Hang (pronounced as "hung") a musical instrument developed by PANArt in bern,Switzerland is a Percussion instrument,first created in the year 2000,has some amazing acoustic properties that excite both musicians and physicist's, in order to appreciate the amazing sound of hang here are some videos by amateur and professional musicians.
Hang a very close relation to the Caribbean steel pan, is made of two Deep drawn, Nitrided steel pans brought together to form a UFO shaped object filled with air behaving like a Helmholtz resonator.The inspiration for the hang came when a percussionist looking for new sounds visited PANArt.The instrument is designed in such way that it can be held in the musician's lap and played by hand this style of design has unique features that helps in producing different frequencies of notes when struck by hand (for instance the when the central part of the hang is struck it produces a rich Helmholtz like cavity resonance whose pitch can be adjusted by having the performer changing the space between his/her knees.)
When struck with hand the Hang produces rich complement of modes. Striking one note of the Hang can cause another note to vibrate.The waves created when struck are not just confined to one area rather they propagate through out the Hang and is reflected many times off the Hang's boundaries.
The UFO shaped musical instrument has two sides called the "DING" and the "GU"
GU the bottom side of the instrument imitates a Ghatam/Udu.Ghatam is a typical South Indian percussion instrument here is a solo Ghatam act Ghatam solo.As said earlier the lower opening of the hang acts as a cavity resonator the resonance takes place by striking the ding and by slapping the opening of the GU with the flat part of the hand. Here is a video showing how the "GU" works GU in tune with the DING.
When struck with hand the Hang produces rich complement of modes. Striking one note of the Hang can cause another note to vibrate.The waves created when struck are not just confined to one area rather they propagate through out the Hang and is reflected many times off the Hang's boundaries.
The UFO shaped musical instrument has two sides called the "DING" and the "GU"
DING the top side of the Hang produces rich variety of sound depending on how it is struck it can behave like harp bells or the steel pans,the rings shown in the DING are different harmonically tuned notes. There are about 7-9 notes depending on the generation of the Hang( the first hang had 9 notes).
The central note(located at the center) is a deep note which couples strongly with the cavity Helmholtz resonance, the bottom of the instrument i.e the GU side has a hole which acts as a neck of the cavity resonator.The other 8 notes are laid out in a specific (cross) pattern which vary from the lower to the higher notes.
This video shows the different kind of notes which in Indian music corresponds to the Swara.
GU the bottom side of the instrument imitates a Ghatam/Udu.Ghatam is a typical South Indian percussion instrument here is a solo Ghatam act Ghatam solo.As said earlier the lower opening of the hang acts as a cavity resonator the resonance takes place by striking the ding and by slapping the opening of the GU with the flat part of the hand. Here is a video showing how the "GU" works GU in tune with the DING.
nice....
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