US Patent 10373594 Hand pan tongue drum

Disclosed is a tuned steel hand pan tongue drum musical instrument. It is formed from joining together two thin walled steel contiguous arcuate domes. The top dome has a plurality of tuned steel drum tone fields located at various places around the periphery thereof, and a plurality of tongues cut into the steel in the upper portion of the dome. The tongues are tuned to match the fundamental frequency and/or harmonic of the different steel drum tone fields (SDTF). When struck with fingers, mallets, or other devices, the tongues emit a tuned tone and the vibration travels through the steel exciting the matched tone SDTF. The SDTF then begins resonating and produces a musical tone even though it was not touched. The reverse is also the case. When an SDTF is played, its vibration excites a similarly tuned tongue and causes it to resonate. The SDTR and the tuned tongue share the vibration and mutually benefit sonically from the effect created.