hangforum.com - The Archive

Today morning when I had a look on my Hangblog I found a new comment that arrived at dead of night (German time - but, of course in broad daylight North American time), that strongly reminded me on a message I occasional met in forum posts, blog entries or comments: PANArt stopped production.

The writer of tonight's Hangblog comment asked: "It would appear that they have discontinued for as yet an undetermined amount of time. Is there any hope whatsoever that they might resume productions at some future date?"

The nightmare of every Hang friend without Hang seem to become a reality: Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer leaving the Hangbauhaus and locking the door. Perhaps leaving for Teneriffa or - a message spread a while ago in a forum post - begin to study and practice hypnosis.

Sometimes it is a little reason that causes a big misunderstanding. In this case it was a word consisting of only two characters: "if". "If there will be a new edition of PANArt`s sound sculptures", you could read in a letter from PANArt, sent to someone who had written a letter to the Hang makers some months earlier, "you will be on the list to get one of the traces of our work." The letter was posted in a forum and people understood the "if" so, that it was unsure ore unlikely that PANArt would offer a "new edition".

Germans who received the same letter in June 2008 were not confused in this way. The German version was very clear that there would be a new edition and that it was only a question of time "when" the new edition would be offered. In German we uses the same word "wenn" for "if" and "when". So the reason for the confusion that the English letter caused in some readers was, that a native German speaker sometimes chose the wrong word when he has to deal with the English "if" and "when".

So we can breathe a first sigh of relief: There will not be a "Hang stop" forever. But what's about that "longer break" that also was anounced in the PANArt letter from June 2008? Will they stop making hanghang the whole year 2009?

If we look back in the history of the Hang, we can notice a Hang seeker who found PANArt's website that still existed in autumn 2005. He read: "In January and February, 2006, we are in research and development mode, improving design and methods, and not receiving or filling orders for new instruments. Neither are we open during those months for visits or direct sales at our workshop."

So we can see: "breaks" were usual every year in the past. The "break" that was announced in June 2008 for 2009 is nothing else than the usually yearly "Hangruhe", how PANArt call their yearly breaks in German. It only begins a bit later this year. In 2009 Hanghang will be built in the same way they were built the years before. So we can say with Miss Sophie in the famous New Year's Eve sketch in German television: "Same procedure as every year, James"

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