Handpan Heaven

We went on a magical adventure yesterday.

It started a month back at the West Wales Sound Healing Centre. Jenni Chapter who owns the Centre with Ali, is a Sound Healer and she very kindly allowed me to play her new handpan.

I have tried handpans before and they have played absolute havoc with my tinnitus and hyperacusis, distorting and actually at times, being painful ... but this handpan of Jenni's, was very different.

It was mellow in tone and seemed to softly caress my ears. There was nothing harsh about even the higher tones and no distortion in my hearing range. My hearing aids coped really well with it.

Jenni told me about Dan at Tala Handpans, who created her drum for her, so I contacted him ...  and yesterday, we pootled down to Frome, where he is based.

I love that Dan is a young man with a passion. Him and his wife have converted the garage into a state of the art studio, where Dan has designed new equipment to ease the making process of handpans. He has sunk his life savings into it.

His passion began many years ago when he fell in love with the instrument. He ordered one and had to wait 2 years for it to be made, which is very common with handpans, and when it arrived, it was not in the key he had wanted. But it was so hard to get hold of a handpan that he accepted it anyway. However, rather than order another one and wait another 2 years, this fuelled his desire to learn how to build handpans himself. It has been a labour of love. 

He has only been building for 3 years and I feel very blessed indeed to find him at this early stage of his career because I have absolutely no doubt that once the world knows where he is and what he can do, he will be in great demand.

I went to his home and he showed me 3 of the handpans that he had created and were ready for sale. This is his dream. To give people a choice of handpans where they can come and connect with the instrument, rather wait for ages and take pot luck.

What was great about this for me in particular,  is that I was able to try them out and see which ones worked best with my hearing conditions. 

For instance, there was one that I knew immediately was not right for me. Imagine if I had gone down the usual route, ordered, waited 2 years and ended up with a handpan my hearing conditions couldn't tolerate. I just would never have taken that risk.

Off course, because Dan is in the process of building a reputation, his prices are currently very reasonable but I can see this changing very soon. My advice is contact him now, before the world finds him.

So, thanks Dan, for sharing your gift with us. 

When I told Dan that I thought pretty soon, everyone will want a Tala Handpan, he rather humbly chuckled and said that he's not very keen on marketing and that it feels like 'Reaching for the Moon.' It really touched me when he said this. 

Yes, living our creative dreams can truly feel as if we are reaching for the moon, but thankfully, I have a strange feeling, that the moon is also reaching for us and when we step fully into what we are meant to be, then all is as it should be.