Life rarely announces a vocation in advance. More often, it slips in sideways, disguised as curiosity, chance, or a strange sound you can’t shake. That was certainly true for handpan maker Jenny Robinson, whose life changed not through careful planning, but by stumbling into something unexpected and listening closely enough to follow it.

When Jenny first heard a handpan, she had no intention of owning one, let alone making them for a living. What captivated her was the sound itself, pure, otherworldly, almost ancient, and the way players seemed to dance across the surface with their hands. Fingers, thumbs, soft knocks and taps, movements that looked effortless and completely unfamiliar. The sound alone gave her chills. The mystery sealed it. How could those tones come from a round, steel object that looked more like a UFO than an instrument?

This was around 2011, when there were fewer than twenty handpan videos on YouTube. Jenny watched them obsessively, sharing clips with coworkers, friends, and family. She learned the instrument was only about a decade old, and that its original creators had openly stated they could not meet demand alone. Others would need to take up the hammer. That line landed deeply with Jenny, even if she did not yet know why.

At the time, Jenny was enrolled in a machine-tooling program at a Wisconsin community college, training for a trades-based career. She was often the only woman in the shop and almost always the one asking questions. While her classmates seemed to wing it, she needed to understand the why and how. Her intense curiosity slowed the class down at times, but it also laid the groundwork for something she could not yet see.

Jenny began obsessively researching how to make handpans by reading obscure tuning manuals and joining early online forums where a handful of people shared experiments and failures. She bought oil drums from Craigslist, squeezed them into the back of a small car, reshaped hardware store hammers, and started hammering wherever she could, basements, barns, anywhere that would tolerate the noise.

The work was brutal. Cold Wisconsin winters, no proper workshop, aching hands, and a growing pile of discarded steel shells. For three years, Jenny built instruments without ever having seen or played a professionally made handpan in person. She shaped steel, scrapped it, recorded steps, and started over. Failure was not an option. Success would only be found by pushing until there was a breakthrough.

Finally, there came a moment that changed everything. Alone in a barn, with crickets chirping and warm night air drifting in, she struck a piece of steel and heard it, a true fundamental and octave ringing together. Music, emerging from a flat sheet of steel she had shaped by hand. That sound gave her hope, and it carried her through years of work that followed.

That commitment eventually became Isthmus Instruments, based in Madison, WI and acclaimed worldwide. The name and vision rooted in connection, hands, heart, and community. Today, Jenny leads a passionate team, teaches others to build and tune, and continues shaping an instrument that is still in its infancy. Handpan making, she says, is not serene or idyllic. It is loud, physical, mentally demanding, and deeply human. Steel resists, opens, surprises, and eventually surrenders only after a long struggle.

What began as an unexpected sound has become a lifelong vocation for Jenny. And that sound continues to ripple outward.

Like Jenny, my introduction to handpans came through YouTube. Captivated by the sound and the astonishing technical grace of the players, I bought a used instrument despite being unable to produce even one clean note. What followed was not a clear plan, but a path shaped by persistence rather than certainty.

I will be accompanying my original animation with handpan and voice on February 28th at 7pm at The Roscoe Collective in Roscoe, NY. It is a free, one-hour event, an invitation to experience firsthand how something unexpected can quietly and irrevocably change the course of a life.

To learn more about handpan artisan, Jenny Robinson, and her work at Isthmus Instruments, visit www.isthmusinstruments.com.

RAMONA JAN is the Founder and Executive Director of Yarnslingers, a storytelling group that tells tales both fantastic and true. She is also the roving historian for Callicoon, NY and is often seen giving tours around town. You can email her at ramonajan@yahoo.com.