This section explains the mechanism. The first file works outward from a single struck tone
field: how it makes a pitch, what the tuned partials are, and why the note behaves as it does.
The second deals with the air inside the shell, which is an instrument in its own right. The
third covers tuning as a measurable thing rather than a mystical one.
The handpan attracts more confident physics than most instruments, a good deal of it wrong. Where
something is genuinely settled, such as the three tuned partials or the Helmholtz resonance of
the cavity, these pages say so and give the numbers. Where figures vary between instruments, such
as the exact Helmholtz frequency or how long a note sustains, they give a range and say it
varies. Where a claim is popular but unsupported, such as the health arguments for A=432, they
say that too.
The physical vocabulary used throughout is defined in
Anatomy and construction. Nothing here needs maths
beyond reading a ratio, though a few advanced questions go further for those who want it.
Start here.
If you read only two, read PHY-02
and PHY-09.
The three tuned partials explain the notes; the Helmholtz resonance explains everything
underneath them. Almost every other question in this section follows from those two ideas.
If you are troubleshooting a note that sounds wrong, go to
PHY-03 first and
PHY-14
second. Wobble is not always drift, and the difference matters: one can be retuned, the other
cannot.
— Ibi
