Ashley R.
I spent two years not buying one because every site says the same thing and none of them give you a single number. This is the first page where I could actually compare two instruments.
September 2026
Handpans,
chosen by people
who play them.
Nine, ten and twelve notes.
Nine, ten and twelve notes, in 1.2 mm nitrided steel, tuned by hand on three harmonics per note. The numbers that decide whether an instrument is still in tune in a year are printed on every page.
Find your scaleFree shipping and free returns across the US
Stand, bag, rim guard and care kit with every instrument
A real person on email and phone, Monday to Friday
Free shipping and free returns across the US
Stand, bag, rim guard and care kit with every instrument
A real person on email and phone, Monday to Friday
Find your handpan
Which instrument is right for you?
The scale decides the mood. The number of notes decides how far you can travel inside it. Every instrument here is tuned in three harmonics and checked field by field before it ships.
9 notesYour first handpanThe widest field spacing we carry, which is what makes a clean strike easy to find, and a clean strike is what separates an instrument that sings from one that clanks. Nothing you learn here goes to waste: our layouts grow outward, they don't rearrange themselves.
D Kurd, Celtic Minor, Hijaz, Low Pygmy
Stand, bag, rim guard and care kit included
Tuned by hand on three harmonics per noteSee nine-note handpans
10 notesOne more note, a lot more roomThe tenth field sits at the top of the circle, and it's the note that turns a loop into a line. Nine notes gives you a mood. Ten gives you somewhere to resolve it. The natural second instrument.
One extra tone field, at the top
Enough range to finish a phrase
Same size and weight as a nineSee ten-note handpans
12 notesA bass to write againstTwelve fields means a note underneath the ding: hold a pulse low and carry a melody above it, on the same shell. It asks for a cleaner strike and gives back a range where nothing is out of reach.
Bottom notes under the ding
Room to compose and to layer
For a precise, practised touchSee twelve-note handpans
In their words
Brandon M.
I asked which scale to start on and got a straight answer that pointed me at the cheaper instrument. Ordered the D Kurd nine on that basis and it was the right call.
September 2026
Megan T.
Double boxed with the shell suspended so nothing rested on the tone fields. Three weeks in, still dead in tune, and I have not been gentle with it.
August 2026
Tyler W.
The spec sheet gives the steel thickness and the dome height. I could not find those two numbers on any other site I looked at, which told me everything.
August 2026
Jessica L.
I emailed to ask which scale to start on and got a straight answer that pointed me at the cheaper instrument. That is when I ordered.
July 2026
What you are paying for
1.2 mm nitrided steel
Thin steel flexes, and a shell that flexes drifts out of tune within a season. We publish the gauge on every instrument and we don't carry anything under 1.1 mm.
Tuned in three harmonics
Each field is tuned on its fundamental, its octave and its compound fifth. A note tuned on the fundamental alone rings. A note tuned in three blooms, opening up after the strike instead of decaying straight down.
Checked field by field
A neighboring note that rings when you didn't strike it is crosstalk, and it's a defect, not character. Every field gets played and listened to before an instrument is packed.
Everything in one box
Steel stand, padded gig bag, rim guard and care kit, included. $196 of equipment, so the instrument arrives ready to play and there's nothing else to work out.
How a handpan is made
Most of what decides whether an instrument is still in tune in a year happens before anyone plays a note on it.
The shell
Two steel shells are formed, then heat-treated to relieve the stress the forming put into the metal. Rush that step and the shell keeps moving for months afterwards. These are 1.2 mm nitrided steel, thick enough to hold their shape and thin enough to speak.
The tone fields
Steel gauge, dome height, diameter, weight, harmonics tuned. These are what decide whether an instrument holds its tuning past the first year, and they're printed on every instrument here.
The isolation
A field shaped too quickly bleeds into its neighbors, so a note sounds when you didn't strike it. That's crosstalk, and it's the clearest sign of a rushed instrument. Each field here is worked until it speaks on its own.
The finish
Nitriding drives nitrogen into the surface of the steel, which hardens it and slows corrosion. It also gives the instrument its dry, percussive attack. Stainless sustains longer, nitrided speaks faster, and neither is better. You should just know which one you're buying.
The one you'll still be playing in a year
Every instrument here lists its full note layout, its steel gauge and how much teaching material exists for its scale. Those three decide more than the price does.
Our Products
3 Items
Why buy from us
The instrument you can find in a few places. What changes is what you know before you order, and what happens after.
| Criterion | Noma | Others |
|---|---|---|
| Steel gauge, dome height and harmonics printed on every instrument | Yes | No |
| The full note layout, top and bottom shell listed separately | Yes | No |
| Every scale under both of its names, so you can compare across sites | Yes | No |
| How much teaching material exists for the scale, before you commit | Yes | No |
| Free shipping, and 30 days with return shipping on us | Yes | No |
| A named person on the phone, who plays | Yes | No |
Join the community
Real hands, real instruments. Tag us and your clip lands here.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
Questions
D Kurd, in almost every case. Not because it's the best sounding scale, that's your call, but because nearly every tutorial, play-along and beginner course is written in it. Pick something rarer and you'll spend your first few months transposing instead of playing. One thing worth knowing: the same scale gets sold under different names depending on the workshop. Celtic Minor and Amara are the same layout. D Kurd is sometimes listed as D minor. We give both names on every page.
440 Hz is the concert standard. It matches every tutorial, every backing track and every other instrument in the room. 432 Hz sits slightly lower and some players prefer it for solo and sound work. Same instrument, same hand-tuning, same price. If you plan to play along with anything at all, take 440.
Nine, if this is your first. The fields sit further apart, which makes a clean strike easier to find, and a clean strike is what separates a handpan that sings from one that clanks. Ten is the natural second instrument. Twelve is for composing, and it doesn't forgive an imprecise strike.
A handpan drifts when it's struck too hard, dropped, or left somewhere hot. A car in summer will do it. Played normally and wiped down afterwards, it holds. The other thing that moves tuning is transit, which is why the shell ships suspended inside a double-wall carton rather than loose in a box.
No. Mallets damage the tuning and, struck hard, the structure of the note itself. They belong to tongue drums, which are a different instrument. On a handpan your hands are the tool, and hitting it harder doesn't make it louder, it makes it duller. The box has a stand, a bag, a rim guard and a care kit in it instead.
That's the normal case here, and it's less of an obstacle than you'd think. A handpan is one of the few instruments where the first hour already sounds like music, because the scale does the work that theory would do elsewhere. One thing worth knowing before you start: for the first two weeks your strike will be uneven and some notes will sound dull. You'll wonder whether something's wrong with the instrument. Nothing is. It's your hands, and it settles.