No pude evitar postearlo, amo la percusión.

I soon after found out that to obtain one of these lovely instruments, known as a hang drum, I'd need to sell some vital organs on the black market and hop a plane to Europe (not necessarily in that order). The demand for these drums well exceeds the supply, as two Swiss artists are the only creators of every authentic hang drum in existence. Hang drums on eBay can fetch upwards of $10,000 because it's apparently downright impossible to find these buggers stateside.

So what is someone who has fallen in love with the unique hang drum sound but is also quite keen on keeping their kidneys to do?

Enter the "hank drum," a crude instrument fashioned from an empty propane tank that looks really freaking fun to play.

DIY instrument guru Dennis Havlena has kindly provided detailed instructions for making a hank drum on his website here. +1 item for my to-do list!

Was weer sinds lange tijd aan het chillen met m'n man C4 aka Czar en hij liet mij het volgende filmpje zien:

Lekker!

Deed me weer denken aan een ander filmpje met een merkwaardiger instrument genaamd "Theremin":

Of natuurlijk de Balalaika:

Zo, weer genoeg leuke filmpjes!

Prrrrrt Po!

I hope you're enjoying this Memorial Day Weekend.

If you're not, maybe these links will help.

• I don't have a clue what a hang drum is, but this hang drum solo is pretty cool.
• Phil Keaggy, guitar master, and an ebow courtesy of Joel Klampert.
• My good friend sent me a link to ElectroVoice's PA Bible. Although it's a little dated, there's some great information on live sound.
• Check out Rick Kirkpatrick's Worship Mythbusters series.
• The brave people over at the Deadly Viper blog have had some tricky discussions on sex this week.
• Shane Duffey had another great post on leadership this week. Simple, but very true.
• Josh Cary posted a list of the 25 recordings that were recently added to the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress.  Very interesting.

Not until this viral video was I ever exposed to such a beautiful sound, played so wonderfully by a person I know not about.  Passion always starts from within.  It starts at the core of your being.  It is there that it resonates out of you in any number of ways.

In this case the passion comes out in his music, in his playing of the Hang Drum.  The tempo, rhythm, and energy can be felt immensely.  Watch this video with your eyes open...then push play again and listen to it with your eyes closed....what did you feel?

[via]

Sorry about the crappy quality - I recorded this on my phone while I was walking past. Still it's another to add to the growing repository of hang-related clips on youtube.

Håper å høre mer fra dette instrumentet fremover.

Lenker
Wikipedia

Artister
Dante Bucci's hjemmeside (youtube-konto: hans liste over Hang Drum-klipp)
Manu Delago's hjemmeside
Augustusdavis's youtube-channel

Check out this solo. The sound is really new and soothing.

Le Hang drum est un instrument super récent, il a été inventé par des Suisses en 2000. C'est un mélange entre le son du gamelan, d'une cloche et d'un xylophone et ça sonne d'enfer. Moi ça m'a impressionné, regardez et écouter cette vidéo, ça déchire!

Les inventeurs sont sur Myspace : http://www.myspace.com/giddahangdrum

Leur site et magasin : http://www.hangdrum.com/index.php

Olhando assim, mais parece uma bacia de ferro ou um disco-voador, mas esse é o instrumento musical do momento, foi desenvolvido em 2000 por Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer, que dizem que é o resultado de muitos anos de pesquisa pelo mundo.
Particularmente gostei muito do som, que é algo bem organico e natural, chega até a ser futurista.

Peace&Love

Thanks to the magic of Wordpress stats, I also noticed that these people have often found this blog by searching for "buy a hang drum", "hang drum dealers" or similar. I expect that they'll be disappointed with that post which is, essentially, a mild expression of interest in a unique and quirky instrument, rather than a How To guide.

Of course, I hate to disappoint, so over the past few days I've been trying to answer the question: how do you buy a hang drum? Unfortunately it looks like the short answer is: you can't.

Here's why: It turns out that a couple of guys in Switzerland -- Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer -- design and produce the hang themselves. Judging by what I've read on several other blogs and forums, these guys are only willing to make a "handful" of these instruments every year to order through their company, Panart. See this Metafilter post (and comments) for more details:

Discover the hang drum

If you can make the trip over to Switzerland -- and assuming they're still making them -- you can expect to pay upwards of US$500 for one. If not, forget it. Apparently, they set up a distribution network as well as a website (www.hang.ch - don't bother going there; it'll either give you a 404 or a filler search page) in the early days, but this was quickly overwhelmed by high demand. You may be able to find one or two on E-bay, but you should expect to pay a premium for them, as I indicated in my original post.

It's actually incredibly difficult to find up-to-date information on the current situation, but it appears that they've either stopped producing the instrument, or are still making it in very limited quantities. Judging by the level of demand online, it's highly unlikely that anyone outside a select few will be able to get their hands on one in time for Christmas 2007.

UPDATE: 26/08/2007: You'll see that Michael from das hangblog has dropped by the comments section to helpfully give an updated picture of the hang-buying situation. Bottom line: you may be in with a chance of buying one next year -- but you've still got to travel to Switzerland.

And this is how a hang is played:

Pretty sweet, eh? My prediction is that this will become the number one must-have present for all self-respecting musos come Christmas 2007. I know I'll be putting one on my list; if only I could find out how much they cost. The only price I've found to date was on a Swedish E-bay site or something, which put it at 2,500 Euros. Pretty steep for what looks like a tin lid.

UPDATE: 15/08/2007: I've found that a lot of people reading this post are coming to my blog having searched for "how to buy a hang drum". I expect that they'll be disappointed with this post which is, essentially, a mild expression of interest in a truly unique instrument. Try reading my latest post for more information on why it's so damn difficult to get hold of a hang drum.