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handpan= hand played pan

And thats it!

If the name was handsteelpan would lend to missunderstanding, but I think the short form handpan is good enough.

I think this is well stated. The word 'Pan' was used by Trinidad to describe their instrument because (I'm assuming) it looked like a pan - an solid curved surface. So it's a root word that Trinindad used that applies to shape and carries forward to the Hang, Halo, Bellarts Bell and Caisa.

Now, there is a significant distinciton betwen the instruments that have a resonating helmholtz cavity which makes them functionally and visually very differnt. But there doesn't seem to be a simple way to refer to it.

Perhaps Porthole UFO HandPan could be used?

=)

As I wrote pan is commonly used as short form for steelpan. So "hand played pan" and "hand played steelpan" are identical.

Ix

As I wrote, the roots are in shape, and are identical and applicable. Pan is not a commonly used term for the instrument (outside of Trinidad). So it is not an indentical extentional leap.

No. Not only to shape. Every term has a history and when it is right that in the beginning the shape was the main connotation, today Pan relates to much more than a shape. Pan stands for an instrument and its culture.

The Hang has a connection to the pan (=steelpan) in its history and in the basic physical principals of sound production. Therefor, if you use Pan in association with the Hang, Pan means Pan in its full meaning of the instrument steelpan and its culture.

To use pan in its basic meaning (German: Pfanne), a pan to make a fried egg, it isn't appropriate to describe the Hang. Then we should better use wok or Weber grill.

Handwebergrill

Ix

The web is not the authority to learn about the use of a technical term.
If someone don't know the term Pan for the instrument that americans called wrongly steeldrum, then he only shows that he is not good informed about the topic steelpan.
It isn't a good reason to use a term inadequate only because a majority is clueless about its meaning. If it was a good reason you could use many technical term in inadequate ways because there are thousands of technical terms that are unknown by the majority.

Ix

I agree.

I haven't been following this debate to closely, but reading it quickly now something is clear to me, that maybe is worth sharing.

In another life I was a student of pragmatics -- the branch of linguistics interested in language as it used by living speakers, not as a "formal system" to determine its rigid rules.

What I noticed happens "every time." When people debate naming, everyone (me too) brings their own conscious and unconscious "philosophy of language" to the debate. If you have not studied or thought about these things, this is easy to do unconsciously. (Philosophy of language is itself a subject of long and fierce debate -- flame warms before there was an internet! )

My own perspective comes from my study of pragmatic linguistics. In that domain, we do not say that names "have a meaning" or that they are "correct." We only examine how they are used by speakers.

This is not to say that this usage cannot be judged or analyzed or found more or less common, and more or less useful. Or put another way: there is not some "truth" behind words that they are "merely" referring to, more or less well.

The pragmatic linguist look at words a tools that people use to communicate. This changes the questions that you ask, from is this name "correct," to others like, is this term useful? How widely is it used? Does it serve a role in vocabulary that was not already occupied? How has its use changed over time? etc...

I mention this as I have just read several statements like, "Handpan means ____", followed by discussion about whether or not it is thefore proper, respectful, "correct," and so on.

Actually, as a pragmatist, I can already say, "handpan" only and already means what we all are already *using* it to mean. It is defined *externally* by what we are "pointing at" when we use it, not as a result of its "internal logic" or historical construction.

In other words, regardless of where the word comes from etymologically (and historically), handpan does not essentially "mean" something about Trinidad, or even about the Hang only.

It is simply a word we already now use a a community, because it is useful for us to use it that way.

To put that plainly, "handpan" means what we objectively are already *using* it to mean. It is a new general term for both an original category-creating object (the Hang), and now the other objects that were created in its wake by people aware of it.

This is not to say obviously that everyone in our loose "community" is already "on board." I do understand that some people do not *like* the term, or think that it is is not-ideal because it could be construed to imply things that are wrong, about the objects we mean.

But those are personal issues. Of course, each person can decide them for themselves. But ultimately these individual reservations, or choices not to use the word, will have no impact when the majority goes on using the consensus terminology. Our grandchildren will all say "handpan"... I will put money on it.

Indeed, even *Felix* can say, "the Hang is not a handpan," and even though I sympathetically understand him to mean, "the Hang is not [only] a steel pan played by the hands" (etc.), I (and most of the rest of us) will cheerfully continue to call the Hang (and Halo, and Caisa, and Bell, and...) a handpan.

And we aren't "wrong," because that is not what I (or my community) mean when we use the word.

We mean something else. We mean only and already, handpan means "those things" (pointing at the Halo, Hang, and Bell and...).

Please understand me. It is *not* disrespect to say that it a matter of fact that Felix cannot control, or define, the truth of my statement, "the Hang is a handpan." It is just the way the world (and word) actually works.

No one person, not even he or Sabina, makes a language.

As creators he and Sabina named the Hang, that's another matter. They were the first to produce the Hang and then show it to the world, and they had that rare opportunity to say, "This is a ____".

But as it is clear that neither they nor anyone else think it is appropriate to extend that name to other instruments not made by then, there was a "hole" or empty spot in the vocabulary.

Nature abhors a vacuum. A word was coined to fill the hole. It's now fit into it, like a jigsaw piece.

So, I feel very safe in saying that the debate is really already over.

Handpan has won; that's not opinion, or partisanship, just observation.

If I am correct, what now?

Well, our task, IMHO, should be simply to be clear with one another, and with other people, about what handpan actually means -- NOT a "steel pan from Trinidad played with the hands" or something. To recap, Handpan means what we already know it to mean: the new sound-sculpture / instrument named the Hang, and other instruments that take inspiration from it.

Notice, that we already intuit by consensus what it does *not* mean. It does not include metal tongue drums like the HAPI for example.

But, it is still a "fuzzy" term. Me, I think the more interesting and "alive" (i.e. still mutable and not yet inevitable) question is, is the Caisa a handpan?

Both a broad definition and narrow definition, which would include and exclude it respectfully, make sense to me, I'm happy to await consensus.

IMHO the Caisa today is more of a "dwarf planet" like Pluto, and only the Hang, Bell and Halo are (widely known) handpans. (Blackbells seems dead, yes? Wonder what happened to those prototypes.) So maybe I would say, the Caisa is similar to a handpan, or a partial handpan, But I can be convinced the other way -- the subject is still open.

Three cheers for singing handpans!

aaron

Hi,

http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?la ... n+trinidad

This says also nothing.

Frank

Okay, let me join your practical view on terms, aaron. You say: When something is named by a majority with a special term, then this term "means" this thing.

So, why do you think, a majority used the term Handpan?

The term only exists becaus Danny named a subforum in the hang-music forum "Other Handpan developments".

Only a few forum members use this term. I'm sure, if Danny would rename that subforum and we would agree to call that instruments "Handwebergrills", the term handpan would vanish in a few months.

So: This topic is set up by Funky to think about wether Handpan is a good term and not. If the few main visited Internet sites would agree not to use handpan and use another term instead, the handpan would be forgotten.

Only a practical view on terms.

Ix

And here is another nice comparison:
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?la ... 2=steelpan
Steelpan is almost as often known as steeldrum.

And this shows, that only an extreme minority knows the term handpan:
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?la ... eber+grill

Ix

Hi,

this is what I think, also. Kyle Cox has decided to call the Hang, Halo a Handpan...
Danny used this also as a Subforum topic. The result is, that people begin to use this name.

Yes, it sounds on the first flashiness view like a good name. It is maybe more easy to take this name?
No. I think that Kyle do a mistake with this name. We have to look more carefully, what the story behind Pan is.
Pan=Steelpan. So , the Halo is a Hand played steelpan? I cant agree.

Frank

More practical handpan researchs:

Google for "handpan" and "hand pan" and you will find: The Hang-Music Forum subforum "New hand pan development" on the second or first place and than only very rare other findings.

The Hang-Music Forum is almost the only place where this term is used by a few users.

So if only Danny would decide to use another term, it would replace the term "handpan" in a very short time.

Ix

We can go around and around and around... But in the end, people visiting the "handpan" subforum knows what is refered to. I bet that if you call the subforum "Handwebergrills" people get lost in the name and nobody knows whats that forum.

I said the name "handpan" is good to me, and don´t bring to my head the steelpans of Trinidad&Tobago, or that culture, it brings to me a convex instrument played with hands.
but if you think you have a better name, then make a proposition, I`m still waiting to read a new name for the family...

The point taken by Aaron about the Caisa is a good point. In my mind, I`ll include it in the same family. Its true the resonance chamber is part of the other three instruments, but that is in my head another subfamily (resonating hanpan?)

I hope you understood that the "Handwebergrill" was a joke. Insert a meaningful term instead.



I assume this is because you as a single person are not familiar with the Pan as term for the steelpan. But your single association cannot be the measure for the decision what term should be used for the discussed group of instruments.

Did you ever see a convex pan? I didn't. Wok would be nice. So let us call it Handwoks (joke!)



This is a good proposal. Let us use this topic to find a better term. I will think about. But all others are invited to do too.

Ix

Hi,

on some discussions this is maybe true. But here we have just opened a discussion for the first time (as i know) and what we have are the first different views...
We are not going in circles, only because we have a few different sentiments.
I hear all the arguments and think about it, and hope that other people do the same.

If this is "going around and around" any discussion in the world is meaningless.

Frank

When I first encountered the Hang in 2003 at WOMAD festival, one of the lowhang tuned to a very bright mixolydian sounding scale, I described it to my friends as 'the carribean in a UFO'.
Problem solved?

A Hang or Halo or Bell.

I would not rule out using the term "pan," even if that previously and traditionally has meant something else. "Hand" modifies it (accurately) to indicate something else. A traditional steel pan is not played with the hands (and can not be played effectively in that manner).

Many, many words have multiple meanings, which might be much more different than a steel pan and a Hang. People understand, usually, from context.

An electric guitar is still a guitar, and it is quite different from a classical guitar.

Have to disagree Ix.

I agree completely with the idea that the term was originally arbitrary, and had only a few popularizers. "If Danny [and Kyle] had USED a different term, it would have replaced..." is true.

But I disagree that it is STILL arbitrary and still (easily) replacable now.

It is very unlikely someone will come up with a better name, first -- but second, it is even more unlikely that anyone could muster the social capital necessary to get "handpan" users to switch!

And it would be (already is) an issue of "social capital" that would be required, not logic or reason -- for better and for worse!

Some people MAY have that capital. Hypothetically, if Felix or Sabina weighed in right now with an impassioned plea, and offered a usable alternative, they might be able to make a difference.

But none of us mortals can, neither me nor Frank nor Kyle... because the herd is already in motion, and it's totally unlikely anyone is going to convince enough members of the herd to make a difference. (Me included!)

If there are few Google hits, it because there are very few people who spend too much time talking about these things online -- only us! The herd is very small. But it is as we all know, as hard to herd as cats, and full of strong opinions.

It seems the only thing people are really debating is the inclusion of "pan" in handpan.

The reason it's there is obvious -- because the Hang was invented when considering the steel pan, and because PANArt used the word pan in their name.

Whether or not the Hang is a "steel pan" is a question I do not have knowledge to say, but it certainly seems from the more informed people here that the answer is no, not least because the word "steel pan" (or "pan" in its own community) already has a community using it.

But we in this small community here, who are basically the only ones talking about the philosophy of these things, as far as I know!, are perfectly free to use "pan" in a related but different way.

In this different community, a couple people in high-profile or high-impact positions (Kyle and Danny, for example) started using this new word "hanpan" and it has quickly attracted other uses (like me, and Synthi). As I said before, a word was needed, and this one seemed on the face of it good.

The word already was being used by others in one way.

That's fine. There is no conflict in using this word the way we are using it, differently.

"Pan" can be a different word, and a different thing, to different communities. In sound engineering it is short for "panorama." In cooking it is the flat pot someone would like to hit me on for posting too much on these forums. And so on...

Our usage is a logical and historical extension of, but not identical to the steel pan community's.

Again... that's fine.

If we talk to a steel pan maker, or player, etc., they will probably be able to infer what we mean. We're not going to be calling a Halo a "pan," anyway.

It's all good.

--

Frank, I need to address something you said, as you seem to have missed my point.

When Kyle or I say "the Halo is a handpan," we are NOT saying "the Halo is a steel pan played with the hands."

The whole point of my post above is that -- regardless of its history -- that is not what handpan means in that sentence.

Handpan, as used by Kyle, or Danny, or me, means ONLY the things we the community have already agreed it means, referentially: a Hang or Halo or Bell or other instruments of similar nature.

(Another way of saying this is that the word handpan is best defined by the objects it extends to, extrinsically that is, not by some internal logic.)

As I said, the boundaries of this word's usage have yet to be defined.

But the core meaning is totally clear, and useful, right now.

Again: my whole point is that the utility of the word, and its appropriateness, is essentially already independent of either the history of the word (who coined it, popularized it, uses it) and its component parts, like "pan" which is causing all this debate.

If someone wants to spell it "handpann," or a "handpkan, silent k," because it is upsetting to have the word "pan" appear... I at least will know what you mean.

aaron

PS there is a long history of instruments, and instrument families, having oddly evolved names which we now take for granted.

Do you know where "piano" and "cello" came from in English? Check it out.

My point being that no one minds them...

...it will be the same with "handpan," which is already much more accurately descriptive...!

yes IX, I know you was joking about the "Handwebergrills"!

I wanted to point that the name "handpan" is instant recongnized and associated with a Hang and the other members.

Funky, when I think we go around and around I mean that its a good name for me and I`m not to change my mind. This discussion (for now) seem a IX and Funky vs the world, so at this point I think the only exit is offer another option, another name that is good for everyone.

From the begining of this topic, I see a negative (in the sense of negation) attitude, is like "I think chocolate is not good", thats all.
Well, would be better saying: "I don´t like chocolate, people you must taste vanilla!"

Why not a poll!?

Here are some ideas

EllipSound
LidBox
SoniCircle
SoundBox
HarmonicDiscus
HarmoniCircle
Fifthound (said with a lisp)

They all sound like brand names though. And I want credit!