Noom Sound Studio · Handpan lessons
Lamai · Koh Samui
Lessons run on our open-air terrace in Lamai, or at your hotel or villa anywhere on the island. Instruments provided. Most people make a good sound in the first ten minutes.
One hour, alone or with up to two friends, on our terrace or at your villa. If you go on to the journey or the eight-lesson course, the price comes off.
One to one, three days in one week. You leave knowing how the handpan works, with help after you go.
The instrument
A handpan is a steel drum you play with your hands. It is round, about the width of a bicycle wheel, and shaped like two shallow bowls joined at the rim. The top face has a dome in the middle and seven or eight tuned dents around it. You touch a dent with your fingers and the note rings on for several seconds.
The sound sits between a bell and a harp. It carries, but it never turns loud. You can play one on a terrace at dusk and hear the sea underneath it.
The instrument is young. The first one was built in Switzerland in 2000. There is no exam syllabus behind it and no repertoire you are expected to know. You sit down, you play, and what comes out belongs to you.
Why beginners do well
Every handpan is tuned to a single scale. The maker chooses the notes and hammers them into the steel, so the instrument holds only notes that belong together. Play any two and they agree. Play all of them in any order and it still sounds like music. Nothing to avoid, no keys to learn, no sheet to read.
This is the strongest thing we can tell you, and it is true: most people make a good sound in the first ten minutes. Your hands do not need training before the instrument gives something back. That is why we start people here rather than on a guitar. There is more on this in is the handpan hard to learn?
The first part of a lesson goes on touch: how to strike the steel so the note opens instead of clicks. After that we work on time. Where your hands land, how long you leave between notes, how a pattern holds together while you breathe. The notes are given to you. What you build is your sense of pulse.
Prices
Every option runs at the terrace in Lamai with instruments provided, or at your place. Message us and we find a time that fits your stay.
One session · first taste
Meet the instrument. Feel how it plays, sound your first notes, and find out whether handpan is for you. No commitment and no experience needed. We can also come to your villa or hotel with a handpan for each of you: travel is ฿1,000 for one or two people, ฿2,000 for three. Every lesson includes student access to Noom Learn, our online practice course. Go on to the 3-Day Handpan Journey or the eight-lesson course and the full ฿2,000 comes off the course price.
Three days · one to one · within two weeks
Our main course, made for a short stay. Three sessions within two weeks, from first touch to patterns, listening and a piece of your own. The handpan stays with you for the whole course, and you go home with student access to Noom Learn, our online practice course, and a teacher you can message. How the three days work.
Eight lessons · two hours each · 16 hours
For people staying longer, or coming back. Technique, rhythm, repertoire and a practice you can keep, built at your own pace across eight sessions. Student access to Noom Learn is included.
Message to book →Group lessons are ฿1,000 more per extra player, up to three, for couples, friends or travel companions. For two people who want one afternoon together, there is the 3-hour handpan experience for couples, ending in a duet of your own.
A two-day sound-healing handpan course, six hours, ฿6,000, focused on slow playing for sessions.
We usually reply within a few hours.
The 3-Day Handpan Journey
Music is a language. You spoke before you knew the alphabet. Can teaches handpan the same way. You play from the first minutes, and the ideas arrive while your hands are moving.
So there is no list of patterns to copy. You learn the language the handpan is built on. By the end, you can watch any player, see what their hands are doing, and try it yourself.
By the third day, you play a short piece you built yourself.
How to strike the steel so the note rings
Where the notes sit and how to move between them
Feeling the beat and keeping both hands in time
Joining short patterns into longer phrases
Hearing a player and finding what their hands do
How a piece starts, grows and ends, so you can build your own
The days do not need to run back to back. Take three days in a row, or spread the sessions over two weeks around your plans. Take the handpan back to your hotel or villa and play between lessons. That is where the learning sticks.
When you get stuck, send Can a message and he will answer. There is no end date on that. Everyone who does the 3-Day Journey also gets a one-time code for 10% off a Noom Starter handpan in our shop.
Looking for your own? See the Noom Starter handpans or read our free handpan guides.
Reviews
Verified Google reviews
This was truly one of the most special and unexpected experiences of my time in Koh Samui.
A short walk up a staircase leads you to the most serene balcony tucked among the trees and overlooking the ocean. Each day I was greeted with snacks, coffee, water and coconut water, and then we would simply play, learn and chat for hours. Nothing ever felt rushed. Can has given me a genuine love for this instrument and the confidence to continue learning long after I leave Samui.
What a great experience I had. Handpan lesson with the most amazing view!
Can is really a nice guy. He takes the time you need and is very good in music on the handpan. A warm welcome and a drink and then started jamming. I’m a beginner and learned so much already.
Where
Most lessons happen on the Noom terrace in Lamai. It sits five minutes inland from Lamai beach, in the forest above the sea. Park at the bottom and take the stairs. The terrace is open on three sides and covered overhead, so lessons run in the rain.
We also come to you. Hotel, villa or retreat, anywhere on Koh Samui: Chaweng, Maenam, Bophut, Choeng Mon or the quiet south. We bring the instruments and set up wherever the room is calmest.
You need nothing with you. Instruments, mats and drinking water are here. Wear clothes you can sit cross-legged in, and come with short nails if you can, because nails get between your fingers and the steel.
Who teaches
Lessons are taught by Can. In 2016, in Turkey, he bought his first handpan. He joined a project called Music Medicine and played improvised sessions with street musicians. Then life pulled him back. To survive, he returned to a commercial career, but the handpan never left his side.
He never let go of the dream. He came to Thailand to live as a musician and teacher, and on Samui he found the terrace where lessons are held today: a clear horizon over the sea, forest all around, nothing but blue and green. At a sound therapy training on the island he met Melie, and watching her open her own studio gave him the courage to follow the same path. He closed his business and gave the handpan all of his time.
He began teaching in 2024, and he is certified in Integral Sound Healing by the Academy of Sound Healing (2024) and in Advanced Sound Facilitation by Shantika Academy (2025). He plays handpan, bowls and drums, teaches rhythm and music theory alongside the instrument, and takes four students a month, all year.
He teaches from how sound behaves: which notes sit well together, why a bowl keeps ringing after you let it go, how a room changes what you hear. He knows what it means to keep playing beside a full-time job, so no one is too busy or too late to start.
More about Can and Melie on the about page.
Questions
Book a lesson
Tell us the dates you are on the island and we will find a time.
We usually reply within a few hours.