What is the difference between a Handpan & a Tongue Drum?

Maybe we should say "the differences", because there is not just one. Although they were both born in the 21st century, they have many similarities, they are far from being twin brothers.

Although many sites offer you to buy the best Handpans of the market, how to choose between a Tongue Drum and one Handpan, also called Hang Drum ? This is what we are going to explain to you.

Handpan and Tongue Drum are diatonic instruments

percussion instruments, the Tongue Drum and the Handpan are instruments diatoniques, that is, they do not count all the notes of the chromatic scale.

The first difference appears here. The Tongue Drum is a pentatonic or heptatonic instrument, that is, it includes five or seven notes per octave.

The Handpan can also be hexatoni, i.e. have six notes per octave. It is quite rare but since it exists, it is worth pointing out.

Frequency in Handpan and Tongue Drum

The Handpan can be played, depending on the instrument, on two frequencies:

• 440Hz,
• 432Hz.

The Tongue Drum can also be played on these two frequencies.

What consequences does this carry? Quite simply the possibility of playing or not in an orchestra. Indeed, the frequency of 440Hz is the frequency that the italian government chose to impose on all orchestras in 1885. Whereas originally, the standard frequency was 435Hz, and the French frequency, 432Hz.

In other words, if you want to play in an orchestra, you will have to opt for the 440Hz frequency, provided for both instruments. Be aware, however, that there is 432Hz for Handpan & Tongue Drum.

A different game between the Handpan and the Tongue Drum

The Tongue Drum has metal tongues numbered from 1 to 7. Each number corresponds to a note, from C to B. The percussion can be done with the hands or with chopsticks.

Conversely, the Handpan has no numbering and, instead of the metal tongues, there are dimples, called Dimple in English. These dimples each allow a note to be played, but are not marked.

The correctness of the sound of the Handpan depends greatly on the precision with which the maker of the instrument has hammered the metal structure. The Handpan is therefore a more complex instrument to make, but we will come back to this.

A very different size and weight

Size isn't everything, that's the reality of the Tongue Drum, a very heavy little instrument compared to its big brother the Handpan. Indeed, the Tongue Drum can weigh up to 8 kilograms when the Handpan generally only has 5 or even 6 kilograms.

The reason lies in the thickness of the metal used to ensure the sound of these new instruments. The Tongue Drum requires a thicker metal than the Handpan, so it is heavier, but also more resistant.

Dropping a Tongue Drum will not damage the sound quality. On the contrary, if you drop your Handpan, chances are the instrument is out of tune. Why ? Because the Handpan sound rests entirely on the shape of its dome. A deformation, even caused by heat, immediately impacts the accuracy of its notes.

A price difference

Although heavier, the Tongue Drum is about 10 times cheaper than the Handpan. The reason lies in the fact that this instrument requires much less technical skill than that required for making a Handpan.

Indeed, the Handpan cannot be machined, it must be made by hand and not by just anyone. To hammer the dome of a Handpan, so as to give it a form and a sound covering an octave with accuracy, two years of practice are generally necessary.

Therefore, the handpan price is correlated with the technical difficulty to achieve it. To choose between the two instruments, listen to their melody and choose the one you prefer.