Montecristo Kalimba

Small Montecristo box, three dowel rods, a wooden backup plate on the inside, two screws, and seven used fudgesicle sticks. Still need to tune it and drill a sound hold. Neat little kids project and totally inexpensive!
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  • really  cool

  • One thing I'll change on the next try will be to space the two smaller dowels further apart. That would allow greater downward pressure and possibly improve the resonation of each tine and better hold each in position. 

  • Twang...that's how it is currently set up...just a different noise or note. It's more of a percussion instrument and is great for doing the percolator noise that was once used in coffee commercials. I did try tuning it but my chromatic tuner doesn't respond correctly to the "thuds" this thing makes. Thanks for your comments. 

  • Neat idea. Good way to use some smaller boxes. I could see this as a craft project for ages 9-13 (or over 60!)

    See "tuning" in the Wikipedia article on "Mbira." Personally, I like the idea that the thing should just be set up so that each tongue produces a different note--without regard to any mathematically "correct" tuning.

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