LUNA HANDPAN FAQ
Frequently asked questions
The LUNA is meant to be a more "feminine" and "softer" version of the Handpan.
It is consciously desigend to be very responsive, and playable with very little force,
compared to many other Handpans. The main features of the LUNA are as follows:
Smooth, hand-shaped, and unpressed tonefield geometry
This tuning style, also known as “borderless tuning,” completely eliminates the pre-pressing of the tonefields.
Unlike the conventional construction method, which uses tonefield-molds, hydraulic presses or pneumatic hammers, the tonefields of the LUNA are shaped entirely by hand-hammers.
The gently curving surface, where tension is applied from the inside of the tonefield, enables a particularly smooth responsive and sensitive playing.
Flatter Overall Geometry
Well over 90% of all handpans today are built using shell blanks—and thus the geometry—from the same major handpan suppliers (Ayasa, Gomba, Mr.Pans, etc.).
To build my own handpan, however, I designed custom shell blanks for the LUNA, which are specially crafted by a small artisanal workshop in Germany.
Unlike standard handpans, the LUNA—measuring just under 20cm by 52 cm in diameter—is significantly flatter than other handpans.
This geometry works in tandem with the design of the tone fields, creating a more fluid overall aesthetic and making the tone fields on the opposite side of the player easy to reach.
Even the large LUNA Full Moon model, with a diameter of 60 cm, can be played effortlessly as a result—something that would be difficult with the standard curvature.
Custom Scales
The LUNA is built using its own predominantly heptatonic—that is, complete—scales with no missing intervals.
These scales, which largely correspond to the classical church modes and scales, cover as broad a spectrum of atmosphere and “mood” as possible.
The associations with female mythological figures are purely personal and arbitrary, making no claim to any “objective” truth.
Nevertheless, I have made effort to ensure that the associations align with the story and character of the female deities.
For example, the Dorian mode, named “ANTHEIA” after the Greek goddess of spring and flowers, has a distinctly cheerful character, whereas the Locrian mode, named “LILITH,” tells a significantly more dramatic story.
The LUNA features several tunings that are unique to the handpan world and cannot be found elsewhere, such as “LILITH” or “CIRCEA.”
Other tunings, on the other hand, correspond to more common ones, such as “ISHTAR,” which corresponds to the widely used “D-Kurd.”
Off-center resonance hole and inverted dimple for the central note (Ding)
Unlike the standard design, which features a dome on the central note and a symmetrical resonance hole on the lower shell, I build the LUNA with what is known as an “Inpex” dimple—that is, an inwardly offset dome—just like the Chorus.
This underscores the non-percussive character of the LUNA, which is conceived as a “more feminine” and “softer” representative of the handpan world.
Thanks to the off-center resonance hole, the LUNA can also be played while standing, which is not possible with a central opening, as this would be covered when the instrument is set down.
Furthermore, with this design, the LUNA respects the copyright legally granted to PANArt for its sound sculpture, the “HANG.”
Surface finished with Japanese lacquer (Urushi)
Probably the most striking difference from conventional handpans is the finish using traditional Japanese Urushi lacquer.
This lacquer, derived from the sap of the lacquer tree (a member of the sumac family), is a pure natural product that gives the LUNA its distinctive finish.
The unique properties of this lacquer—unlike those of conventional synthetic lacquers such as acrylic lacquers—make it uniquely suited to adorn an instrument.
Since Japanese lacquer is a very extensive topic in its own right, you’ll find more information on this in a separate section below.
The LUNA is handcoated with genuine traditional japanese Urushi-Laquer, a 100% natural laquer harvested from the laquer tree.
With Urushi you no longer touch a metallic surface when playing LUNA, but an organic one.
Urushi - The origins
Urushi is the Japanese word for laquer that is derived from the sap of the paint tree " Rhus Verniciflua Stokes ".
For more than 3000 years this organic natural lacquer has been used for the production and decoration of art and utensils in the entire Chinese-Asian region.
Over thousands of years, Japanese craftsmen in particular have brought this art form to its full potential and developed thousands of techniques and methods of varnishing, most of which are very complex and time-consuming and are still carried out today in the same way as then.
Harvesting
As an organic varnish, of purely natural origin, Urushi is still harvested by hand from the varnish tree today.
The profession of lacquer harvesting ("Urushi - Kaki") is an independent profession in Japan.
One working day a Kakiko ("scratcher" - "harvester") can harvest about 2 liters of raw varnish from 150 trees - that corresponds to less than 15 ml per tree on average. The working time for this is 15 hours per day.
This in combination with the long refining process ("kurome & nayashi"), in which the water concentration is reduced from 30% to 3% and the various varnish substances are homogenized after filtering, is the main reason for the high price of Urushi.
The price of Urushi varies greatly due to many different varieties that vary depending on harvest time, place, composition.
High quality Japanese Uruhsi is between gold and silver in gram price, which makes it a very valuable material and the most precious lacquer available.
Processing
In recent years Urushi has defied all attempts, to modernise its processing (for example by air pistols or other tools, or the acceleration of the complicated hardening process, which is not a drying process but an enzymatic hardening process, failed completely), as it is not a single pure chemical substance with clearly defined physical properties.
Even today, the only possible application is the traditional one that has been used for hundreds of years.
Urushi is applied by hand with special high-quality brushes (traditional Japanese brushes consist of fine Japanese woman's hair) in many wafer-thin layers, each of which must be completely hardened.
Various additives, which are also 100% natural and of high quality, such as balsam pine terpentine, orange oil and camellia oil are used.
These are used for thinning, polishing or cleaning the brushes.
While Japanese masters often use between 30 and 100 layers of lacquer in very decorative styles - e.g. the Maki-E "gold picture" - a very decorative style where gold powder is sprinkled on the still wet varnish to create images - apply, for sound reasons, only simple painting techniques with a considerably thinner layer thickness are used for the LUNA Handpan.
These create a completely smooth, calm surface from which the sound can emerge unbroken.
Even after 10+ years of working with Urushi, the fascination about the possibilities and depth this material offers, and the craftsmanship experience its processing requires, does not diminish.
Physical properties of Urushi
LUNA-Handpans are the world's first and for the time being only Handpans painted with Urushi.
Since Urushi is still largely unknown to the general public in our European culture, I would like to inform you a little about its properties and effects on the sound of Handpans.
In contrast to synthetic varnishes, which are not suitable for the coating of a Handpan, as they dampen the sound considerably, Urushi has physical properties, which predestine it for use on ideophonic steel instruments such as the handpan.
The effect of these properties can be seen above all in the overtones and the clear, long sustain of the LUNA:
- The hardness. Urushi achieves a hardness of 5.5 on the Mohs scale when properly cured, which is almost as hard as glass.
Converted, this is about 600 kp/mm2 on the Vickers scale.
For comparison: nitrided steel only has a Vickers hardness of approx. 400 kp/mm2 !
- During hardening Urushi remains permanently flexible, which is of great importance for the Handpan and its sound.
The average modulus of elasticity of Urushi is between 1000 and 2000 MPs with a tensile strength of about 40MPs.
This in combination with an elongation at break of approx. 5.8% makes it suitable not only for the coating of Handpans, but also after the varnish application, warranties a problem-free tuning.
- Urushi is chemically highly resistant when cured.
It is absolutely resistant to water, alcohol as well as acids (hand perspiration!) and bases, and thus offers ideal protection for the Handpan.
- In addition to these scientific properties, however, the beauty in optics and haptics weighs particularly heavily.
The LUNA is built in 12 different "archetypes" or core scales.
Each of these 12 basic tunings is a associated to a mythological goddess.
Why the naming after goddesses and only 12 scales?
Since I have a personal fascination and great interest in the female entities & goddesses of the myths of old, I link to this inspiration with the LUNA-scales.
But there are also more reasons for this.
First of all, it is a response to the ever increasing confusion surrounding the subject of "Handpan Scales".
The feedback I receive from people who often have great problems to find and choose their Handpan scale reflects this confusion.
Many people without a background in music theory are simply overwhelmed by the multitude of different scale designations and sound models that exist for handpans, especially since there are many very similar moods where only e.g. only one tone differs - but which still have the same core character.
Furthermore, the names of common handpan scales, like the "Anna Ziska", the "C-Amara" or the "Kurd" are no music-theoretical "real" names - this would be for the Kurd and many others e.g. the so called "aeolian minor".
But what seems even more important to me personally is that they give no hint about the sound character, or the feeling, the "heart" of the mood.
Names like "Anna Ziska" "Kurd" or "Amara" do not indicate whether the mood is happy or cheerful, whether the mood is calm or lively - they are completely meaningless for people without any background in music theory.
And even for people with a background in music theory, the name says nothing about the interval characteristic or the gender of the sound.
For example, the name "C-Amara" simply says nothing about the mood, neither that it is an Aeolian minor, with classical minor ore, nor that it creates a slightly melancholic but nevertheless balanced mystical atmosphere or energy.
The 12 core scales of the LUNA - and the naming after the mythological goddesses and their archetypal associations is therefore an attempt to convey the "root" or "heart" of the different scales in a way that is understandable to everyone - in order to offer fewer, but better distinguishable and characteristically clear moods for the LUNA.
If you are faced with the challenge of having to decide on a handpan tuning, this association and naming can reduce a big hurdle.
Whoever deals with the mythological figure or goddess LILITH, or reads the descriptions and associations on my tuning sheet will immediately notice that the mood named after her must have a completely different character than the mood named after the goddess ANTHEIA.
For LILITH, in her role as Adam's first wife, who rebelled against her husband's dominance in paradise and - since she knew the "Word of Power" - could not be tamed even by God, has a much more dramatic role than ANTHEIA, the shy Greek goddess of plants and flowers, whose main trait is tenderness and her look and respect for even the smallest and most delicate flowers and beings.
The former symbolizes the urge for freedom - the courage and strength to rebel against hierarchies - even against the command of the highest God - and to follow one's own heart, which in the Abrahamic religions eventually led to their demonization and association with demonic forces.
The latter, on the other hand, symbolizes tenderness and the power of the small and weak, mindfulness and compassion.
Admittedly, the associations of moods with the goddesses are subjective and to a certain extent arbitrary and reflect only my own impressions and feelings. Someone else might not feel the same associations and would not agree with my attributions and designations - a subjectivity that I consciously accept.
Last but not least there is another important point why I build the LUNA only in my own moods, and this is the sound quality.
The LUNA tunings are all specially designed for the LUNA, the shell geometry, size, material and tuning style are all variables that influence the choice of scale, the placement of the start intervals, the tone field orientation relative to each other, etc.
For these reasons it is not possible (or should not be possible) to simply take over a certain scale as it is found on a handpan from any manufacturer and transfer it 1:1 to your own handpan without deeper consideration.
Are the LUNA Moods something new that you have invented?
Partly not partly yes.
Some of them are neither new nor invented, although they have been modulated in such a way that they can be built on the LUNA with the highest possible sound quality.
In fact, some of the LUNA tunings are very old tunings and ancient Greek modes, (Tonai) like Aeolian ("typical D minor", "kurd", "enigma" etc.) Lydian, Ionic Phrygian etc.
Another part of the LUNA scales, is not found in European music culture, but originate from Japanese / Chinese culture, and yet others are actually freely "invented", although this does not mean that this tuning, as an interval combination, did not occur somewhere else before.
So the LUNA tunings are nothing completely new - in the handpan world however a special feature.
One of the main features of the LUNA scales is the use of also pure intonation as opposed to the most commonly used modern midrange temperament. This ensures that all intervals are tuned very clearly and purely and the internal resonance is significantly increased. Although I will try to keep the explanation simple, we will have to dive a little into music theory to fully understand this: First of all, we have to understand that scales are never defined by notes - they are defined by a certain combination of interval steps (which can then be represented by notes). So what is an interval? Well, let's pick any frequency as a fundamental - just imagine a plain string, like a guitar string or another. It doesn't matter how long this string is, but for simplicity's sake we assume it's 1 meter long. So this is our basic frequency - or the tonic of our scale.
Imagine now, we take a finger and pluck this string - it will start to vibrate as follows (in reality it vibrates in many more ways, but these are irrelevant to us at first) and emit a tone. Our fundamental - let's say it is a C3.
We can now define this frequency in a simple mathematical term as 1 or - we will need this later - as a ratio of 1/1 equal to 1.
Based on this, we now create our first interval step, which is one of the most important: the octave. The octave sounds like exactly the same note - but a "step" above our foundation, and it has twice the vibration frequency as our fundamental. On our string, the octave would fibrillate so and can be mathematically defined as the double frequency, tso 2 ( 2x1) or the ratio: 2/1
So now we have our base frequency, with the ratio 1/1, of which we said it was C3 (but it could be any other note) and we have our octave, which is the ratio 2/1 and thus a C4. These are the limits within which we create a scale. Everything that goes above or below these octaves is just a repetition that we don't have to worry about now. So let us take the second most important interval, which is the fifth. The fifth is perceived as a very pleasant interval step and is so important that the entire Western 12-note system is based on it, namely on the quint-layering. On our string, the fifth would vibrate as follows: To make the fifth sound, we would have to shorten our string, for example, like a guitar player shortens a string when he picks it off with his finger. This should be done in the ratio 3/2, which is the ratio of the pure fifth:
In our example of the C3, the fifth with the ratio 3/2 would be G4. Starting from here, the chromatic scale of Western music was constructed, which places fifths on fifths. So let's start from C and look for the fifth of it, the G. If we repeat this step and look for the fifth to the G, we come to the D. On the keyboard of the piano, we always move 7 semitones to the right. We can also calculate the ratio of this D. This is done simply by multiplying the G -> 3/2 by another fifth step, i.e. 3/2, and then going an octave lower. It looks like this: 3/2 x 3/2 = 9/4 Now that we have exceeded the octave point, however, we must lower the result by one octave so that we are again within the correct octave and thus receive the D as the second after the C. For this we have to divide the result by the ratio of the octave we said to be 2/1: 9/4: 2/1 = 9/4 x 1/2 = 9/8 The perfect D, as derived from the quint layering, would therefore have a ratio of 9/8. In our drawing its oscillation would look like this:
And here is how those frequencys would vibrate differently on our string: the tonic - octave - fifth - the second
Now that we understand this, we can see how the 12 notes are created in Western music - they are all created as a fifth from the fifth from the fifth from the fifth from the fifth.... here is the complete series of fifths that begins with C, followed by the fifth of C = G followed by the fifth of G = D etc.. C -> G -> D -> D -> D -> A -> E -> E -> B -> Gb -> Db -> Ab -> Eb -> Eb -> Bb -> F -> C That is why European music has 12 notes, because after 12 such operations you reach FAST - but only almost - the opening note, the C. And this is where the problem and the various attempts to solve it, such as the mid-tone temperament, begin. Mathematically speaking, the multiplication of fifths is always a multiple of 3/2. Or, if we want to represent the ratio as a decimal number: 3/2 = 1.5 multiples of 1.5. So we have multiples of 1.5 which we can also write as a superscript 1.5^2 ( 1.5 x 1.5). The core problem is that we calculate with the ratio 2/1, i.e. with multiples of 2 ( 2^2 ; 2^3 ; 2^4 etc.) in order to get perfect octaves. But unfortunately these two never fit together perfectly. You can demonstrate this by looking at where a multiplication in octave steps ends after a complete octave: Namely after 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 2^7 (because we created 7 whole tones between one octave) = 128 And here ends the series of multiples of 1.5 ( thus the quint layering ) after 12 steps ( since we produce 12 semitones ): 1,5 x 1,5 x 1,5 x 1,5 x 1,5 x 1,5 x 1,5 x 1,5 x 1,5 x 1,5 x 1,5 x 1,5 x 1,5 = 1,5 ^12 = 129,75 So we have the result 128 once and 129.75 once. As we can see, perfect octaves can never be matched with perfect fifths or interval steps. It seems that we have to decide... perfect octave or perfect intervals... What are the solutions? Well, great thinkers have been thinking about it for centuries, starting with one of the first, Pythagoras, but also Kirnberger, Bach and many other musicians and composers have developed their own suggestions and methods to solve this problem. At the moment we will not go into these like e.g. the Pythagorean tuning or others. Suffice it to say that there are hundreds of different temperaments and tuning methods. ( Alone in Europe - not to mention completely different methods in different cultures! ) The most common type of tuning today to deal with this problem is the so-called mid-tone tempering, which is also the widespread standard for Handpans. We have seen that we end with multiples of perfect fifths at 129.75, while the perfect octave ends at 128. The difference between these two is the so-called "Pythagorean comma" which is calculated as follows: 129.75 - 128 = 1.75 This difference would produce an audible dissonance in the last interval step, or - with perfect intervals - make the octave appear clearly too high. The mid-tone tempering deals with this problem as follows: We take the Pythagorean comma - 1.75 and divide it by 12 - because we have 12 interval steps - and then distribute this error evenly over all intervals. So 1.75 : 12 = 0.145 on each of the 12 interval steps to achieve a perfect octave. This means, for example, if the perfect ratio of e.g. a fifth is 3/2 = 1.5 in the pure tuning. then it is now 1,645 in the mid-tone temperament. A mid-tone fifth is therefore slightly higher and slightly out of tune, in contrast to a pure, perfect fifth. Another example based on the fourth: The ratio of a perfect fourth 4/3 = 1,333 The ratio of a mid-tone quarter = 1.478 To sum up: The Western mid-tone temperament has only one single, truly natural and pure interval, the octave. All other intervals must be somewhat impure and out of tune to fit the octave at the end. Even if the difference seems to be tiny (e.g. from 1.5 to 1.645 for the fifth), it is perceptible to an experienced ear and gives the intervals and especially the chords a restless, impure quality. So far so good. But if the LUNA is tuned purely, then it doesn't fit the octave at the end, does it? Yes she does. The LUNA contains perfect natural octaves in a 2/1 ratio, just like the mid-tone temperament, AND has the perfect intervals in perfect natural ratios, like 3/2 - 4/3 etc. Since the Handpan is not a chromatic instrument with all 12 semitones, it opens up a special possibility for pure tuning. For every LUNA tuning there is a certain mathematical calculation in which the "error interval", also called "Wolf's fifth", is mathematically "compressed" and calculated into a note that simply does not occur in the respective scale! The mathematical error, the non-matching of fifth and octave multiples is shifted until it comes to rest in an interval that does not exist on the instrument. This must be calculated individually for each individual scale on the LUNA tuning list. Again summarized in a few words: All LUNA scales are in pure, natural, perfect intonation. They have both perfect interval steps and perfect octaves, because the Pythagorean comma is calculated for each individual scale so that it does not appear on the instrument. It is not just a mathematical gimmick, because the pure tuning is also naturally perceived by the ear as pure tuning, compared e.g. with the mid-tone temperament. This is the most natural and cleanest tuning possible in the non-chromatic range.
The LUNA is tuned to the international standard-reference of A4=440 Hz.
Recently there has been a social-media and influencer driven trend towards 432 Hz.
Allthough I highly recommand the traditional 440Hz reference, some LUNA models can also be tuned to 432 Hz.
Thoose are:
Ishtar
Artemis
Eira
Antheia
For all other Scales 432Hz would lead to a lower quality of sound and is thus not available.