mistakes to watch out for.

Part 2 Your first rhythm

Reading a rhythm off the page and playing it on the handpan.

  1. 5 Reading Handpan TabsHandpan tabs are how I write down every rhythm in this course. Here’s how to read them: the symbols, beat cycles, rhythmic emphasis (iqa’) and four steps in a beat.
  2. 6 The Heavy Sa’idiYour first rhythm! We’ll learn the Heavy Sa’idi by saying it, then walking it, then playing it on the ding and the Tek.

Part 3 Ornamentation

Making the Heavy Sa’idi sound beautiful with the quiet notes between the loud ones.

  1. 7 The KaThe Ka is your first stroke with your other hand, and the key to ornamentation. It’s tricky at first — but I promise you it will come.
  2. 8 Basic OrnamentationTime to make the Heavy Sa’idi sound beautiful. We’ll add Kas in three steps and learn the quick Teka that links one cycle to the next.

Part 4 Putting it together

Playing in time across the chords of your D Kurd, and moving between them without a gap.

  1. 9 Using a MetronomeYou’re going to hate the metronome at first — I did too. Here’s how to set one up, play in time with it, and why it’ll make you a better musician.
  2. 10 The Chords of Your D KurdMeet the six chords of your D Kurd — D minor, F, B♭, C, A minor and G minor — where each one lives, and the Heavy Sa’idi on every one of them.
  3. 11 Moving Between ChordsNow we link it all together: when to play basic or ornamented rhythms, and my drills for moving between chords without a gap.
· ClosingYou made it! A recap of everything you’ve learnt, how long to keep practising, and why the basics are where mastery begins.

Your “practised” ticks are saved in your own browser — I don’t track anything.