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Our trip to the hang makers in bern, switzerland

Our recent trip to hang makers, Felix and Sabina Rohner aka Panart

Recently we made a trip to the hang makers in Bern, Switzerland, get our instruments retuned. Having survived 4 years of thorough use and a few knocks at the hands of a clumsy taxi driver, our 3 hang drums needed a little love and attention. We had wanted to visit the makers and their workshop for a while and this seemed like a good time. A pilgrimage of sorts!

The hangs are fragile instruments and the only people able to tune them are the makers. Seeing as an out of tune hang means an out of tune Portico Quartet it was an important trip for us. Having successfully negotiated Ryan Air’s gauntlet of draconian cabin restrictions, Team PQ arrived in Bern excited to meet the legendary hang creators Felix and Sabina Rohner of Panart.

Panart invented the hang in 2001. Initially distributed and sold at shops and festivals around the world for around £350 (that’s how we got ours in 2004) the hang became a very sort-after instrument. Each hang is painstakingly hand-crafted and Panart were unable to meet this demand without sacrificing quality. Rather than selling the patent to Yamaha or the like and taking over the world, Panart decided to disengage with the global economy preferring to sell only directly to players themselves at the ‘Hanghaus’ in Bern. They don’t even have a website. Now you must book an appointment to see the hang makers if you want to pick up a hang, with waiting lists reaching up to a year or more and people coming from all around the world. Hence it is not uncommon to see a hangs going for up to $10,000 on Ebay.

We stayed in a hostel for the night and woke up early for our 8am appointment at the Hanghaus on the edge of the city. As we approached we heard the clanging of metal and were greeted at the door by Felix, welding hammer in hand. Sabina made coffee and as we sat on the terrace enjoying the view of the river Aare, they told us about their philosophy behind the hang, which as far as I could gather runs as follows:

The hang should be played hand on steel and positioned in the lap. Any variation on this (gloves, soft beaters, drum stands and the like) is bad for the health of the instrument and disrupts the energy flow between the player, hang and listener. It should be played solo, with other hangs or with other complementary instruments (flutes, frame drums etc) and the player should adopt a meditative approach. Amplification, Felix said, disrupts the sound and energy flow. Furthermore, amplification of the hang for public performances effectively gives the musician a shamanic or priest-like role, accessing and interpreting the spiritual realm for the benefit of the masses.

Right. As amplifier, drum-stand and beater-using hang players this was strange to hear. Whilst we agree with them on the responsibilities of artists (albeit in a different vocabulary) we tried to explain why we use the beaters etc. More volume, more speed and the ability to make complex chords were our reasons and after much discussion we managed (to some extent) to negotiate our opposing points of view.

With the Hangs in the process of being tuned we walked down to the original workshop, a hut by the river. Its now a small museum where you can see the early hang prototypes and other weird and wonderful metal instruments created by them. Check out the early hangs!

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The Hanghaus is located by the beautiful river Aare, its water flows straight off the alps and changes colour depending on what part of the mountains the water comes from, from a light brown to deep turquoise, these colours apparently influenced the different shades of the hang. Today the river was fast flowing and a beautiful Azure. The river provides a great source of entertainment for the local inhabitants; you can jump off at the top and float down in the strong current for a mile or two, some city workers even put their cloths in a waterproof bag and use the river float back from work. Milo witnessed someone attached themselves to a bungee-chord and using the current to create some stretch/resistance, propelled himself about 70 meters along the river on his surf-board. Undeterred by stories of tourists meeting an untimely end in the river, we jumped off a bridge and floated down a mile or so on their backs lapping up the tree dappled sunshine, this continued on repeat throughout the afternoon.

It ended all too soon and as the sun started to set it was time to hit one of Switzerland’s super-fast double-decker trains to Zurich. Miles away from any British train experience, we were greeted by a sanctum of tranquillity with the highs and lows of the day behind us, the noise and lights were low and a pleasant vibe and journey ensured.