Here’s an old project I’ve yet to talk about. In the fall of 2008 I built two kalimbas (a.k.a. thumb pianos). One of which was a term project for an undergraduate course on the science and technology of music, which utilised Bart Hopkin’s Musical Instrument Design as a textbook.

The first attempt involved mounting a kalimba on an acoustic guitar body, which I dubbed the “kalimbatar”. I thought the sound of the kalimba tines would be projected by the guitar body; unfortunately this didn’t happen to the extent that I had hoped. A contact microphone was necessary to drive the sound.

For the kalimbatar, I used a couple 1/4″ pieces of wood with pre-drilled holes in the top piece, 5 screws, and cheap aluminium berets as tines. Braced between the two pieces of wood, the tines were tuned into a an alternating do-re-mi scale on either side of the centre tine (do, an octave lower); this was done by sliding the tines back and forth, with the help of a handheld microphone tuner. Wood glue was used to mount the bottom piece of wood to the guitar body.

My second kalimba, a handheld model, sounded much better. I used the same supplies as the kalimbatar, but replaced a small block of wood instead of a guitar body. Still needs a contact microphone to give it oomph.