Anatomy of the Kalimba

Small premise: if you do not understand something of this article because I was too technical and specific, visit the section of the site dedicated to music theory or contact me!

Why don’t some Kalimbas have resonance holes?

A matter of habit: in the beginning, most of these instruments consisted of a piece of wood on which tines were fixed. I think many manufacturers still design musical instruments related to their ancestors.

Other times, this choice comes from the design that the creator wants to give to his instrument: we think of the kalimba very fashionable today, the acrylic transparent. It’s beautiful to see without holes!

I would recommend buying a kalimba with a resonance box: not only will it produce a higher air sound, but it will allow you to play with holes, creating amazing sound effects!

If by now you have bought an instrument without resonance box, you can amplify it in two ways: buying an electric pick up or inserting it in a hollow shape, like a vase for example.

The tines

Each tine corresponds to a pitch. The kalimba 17 keys, as well as the 10 keys, has a diatonic scale whose notes are arranged alternately.

This choice comes from two factors: to arrange notes, whose interval is two tones or one and a half, adjacent, so that they sounded well if pressed simultaneously; you can produce chords using both thumbs, playing, for example, a note and its upper octave; playing more notes in a row is easier if they are both left and right, rather than one side.

For this, the kalimba is also called Thumb Piano: you have to use both hands!
Unlike the piano, however, it does not have black keys. This speech, however, I will address it in a separate section dedicated to tuning.

Other tines

As I explained to you also in the introduction, on the market there are an infinity of lamellophones and, therefore, of tuning. I’ll show you some of them just to keep you curious.

Totally different from the 17 keys, right? Here the alternation is not respected simply because it is the modern and westernized version of Karimba. Obviously, this musical instrument is not suitable to play pop songs (if you commit, you can do it!), since its purpose is to revive traditional ethnic music.

You will notice that in this last image there are 17 tines, but that the tuning does not respect what I have illustrated in the first case. This is the Kalimba Treble scheme, in this case granted in B.

This is the tuning scheme of the Kalimba Alto in G that takes 15 tines.

The tuning varies from piece to piece: you have to think about what you want to play and choose, at that point, kalimba model and tuning.

Have you ever heard of drop tune?

Guitarists use it a lot. Drop tuning is an alternative form of tuning an instrument. Why do it? These are tunes lower than the standard that allow to obtain more serious tonalities, to facilitate the execution of a song, to adapt to a certain genre, as in metal. It has a bit the same use as the foreman, but on the contrary!

Let me tell you that Kalimba can also be "dropped". You can lower all the heights by a tone, a semitone, a tone and a half, actually as much as you want, but my advice is not to exaggerate! As in all musical instruments, if you have the possibility, use an instrument by type of tuning, so as to set it properly and keep it always stable.