Hang

[Tony Hardie-Bick]

On 22/11/10 22:03, Tony Scharf wrote:
>> They say they can only make so many, demand is way higher, but they don't want a black market or raise the price.
>>
>
> If these things were really any good, imho, someone would be making
> cheap knockoffs at a fraction of the price.  I really cant imagine
> this thing is harder to play than my sons xylophone, particularly if
> youve got 8 notes in the same key.  its going to be really hard to hit
> a bad one..

This was my initial thought, but, hammering out the metal by hand is different 
from straight casting. Different tensions are setup in different parts of the 
shell, and different velocities of sound propagate in different directions. 
Furthermore, these velocity variations are frequency dependent, so manufacture 
is an art.

The key is not fixed - it's not equal tempered or any other fixed system. The 
notes emerge from the harmonic series that appear differently in each instance 
of the instrument, although these do approximate to familiar notes.

This may not be musically valuable, in the contexts you are thinking about. 
However, if one considers the harmonic structures of the gamelan, which differ 
also in each instance, then, perhaps we get a flavour of what the creators of 
the Hang are hoping to achieve.

In the article which Kai referred to, the makers describe a certain 
disillusionment in the steel drum music makers of Trinidad. At the outset, this 
instrument was an enormous source of pride, and for the people of that part of 
the world, it was symbolic of their ability to create their own culture and 
celebrate it through sound, out of the ashes of a terrible past - much like the 
Blues. Fast forward to today, and one finds that steel bands are sponsored by 
tobacco and drinks companies, and the scene is heavily commercialised and a 
caricature of its former self.

Now... this may not have much currency with members of the music bar, but there 
was a mystical element to the creation of the steel drum, and some of the 
pioneers of this instrument considered their dialogue with sound and timbre, 
through the way in which the instruments were created and regularly tuned, to be 
sacred. As the instrument exploded in popularity and spread throughout the 
world, this naturalistic element has been diluted or entirely lost, and that is 
what the Hang is about. Restoring that balance, and all the extremes of dogma 
that appear to us as rediculous, stem entirely from that belief in sound as 
voice of the spirit of a people discovering freedom.

I'm not saying that such beliefs are correct (I'm with Kurt Gödel on such 
matters). What I'm saying is that those who hold them sincerely, can be respected.

Tony (HB)