Steel Tongue Drum 12 Inch 13 Notes - C-Key Hand Pan Drum Percussion Instruments - Lotus Tank Handpan with Drumsticks, Mallet Holder for Meditation Entertainment Musical Education (Navy Blue)

I teach elementary school students with Autism (ASD). My students have many different kinds of sensory needs and I strive to meet as many of them as I can, as often as I can. As a result, I have a very sensory rich and diverse classroom. Twice each week my students, staff, and I sit down on the floor and play various percussion style instruments together. There is no rhyme or reason to it, everyone just plays how and what they would like to play, as long as they are showing respect to the instruments and their classmates. Some play specific melodies, while others just play and bang away. My students absolutely LOVE it! Our classroom music time is a fun, joyous, and liberating activity that we all look forward to and relish participating in each week! Thank you for sharing this wonderful music time resource with us!

The tongues are configured oddly. Even though this is a fairly new kind of instrument the notes on most tongue drums I have have notes 6, 5, and 7 in a line down the center of the drum, as this one does, but then the notes progress up the scale alternately up the sides, kind of like climbing a ladder. But these drums place the 1, and 2 notes opposite each other at the center of the drum. This makes playing a scale awkward, because instead of just drumming straight up or down the sides, you have to jump above and below the 1 and 2 notes. The drum has great tone, but harder than most to play a song. I would not have bought this drum if I had noticed the odd placement of note tongues.

I bought this to play around with for fun. If I was going to actually perform or record, I would invest in one with better tone. The pitches are not precisely tuned and less than clear. However, it is still fun to play with.

I love this steel drum. Attractive, great tone and very relaxing to play.