RAV Pan F Pygmy

The F Pygmy handpan is a magical instrument. The sound of the drum can be described as woody or electric. It is soft and has no high-end metallic twang.

The Ding is tuned in F3 and the upper note is tuned in C5. There are also two additional notes on the bottom tuned in C#3 and D#3.  More notes provide multiple options in chord changes. There is a great variety in triads you can play with the F Pygmy.  It also has many sympathetic vibrations between the Ding and the resting notes, meaning the overall melody will sound harmonious even if you are not that experienced or tend to improvise.

You can switch easily between the key (and the mood) changing the root note and thus changing from major to minor. If you start halfway up you can get the Celtic Minor pentatonic scale. Respectively, if you start at the bottom, you will get the G Pygmy scale. Keep in mind that this is not the same sound that the G Pygmy RAV Vast will provide to you. It’s a different iteration of that same scale as note position is different.

Made of special nitrated steel, the F Pygmy has a good sustain, yet it’s great for percussive work. The pan shoulders are very rigid and provide a great rebound, you can get good taps on the edges too. The bottom notes have a shorter sustain, so keep it in mind if you want to add more percussive elements into your playing.

F Pygmy is also unique due to the Helmholtz resonance effect it provides. You can recall it from the school physics lessons. It’s a sound phenomenon, that actually takes place when you are blowing into an empty bottle (you can easily try it at home). You can also observe this phenomenon with the F Pygmy. The most massive effect is reached when you tap the Ding with your flat palm. You get a really deep rich sound that compliments whatever you are playing.

For whom this scale will work

This is definitely a pro-level scale. It will work great for solo playing, composing and jamming with other musicians. If you are searching for a high-quality steel drum instrument for sale that will provide you the perfect toolkit for handpan playing, that’s the choice.

The professional handpan drum players will be impressed by the amount of sympathetic resonance that they will get with a single note of the F Pygmy. As the other RAV Pans, this drum does not need a heavy hand to produce a strong sound. The handpan sound volume is the musician’s big headache, especially when it comes to staging performances or busking in crowded places. With the F Pygmy a light touch is more than enough to fill up any space with its majestic sound.

The additional notes on the bottom also provide you a bigger room for your composing experiments (however, these are harder to rich, so if you don’t feel that confident yet, just ignore them).

What makes the RAV Pans so special and different from other handpan instruments? They have a great perk for advanced musicians who tend to play together. The RAV Pans work perfectly together with many RAV Vasts, so if you already play in a duet with the RAV Vast (or you are planning to), you can be sure to get a perfect harmonious sound.  If you have already tried to pair different handpans and steel tongue drums, you know what a pain it can be. Pairing is not only about choosing the correlating scales but also about the similarities in the very voice of the instrument. We were thinking ahead when were designing the RAV Pans and meant them to make a perfect duet with the RAV Vasts (you also get a discount when shopping online these two instruments in a bundle). And the F Pygmy RAV Pan is no exception.

Small bonus

As you may know, handpans are vulnerable to pressure or strikes. Transporting a handpan can be a real challenge, especially during travelling. So the RAV Pan is accompanied by a branded hard case to provide perfect safety. So if are not only searching for a handpan drum for sale but also some accessories, this is just what the doctor ordered.

Pygmy music

The scale’s name refers to the traditional Pygmies tribal music. The Pygmies live in Central Africa, in the basin of Congo. It’s one of the oldest African populations who designed their own unique musical tradition. For them music is an important part of daily routine, as people use the song to communicate with the parental spirit of the forest that is an essential part of their lives. They use a few different drums and string musical instruments like bow harp and zither but the most remarkable is the harmonious polyphonic singing (one of the little number of cases when this tradition appeared outside Western Europe). These musical traditions were borrowed by many contemporary musicians and performers. Thus, the Pygmy scale based on the Pygmy traditional music note sequence was designed.