Coffee and Handpan drums

Remember last post when I wondered why would anyone imagine me as a grumpy person? Well, on the Saturday, the second day of our 3-day anniversary weekend staycation, I woke up grumpy. Grumpy, grumpy, grumpy pants!

To my credit, I was well aware that I was grumpy, and I didn’t try to blame John for it. I decided to push through. After all, we had a whole weekend of fun stuff planned together! I got up, drank my coffee, and got ready to go on our first planned excursion for the day – the Albuquerque Biopark.

We were halfway to the biopark when John was like, “We really need to figure out what to do about you.” Yeah – my grumpy was showing! So I whined back, “I don’t know? More coffee?” He figured we could get coffee at the biopark, but I was like, “That is not going to work.” And I wasn’t just being grumpy, I was right. The food and drink options at the biopark are abysmal.

So I dragged out my phone and searched for coffee near the biopark and came up with a brand new café on the edge of Old Town called, “Flying Roadrunner Bakery”. https://www.flyingroadrunnerbakery.com/

It was even better than its name. New, spacious and utterly empty except two friendly baristas who handed me little tasting cups of different brews. One of them was out of this world. The brand is New Mexico Piñon Coffee and the flavor is “Biscochito.”

I know those of you who are coffee purists out there are going to put your nose in the air about flavored coffees, but this isn’t the artificial junk you get at conference hotels. This is good! I mean, at least I thought it was good. No, amazing. A-ma-zing!

I don’t usually drink very much coffee because I’m quite sensitive to the caffeine. And I’d already had my little half-cup of coffee that morning. So I ordered a small with the intention of not even drinking all of it, because even a small is three times as much coffee as I usually drink in the morning.

But that coffee was so awesome, next thing I know it was completely gone. Uh, leaky cup maybe? Lol. I was high on coffee.

Meanwhile we were still in Old Town, the coffee was working its magic, and on our way back to the car we came across a street performer just getting set up. He had the most amazing instrument I’ve ever seen in my life. I was transfixed. Was it the handpan or the caffeine surging through my neurons?

Whatever it was, I was entranced.

We went on to the biopark, but all I could think about and talk about was that handpan drum. I was googling it on my phone – what is it? How do I get one? Is it expensive? Can a non-musician learn how to play it?

So yes, it’s a fairly new instrument, based on several other similar types of traditional metal drums. Several companies are currently making them.

I want a real one, not a knock-off from Amazon, so it’s going to set me back about $1,500, which is not unreasonable for a musical instrument. There are also tongue drums, which are similar, a bit quieter, and slightly less expensive.

Here’s a photo (copied from the internet) of a handpan on the left and a tongue drum on the right. The tongue drum actually has cuts in the metal to create the location of the notes. The handpan has dimples.

It’s a good beginner’s instrument. I’ll have to learn how to drum with my hands, and obviously good drumming technique will produce better sound. And the more dexterous I become, the more intricately I’ll be able play.

I’ll also need to get familiar with the notes on my drum. The handpan only has a limited number of notes per instrument. Each handpan is created in a specific scale. Once the handpan is made, that’s the scale it’s in. (Although it will occasionally need to be shipped back to the manufacturer in order to be retuned.)

Because the handpan only offers a limited number of notes, and all the notes are designed to work together, a non-musician can improvise without really messing up. This is good news for me!

I just need to decide what scale of handpan I want to buy. There are a lot of choices! All the different handpan scales sound slightly different. I’ll want to buy one that has a good scale for my purposes and the sound I want to achieve.

A lot of people play handpans slowly for meditation or yoga. I’m not really into the “new age” sound, and prefer faster and more upbeat music. I can imagine using it more like a Caribbean steel drum than something to accompany pan flutes. I would have to get good enough to play in the faster style that I like.

I would also want to buy one with a cheerful, rather than a haunting scale. Typically in Western music, the minor scales are considered more mysterious, melancholy or haunting than the major scales. But after listening to a number of handpans, I’m pretty sure I’d be fine with either a major or a minor scale, as long as it’s a typically Western scale. What I’m going to want to avoid is something that sounds Middle Eastern or Asian. I think I’ll be fine with anything that’s generally Western. I also like the lower notes better, so I’m going to want something tuned fairly low.

Except – and here’s where it gets really complicated – I don’t want a hand pan tuned to the lower 432 hertz rather than the western standard of 440 hertz, because I want to be able to play with friends who have guitars and other common instruments in this country, which are at 440 Hz. Turns out 432 Hz is common for handpans because it gives them a mystical sound that a lot of people want. I don’t want the mystical sound, even though I do want the lower notes, so I’ll get 440 Hz with a low scale, for example, G2.

All right, are your eyes glazing over yet? Of course they are. I lost you at 432 Hz (if not several paragraphs before that). Yeah, I’m smitten. That’s what happens when you fall in love. No one else wants to hear the details!!

Plus, tons more happened on that same day! I’m not even half done with this post yet! I’ll have to stop here and write about the second half of this amazing day in another post.

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