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The Caisa is Fun to play 2.

Not a Hang, Halo or Bell but fun to play.

Enjoy life

IMHO ........., Isn't that the most important thing?

Couldn't agree more.

I got to play several on a trip to Amsterdam earlier this year and was very pleasantly surprised at how engaging it was.

Very different instrument from the Hang, but not without real similarities in how it opens itself to the player.

I look forward to having one someday!

aaron

Yes, but I like it too

My Caisa is in C minor

Hi,

I just played the Caisa for the first time. Personally I dont understand this instrument.
There is not much tension and bounce. To play it with the hand dont bring liveliness in the sound. I think the better way to play the Caisa could be using steelpansticks. But than you have maybe more a steelpan sound?
The sound from the top makes no sense. But I only play one scale and maybe it is different on other tunings.
I dont like steelpan much. I dont like the caisa sound. But this is only a matter of taste. It has a few optical similaritys with the Hang, but it is realy a totally different instrument.
I thought this only from the youtube videos, but live it couldnt change my feeling.

A Hangplayer visit me and bring the Caisa just from the workshop. He like the sound. I think he has fun with it. I hope so. Another Hangplayer was also here. He feel nearly the same, as I .

Greetings
Frank

"Another Hangplayer" went into his car spontanuosly to drive the 65 km from the rehabilatation clinic to join the meeting. I also knew the Caisa only from YouTube videos and I hoped that it would probably be possible to evoke some interesting sounds with the fingers out of the metal. But my disappointment was bigger than I could imagine before. The sound of the Caisa played with the hands could touch nothing inside me. It was a dead sound that glues the ears making them unsensible for the sophisticated aspects of sound. I really suffered from the Caisa sound. And all the time I had the caisa on my lap I strongly longed for sticks but couldn't get them. I tried to use my thumbs to bash some interesting steel pan sounds out of the metal and get some "premotions" of this sound. The whole instrument is mindless, pointless, senseless. Played with the hands it is a castrated steel pan. And why should one castrate a steel pan?

Says
Ixkeys

Quoting yourself, the Caisa need some practice before you can get good sounds out of it, so a couple of hours tryinng means nothing. Maybe you are used to the Hang feeling and technique, but the Caisa need to be touch with a different finger technique than a Hang. Of course, the sound can or can´t make you feel, thats a question of taste.
I uploaded a video of me playing the caisa some months ago: http://vimeo.com/1736063

Josue.

Nicely played Josue. I can understand how technique would be very important to the sound. Similar to the "feeling hands and fingers" that Hang players develop over time. I've seen many videos of amateur Hang players, ones who don't know how to draw the essence of the tones out. And you can immediately hear a difference between them, and seasoned players. I am sure the same would apply to the Caisa, Bell or HALO as well.

Very nice demonstration Josue, thank you.

Perhaps Frank and Ix had certain expectations of the Caisa and played with "assumptive fingers". Not that playing style will allow a Caisa to sound exactly like a Hang, but it certainly makes a difference in perceived sound, as you've shown so well Josue.

Hi,

let me say something positive. The Halo sound much better than the Caisa.

I also dont like the sound from the video you posted @synthi.
And yes, what you made is maybe the best you can do with this instrument.
It is only a inverted steel drum with a cutting skirt.
You can play it with your hand, off course. But this I also can do on my salat bowl. An percussion player can have fun with everything around him.
But I dont see, how this instrument cost so much money.
It sounds a little bit like the "mother Hang" in the Hanghouse. This was only the idea for the Hang and the starting point for Panart. But the Caisa is enough for Bill to make money. It is never the result of years of searching an experiments if Bill said in the foretime. There is nothing in this sound what touch me, except the fact that I can play on a lot of items rhythms. This could make fun. But this needs not this shape.

I was also positive and curious to have this instrument in real in my home. I play a lot of time percussion and Hang. It was not so hard, to make similar noises on the Caisa as synthi does. That is not the problem. The caisa is in my mind and feeling not an instrument for hand playing. The sound is dead. It makes no sense for me, to make such an instrument. But for a steelpan (in this quality) you can earn not half the money. I think this is the motivation behind the caisa.

Greetings
Frank

Um ? !
I must say my limited experience with the Caisa was also not impressive enough to make me want to pay the price. No offence to the maker but the finish, small details as rough edges and general appearance was that of a piece of work done by a steel construction worker and not a instrument maker, was also not that I would expect of a pricy article.
The sound I was able to produce was also a disappointment, the "surround sound" I experience from any generation of the Hang was not evident with the Caisa.
In its own right a nice percussive oddity but not one I will be saving to buy

You really tried hard to immitate sticks with your fingers, Josue So why not take real sticks? You would get a much better sound than with the best trained fingers.



I didn't have the expectation that the Caisa would sound like a Hang. My expectation was to find a special Caisa sound that has an own quality. My disappointment was to find nothing like this.

My theoretical assumption is, that an instrument needs a certain range of energy to give its best sound. A good instrument will have a wide range, a not so good instrument a little range. But you have to excite the instrument in its range.

For example: A violon cello played with not enough pressure on the bow with the forefinger of the right hand will not sound, and with to much pressure it will give you back only a scratching sound. You must play it in the right range of pressure to get the sound the violon cello is able to give you.

In the same way a steel pan has to be excited within the adequate range of energy. And this needs sticks that can put enough energy in one point of the sheet steel. A finger is too soft and has a too big area to be able to produce the needed energy level. I cannot see any reason why not to play a steel pan (and this is what the Caisa is) with sticks. No cello player would grease his bow with soft soap. A Caisa player do.

It is the new quality of the Hang that PANArt found a way to transport the range of energy in an area that allow to play the instrument with the fingers. As Frank wrote: An inverted steelpan was the starting point for PANArt but an end point for Caisa inventor Bill Brown. In an economical point of view he do right, because there are enough customers who buy his inverted steel pans for 1000 Euro - so why do further development? But in a musical point of view it is disappointing.

Ix

I know what you guys are saying...

...but I still had fun playing it (with my fingers)!

It might not be Art, in comparison to the Hang (or IMHO the Halo and Bell, from what I've heard), but if it gives pleasure on a long summer (or winter) night, that's between the instrument and its player...

Regardless, I think it is uncharitable and IMO probably simply false to *presume* that Bill's primary motivation in making the Caisa is to make as much money as he can.

May I propose that it would be more profitable (pun intended) to limit ourselves to passing subjective judgment on the instrument and its price, by saying for example, "I don't like the sound of the Caisa [for this reason...], and certainly do not think it is worth 900 euros"

This formulation avoids the speculation as to Bill's business model, motivations, intentions for evolving his instrument, etc... which after all we don't know.

Aaron

i agree but maybe an exception in this case? -

Bill has been quite open in other on-line forums and via emails with members of the hang community for a number of years now, and he has said and done some quite outrageous things that maybe prove as proof for some of his attitude and intentions.

I think this relates on my following formulation:



Most of this paragraph doesn't relate on "Bill's business model, motivations, intententions" but is an analysis of the facts or a statement of my opinion. Only the remark about the "end point for Caisa inventor Bill Brown" relates on him. And this was said with the knowledge how the Caisa is promoted: As an full developed instrument, not as a stadium of development that needs further efforts to become a ready instrument.

Ix

Soooo the Hang is the most wonderful new musical instrument to come along in centuries and there is no chance that anyone except Felix and Sabina will ever be able to match it's sound!

Now that we have gotten that out of the way can we please stay on topic? Or, maybe we should rename the topic?

Hi,

I dont see, that here is something off topic. All the discussion is about the Caisa. Can you explain a little bit better, what´s actually bothering you @rp ?
The comparison between Panart and Bill was only, that Panart used a kind of inverted steelpan as a "starting point" and that Bill use this as the "end point".

Greetings
Frank

There is a handful of people, yourself included, that treat "The world of sheet steel sounds" as "Let's bash everything except the hang." It is like the "magic" of the hang will never be recreated by anyone else so it is a waste of time for any other artist to even make the attempt.

Hi,

i never said, that it is not possible to make a similar instrument as the Hang, what has a similar "magic" by anyone else.
Felix and Sabina are not aliens from another world. They are very busy humans with a lot of years of experience and a mission to find "their" sound.

If people copy the shape of the Hang, they open the discussion to draw comparisons. Or not?
If anybody use a similar material as the Pang from Panart and research and is busy for a long time, he can make maybe a similar instrument. I dont know how much "talent" is needfull. I think it could help to speak with PANArt before.

But to stay on topic. As I played the Caisa I had maybe a few feelings as a result from Bill´s
statements in the future.
He was it, who compared the Caisa with the Hang!
He was it, who said the Caisa is the result of years of research.
He was it, who said that he found a great combination between wood and metall.

If I saw the Caisa there was no great combination between wood and metall. The bottom from this inverted steelpan is also from metall and the way how the bottom is fixed, say to me that also the wood had no impact on the sound.

I dont search the Hang inside the Caisa. I only tested out, what the Caisa is. What sound the caisa has and how it feels to play.
There is for me no power in this instrument. No tension.

Greetings
Frank

This is not the intention of the forum "The world of sheet steel sounds". Your assumption is a conspiracy theory.

Ix

No, just an opinion I am guessing.

As are your thoughts on the Caisa, etc.