What do I find in the courier box?

Let’s imagine that you just opened the box that contains your kalimba. What do you find inside?

If you prefer a voice explanation, here is my video tutorial on the first encounter with your Kalimba

• The Bag

Manufacturers usually deliver the kalimba inside a black velvet envelope. It has no protections and, therefore, my advice is to buy as soon as possible a padded bag. 
There are many on the market, even at prices below 10€. Not only will they protect your kalimba, but they will give you a more professional look.

• The cloth

The cloth will help you keep your kalimba clean. Remove the dust in the space between the tines and the soundboard, but also the sebum from the bottom of the tines.

• The stickers

The stickers are of two types: some you need to locate notes on the keyboard, while the colored ones to help you read the tablature. Attach stickers according to this pattern.

Here's a tutorial: Stickers

Remember this: DO = 1 = C

                           RE = 2 = D

                          MI = 3 = E

                          FA = 4 = F

                             SOL = 5 = G

                           LA = 6 = A

                         SI = 7 = B

The dot above the number indicates the highest frequency of the note, so the octave of belonging (i.e C1 is the low C, C1= is the highest C, an octave above, twice the frequency of C1)

• The thimbles

Manufacturers often sell kalimbas with rubber thimbles included. You decide whether to use them or not: it’s all about feeling! The ideal would be to grow the nail so that it exceeds the fingertip by a few millimeters, but not everyone could like this solution for an aesthetic issue. But do not panic! If you do not like the rubber thimbles and not even the long nails, there are on the market hard rubber thimbles that reproduce the shape of a nail.

@slackkeytuning.com

• The hammer

Don’t use it to play! It’s for tuning. In a separate page I will delve into this topic because, for those who have no basis in musical theory and familiarity, it can serve a small premise on the scales, alterations and intonation of the notes. for now you just need to know that to raise the note height you have to tap the bottom of the tine, while, if you want to lower the note height, you have to tap on the top of the tine

@picclick.com