Handpan Beginners' Course- learn how to play from scratch

Sit with the handpan resting firmly in your lap. Keep the chair height not too high or too low, and place your feet flat for movement.

Place the handpan firmly in your lap and check your posture. Keep your back straight, relax your shoulders, and place your hands without tension to balance posture and position.

Learn how handpan sounds arise from vibrating tone fields and explore textures created with knuckles, wrists, fingers, and fists, while treating the instrument with care and love.

Identify which fingers feel most natural to play with on the handpan, noting you can use any finger while thumb, index, and ring fingers are common options.

Train every finger from thumbs to pinkies with a ding four times per finger, using the thumb's side and wrist twist and the flat tops of the other fingers.

Learn how to strike the handpan with a light, controlled touch. Keep your finger slightly tense and release quickly and smoothly for a beautiful tone.

Explore how the handpan's scale centers on the ding tuned to a D chord, notes from low to high; face lowest note on circle toward you to position instrument.

Develop handpan technique with a finger-by-finger exercise, starting on the ding and alternating fingers for consistent tone. Stay calm and pace evenly to produce beautiful sounds for each finger.

Execute the double strike by hitting two adjacent notes simultaneously with the thumb and index finger, maintain proper hand position, twist the wrist for power, and pull back for control.

Practice the double strike with the right and left hands to develop a steady tempo and high-quality tone. Focus on pacing and smooth hand changes, repeating the exercise as needed.

Master handpan dynamics by controlling strike force and volume; follow four-hit drill with right and left hands, starting soft, increasing, then lowering after switching hands to produce a wavy sound.

Explore rhythm fundamentals by doubling and halving hand strikes, counting eight-count cycles, and coordinating left and right hand patterns across continuous repetitions.

Master the handpan scale with a double strike by crossing hands, striking both the fourth and fifth notes, and maintaining correct finger position for a steady, calm pace.

Practice the downward scale, focusing on maintaining correct finger position to move freely and keeping a slow tempo to emphasize the sound.

Practice builds agility in double strokes by walking up and down the scale, while maintaining correct finger position, freedom of motion, and a slow tempo to focus on sound.

Learn to form chords on the handpan by playing three notes simultaneously - left-hand notes with a higher right-hand note - focus on producing a beautiful, synchronized sound.

Learn to play a pleasing handpan chord progression by counting eight and striking the chords on the first, third, fifth, and seventh counts.

Master the chord progression variation that keeps the same sequence while the last chord lasts a single count to create silence, then start the next bar with the first chord.

Practice the same chord progression from previous exercise, then double the strikes and play on every count. Maintain steady tempo and note the off beat on counts four, six, eight.

Explore dynamics on the handpan by repeating a chord progression on beat and alternating soft and loud volumes, encouraging you to experiment with expressive dynamics.

Master your first beat using double strikes and chords, and learn to create rhythms with a ding and a muted ding by muting vibrations with your thumb using both hands.

Learn to produce a hard, percussive slap on the handpan by striking the surface between notes and muting with the finger to combine slap with a muted ding.

Learn the beat structure and groove by singing the beat in a guided exercise, relax, and move with the groove before you play along on handpan.

Master the handpan beat by articulating open ding, muted ding, and slap accents, with boom and tech sounds, while singing the rhythm once before you start.

Synchronize the opening with the second handpan note, repeat the beat for two bars, then strike the ding on the first note as you sing and play boom tech.

Spice up the beat by replacing the fourth bar with a walking up the scale eight-note pattern, starting with the right hand on the ding and alternating hands.

Combine the beat with the chord progression, first playing the beat and then the chords, and maintain a steady, relaxed tempo.

Explore the second groove by mastering ding, ghost notes, and a right-side slap between the third and fifth notes, using a gentle touch and relaxed fingers to keep tempo.

Learn to combine handpan sounds into a groove using an eight-count beat, ding on count one, slap on count five, and fill rest with ghost notes, alternating right and left.

Extend the beat by doubling its length, playing the first bar as learned and the second bar with a ding on the third count. Repeat the groove to develop flow.

Add melody to the beat by replacing the second bar’s eighth note with a random note around the ding, building the handpan melody step by step.

Enhance the groove by adding more melody after a slap in the second bar, replacing the sixth, seventh, and eighth notes with random notes around the ding to expand expression.

Extend the beat to twice its length by replacing the last three ghost notes with melodic notes and mirroring the prior sequence.

Learn to play ghost notes on the handpan by omitting notes in alternating bars, counting through each bar, and restarting the beat on the first count of the new bar.

Practice the handpan by repeating the pattern from the previous exercise, then strike a random note on the eighth count of the second bar to explore timing and variation.

Learn the Jojo song on the handpan across upcoming videos, and see and hear the end result to guide your practice from scratch.

Learn the first part of the song on the handpan, alternating right and left hands, with the first note of each bar played by the right hand and fingering 567812345678123456781.

Play the next part on the right side of the handpan and cross your left hand under your right arm, keeping the rhythm the same.

Combine parts by playing two bars left and two bars right, then repeat on last bar and ascend the scale across eight bars, with the eighth bar as the pattern.

Create a melody that blends with the beat bars, placing nine and eight on counts three and seven, and seven and six on counts three and seven in bar two.

switch from the left to the right side on the handpan, add melodic notes on the third and seventh counts, play eight and seventh, six and five, and repeat.

Master breaking a handpan section by omitting the beat to create calm, then play left-hand double strikes with the seventh note and switch to the sixth across two bars.

Second part of the break: alternate high notes from seventh to sixth with the double strike, for two bars, then switch the left hand to the right side.

Begin your handpan journey from scratch with this beginner course. Play it all together now to develop rhythm, coordination, and musical timing.