How to play the handpan for beginners - Tips and resources

If you are looking for tips on how to play the handpan for beginners, we’ve made an easy list of resources for you below. Whether you want personal instruction in person, or are looking for handpan lessons, the below links offer lots for you to explore. It is our top priority to support a strong and growing community of handpan players, so please feel free to contact us at any time, we are always happy to help you on your journey!

1) Isthmus Handpan Gathering - We host an annual handpan gathering in Madison, WI. The purpose of our event is to grow and connect our community of handpan players. We provide a limited number of free handpans for people to play during our event. During the gathering we offer teaching workshops offer, personal instruction, a concert or open mic and time to jam and meet new players. Our attendees drive here from all over the midwest! We’ve provided workshops with some great handpan players and teachers such as Jeremy Ardnt, Shirin Leela, Mark D’Ambrosio, Maxwell Edison Johnson and Tony Meister.

2) Workshop Visit and Personal Introduction to Playing - Many people who are drawn to the handpan have never played an instrument before. We think that’s great- and we love introducing people to our handpans for the first time! When you visit the Isthmus Instrument workshop, we always give a free introduction on how to begin to play our handpans. We’ll share our two part approach with you, which involves Developing the Touch and Choosing the Right Scale for You.

3) Free Video Tutorials - We continue to provide completely free tutorials on our youtube channel. Make sure you subscribe! When you subscribe, you’ll automatically be notified when we add new videos.

4) Teacher Directory- Find a handpan teacher near you! Check out our list of teachers in the USA.

5) Our Blog and FAQ section are here to help with your most common questions.

6) Online Resources and Courses-  For some more at length programs, check out Peter Levitov’s Handpan 360 course and David Charrier’s Master the handpan course. Also David Kuckermann’s course, and these joint DVDs by Colin Foulke & David Kuckermann.  

7) Handpan Book - We wrote the first book to be published on Handpans in the USA! It’s a great resource for beginning to advancing players.