Posted by Alan Roberts on March 10, 2010 at 1:18am
I just HATE retuning. I can tune a pickup truck faster than I can retune a guitar. With so many different tunings for kalimbas, then, it just made sense to me to make a new one each time I wanted to try a new tuning. (Work in progress).
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The three in the lower left were an experiment that didn't work. I thought make one box, three tops that can be swapped in and out. Unfortunately, even though the tops fit as snug as anything I've ever done there was a wicked rattle while playing them, so I had to build boxes for the other two tops. They all have soundholes in the lower right side, where traditional Zimbabwe Mbiras have a hole. Alas, again a half-baked idea. Mbiras have no soundbox; the hole is where it is to allow the player to HOLD it. With an accoustic box kalimba, you want the hole in the middle where you can reach it with either thumb to get the wah-wah effect. This will NOT work with a piezo pickup of course; the piezo picks up vibrations of the wood and not the air inside the box.
The interchangable top idea... would it have worked if I'd put a rubber gasket under the top and screwed it down? Hmmmmm...
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The interchangable top idea... would it have worked if I'd put a rubber gasket under the top and screwed it down? Hmmmmm...