As a veteran steelpan enthusiast (23 years), it is disheartening to say the least, that there is apparently a Handpan Mafia in existence which collectively, whether willfully or not, has conspired to remove the handpan from the traditional steelpan family of which it is a descendant. In the process, they have essentially on the whole, emerged from out of the shadows and have now basically cornered the handpan market. They simultaneously charge exorbitant, over-inflated prices for instruments which only maintain their over-inflated valuation due to an essentially uninformed, easily led, and non-musically oriented buyers market.
Allow me to expand.
The handpan is an instrument that has a wide appeal on a viral level due to its inherent simplicity musically speaking. In terms of the actual playing of notes, with 8-9 notes tuned in one lonely scale, it is nearly impossible to hit a wrong note with most handpan tunings. Percussion and finger techniques aside, virtually anyone with no musical background can play a handpan and make relatively decent music, which in turn, allows handpan players to present themselves as musicians fairly easily.
The handpan's user-friendly nature is one of the great keys to the handpan's wide appeal and strong demand. The other great key being the mellow sound, which is a distinct steelpan sound.
In the previous blog post, I noted how it is easier for a traditional steelpan tuner to tune a handpan than it is for a traditional handpan tuner to tune a traditional steelpan. The same can be said with regard to players of traditional steelpans and players of handpans.
A traditional pannist with no prior knowledge of the handpan will be able to play a handpan more effectively than a handpan player who attempts to play a traditional steelpan with no prior knowledge of the steelpan. This is due to the fact that traditional steelpans are generally chromatic instruments with some, like the tenors and double seconds, double tenor and quadrophonics, containing more than 3 full octaves.
As the level of playing difficulty varies so immensely between traditional steelpans and handpans, traditional steelpans are usually not appealing to handpan enthusiasts simply due to the fact that the user-friendly nature of the handpan is not present in the traditional steelpan per say. While it may take a new handpan player a few months to become proficient in playing the handpan, it generally takes at least a few years for a new traditional pannist to become proficient with the instrument
Additionally, on the flip side of the coin, handpans are of little to no interest to traditional steelpan enthusiasts, many of whom consider the handpan a ''boring'' instrument due to its severe limitations musically speaking.
Therefore it is evident, that these two markets rarely intersect for these reasons.
It is safe to say that many of first time handpan owners or expectant owners have little to no musical background. Unlike most buyers of traditional steelpans, who most likely already know how to play the pan and have a musical background before they purchase one. Many traditional steelpan buyers already play the instrument in a band, but would like to own their own instrument.
The handpan basically allows a musical novice to present him or herself as a musician without the years of training that usually is required to play a chromatic instrument such as a traditional steelpan, while at the same time ''passing'', if I may call it that, as a ''decent'' musician.
It is precisely here that the Handpan Mafia has realized a golden opportunity and has undoubtedly seized upon it.
The first step in the Handpan Mafia's consolidation and cornerning of the market, especially at the high-end, was and is the continuing implication that the handpan is somehow a unique instrument. It is certainly not. The distinction of being a unique musical instrument DOES belong to the traditional steelpan however!
This is evident to me on a near daily basis, as the many people who see me play pan ask me if I am playing a ''hang''! So it is quite clear to me that in some parts of the world at least, many people do not even know of the traditional steelpan, but are aware of the handpan.
As far as we at KaribPAN are concerned, it is the duty of every handpan maker to acknowledge the Caribbean origin of the handpan instrument, instead of marketing it as a unique Swiss (European) invention by implication or otherwise. I may also point out that no members of the Handpan Mafia are from the Caribbean, neither do they have Caribbean backgrounds. In sum, this makes them cultural misappropriators at the very least.
The second tactic the Handpan Mafia uses is the patenting of names related to the steelpan, which lends further credibility to the lie whether by implication, intention or both, that the handpan is a unique invention!
Thirdly, online discussion forums for handpan enthusiasts are operated and funded by this Handpan Mafia to highlight other Handpan Mafia affiliated outifits while virtually blacklisting or censoring discussions about their competition on the Mafia-owned forums. Competition which consists of basically more than 90% of the other handpan makers on the market. This Handpan Mafia is even content to refer to themselves as a ''Family'' of all things, while all other makers who are not aligned with them are outsiders or non-''Family'' by default.
The mean spirited, selfish nature of this behavior of the Handpan Mafia is quite obvious to anyone who loves the steelpan and engages in the business of pan out of pure love for the instrument. These malicious tactics only serve to segregate, and ultimately isolate the handpan into a classification of its own, which is the Handpan Mafia's desired result. Unfortunately for them however, they can never ultimately succeed in transforming the handpan into a ''unique'' instrument because they cannot rewrite history at this early stage in the life of steelpan. Steel pan has not even reached its 100th year of existence, so it is still a relatively modern instrument whose history is still being written to this day by the thousands of traditional pannists today who keep the steelpan tradition and culture alive, as well as new handpan players currently discovering the instrument!
Undoubtedly however, the ''new'' culture of the handpan community is radically different than the culture that historically emanates from the traditional steelpan community, which brings me to my next post where we will compare and contrast the culture of the Handpan and the culture of the traditional steelpan!
Maybe I will post more about this phenomenon of the Handpan Mafia at a later date. However, this literal corruption, misrepresentation and misappropriation in the industry has encouraged my partners and I to offer very reasonably priced, high quality options on the market.
At KaribPAN we pride ourselves in conductingthe business of pan in a socially responsible and ETHICAL manner.
for your information, i have thousands of people waiting or wanting to have an instrument from me, unfortunately most of them will never have the possibility to have one, so cut the crap about me trying to advertise anything, you jumped on a wrong guy here. i need nothing from the market.
the only parasite here is you! why you dont stay on the steelpan arena as you claim it’s so superior?
you yourself is comig to the field all packed an ready market needing a product, dont feed me bullshit about ethics and etc.
obviously it’s hard to sell a steelpan these days, so you switch to the “handpan” instead, thinking you know everything, making statements that you can no even justify, not even by your own results of work.
nothing bad about your actions, except one thing: you dont believe in it! you dont believe in Hang, pantam or handpan, you criticize it, you criticize the player, but yet you are trying to replicate one and get you share of market.
this is completely dishonest deep within.
open your eyes, heart and most of all EARS!!!
Victor Levinson, as I am posting from a KaribPAN website and work for KaribPAN, I will post as long or as little as I want. I am even at liberty to allow an obvious TROLL such as yourself a platform to promote your self proclaimed ’’masterpieces’’.
Here is my challenge to you: Go to anyone of the Handpan Mafia owned/affiliated websites and post on their forums about your self-proclaimed ’’masterpiece’’ and post the link here so we can see the responses you get!
Ready, set, GO!
STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT BLOG POST:
The Radically Different CUltures between the Traditional Steel Pan Communities & the Handpan Communities!
i dont need to assume anything, enough is too take a look at your youtube channel.
you have to be deaf or a hard believer not to notice what is wrong with your instrument and how really bad it is. if you want me to continue and explain this in details, i can fo that in personal message or publice, as you wish.
but i have one thing to ask though, can you please make your answers shorter and just save the main important message please?
Victor Levinson, where are all of your satisfied customers? And you are making a lot assumptions here. The tuner who tunes our handpans is 70 years old and has 40 years of tuning experience. He is your literal elder and the way in which you spread lies about his work is malicious and self serving at the very least.
its one thing to use my viral blog post in order to try to promote yourself and your self proclaimed ’’masterpiece’’, but it is another thing to claim that this so called ’’masterpiece’’ of yours stands heads and shoulders above any KaribPAN handpan!
So show us the beef! Show us satisfied customers and 100% positive feedback ratings like we can show, and then you can have some credibility. But your name does not ring a bell, but if you wanna try to make a name for yourself on the back of KaribPAN to our detriment, go ahead and try!
and you also remind me of those old, ’’Where’s the beef?‘’ burger king commercials from from the 80’s. I just do not see what the fuss is all about. All I see in you Victor, is another cultural misappropriator to tell you the honest truth. A cultural misappropriator who has an obvious lack of respect for masters is the field which you are trying to break into on the back of our hard work. So essentially, that makes you a parasite as well.