Tune your Kalimba
This is perhaps the most difficult part of your instrument.
But don't panic! It’s like riding a bike: once you’ve learned, you never forget!
What does it mean to tune a musical instrument?
Tuning is the process of adjusting a musical instrument so that it is perfectly tuned to the current tuning system. You can tune "by ear", only if you play a musical instrument for years, or with the help of a tuner. What, specifically, happens when tuning a musical instrument is the frequency adjustment: each note (or pitch) has a specific frequency that is measured in Hrz. When you use your hammer on the kalimba, or you flip a guitar pirolo, or the handle of your flute, you are in fact approaching the note as close as possible to its frequency. What your tuner does instead is detect the frequency of the note you’re playing and tell you whether it’s "waning" or "growing", so if it’s out of tune.
What do you need to tune the kalimba?
- The Hammer
- The tuner
There are many tuners for sale, but also smartphone apps. You have two things to consider:
- If you download an app, check that your mobile phone’s microphone captures all kalimba notes. Sometimes he can’t hear the lower notes right.
- If you decide to buy a tuner, remember that it must have the function "chromatic" so that it recognizes the sound of any instrument. If you go to a store, take the Kalimba with you and try it before you buy it.
What does it mean to tune a Kalimba?
There are numerous types of kalimba for musical keys: pentatonic kalimba, chromatic kalimba, diatonic kalimba, and kalimba in traditional keys.
The best-selling kalimbas are those in diatonic scale, like your 20, 17, 10, 8 keys, tuned in C major key.
And here we have to explain to non-musicists what all this means.
A musical scale is a sequence of notes within an octave, of which the last is a repetition of the first, but with a double frequency.
A diatonic scale is a scale in which notes follows one another in a precise sequence of seven intervals. The whole collection of diatonic scales as defined above can be divided into seven different scales, but for now, you just need to remeber that they are divided in two modes: major and minor.
Remember that between two notes there is always an interval; notes go to form a scale that provides a sequence of intervals; a mode is an ordered set of intervals.
Our Kalimba is tuned according to a diatonic scale, then follows a precise sequence of intervals between notes; being tuned according to a major mode, the sequence of intervals will be as follows:
T T S T T T S
T= tone S= semitone
These two terms indicate the distance between two sounds, that is, between two notes. The semitone is the smallest musical interval that can occur between two sounds and is equivalent to half tone.
To simplify the speech, imagine the keys of the piano:
Between a white key and the black key that follows, there is a distance of a semitone.
But there is a distance of a semitone even between the only white keys that follow each other without a black button in between, then between E and F and between B and C.
Instead, between two white keys divided by a black key and between two black keys there is an interval of one tone.
If you don’t understand this concept well, try assigning a number to each note: C1, D2, E3...between 1 and 2 there is a range of 1 units, as well as between 2 and 3. Imagine that between C1 and D2 there is C1+0.5. The value 0.5 is a semitone.
In music, we don’t say C1+semitone, but we say C# or Db.
Notes followed by # or b are called accidental. If a note is followed by b, it is called flat (note name). So we will have Db (Dflat), Eb (Eflat), Gb, Ab, Bb. It’s not wrong to talk about Db, Gb, Ab, but it’s better to talk about C#, F#, G# (Csharp, Fsharp, Gsharp).
The sequence of pitches, from the lowest frequency starting from C, will be as follows: C, C#, D, Eb, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, Bb, B.
And now, let's talk about our Kalimba: saying that it is accorded on a C major scale, means that there are no accidental, so the sequence of notes is the classic of the 7 naturals (C, D, E, F, G, A, B).
This means that, without altering any kalimba notes with the hammer, you will be able to play correctly only the songs in C key, without accidentals.
How do I understand the tonality of a song?
- By ear: finding the tonic, or the first degree of the diatonic scale that will play well just anywhere in the song.
- Simply reading the sheet music: in particular, you must pay attention to the key signature. It is the "beginning" of a sheet music.
This is the key signature of the C major scale, that of songs that we can play with our Kalimba when it comes out from the factory. After the violin key, there are no other symbols.
The songs you'll choose to play with your kalimba will not all be in C major key. In fact, you will probably find key signatures like the following:
Based on how many sharps or flats there are in the key signature, you will understand which key the song belongs to. There is a very long and tedious trick to finding how many accidentals there are on a scale, but I won’t explain it to you. If you’re curious, I’ll create a special video. I leave you only a summary diagram:
each major scale is a relative major scale of a minor scale. I don’t need to go into more detail here on the minor stairs, but I’ll leave you with this diagram:
Kalimba can be tuned to all these tones. You have to find the tonality of the song you want to play and tune the Kalimba respecting the accidentals you see at the beginning of the sheet music, in the key signature.
Tune your kalimba
Take your kalimba, the hammer, the tuner and get into a quiet place. Play softly, but with determination the tine you want to tune or alter. If you want to tune the C1, then play it and wait for the tuner to detect its frequency. Usually, the tuners show a hand and the name of the note:
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| If the hand follows the note (clockwise), it means that the frequency exceeds and must be lowered. Then, you must tap on the top of the tine until the hand reaches the center of the semicircle. |
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| If the hand precedes the note (clockwise), it means that the frequency is lower than the correct pitch and should be increased. Then, you must tap on the bottom of the tine until the hand reaches the center of the semicircle. |
This method also applies to raise a semitone, a tone, a tone and a half...or to lower a note by the same amount: tap on the top of the tine down if you want to lower the pitch of the note, Hit the bottom of the tine if you want to raise the note frequency.
