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( To hear our instruments, click on this link to our Work In Progress Frozen mp3 Blog )
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We began making thumb pianos after we’d already crafted some dozen shokis, and so right from the beginning we were braver and more willing to experiment.
The kalimbas we’d seen and which were our initial inspiration were used mostly as rhythm instruments. To make this possible they were equipped with jangling rings tied around their metal keys and small bells tied to their bodies, so that as you stroked the keys you could shake the whole instrument and accompany yourself with a chuck-a-chuck rhythm.
But since we were more interested in using our instruments to play melodies, we decided to eliminate these distracting rattling noise makers. Also for playing melodies we wanted more room for our fingers, which inspired us to fan out the keys rather than keeping them parallel.
These changes produced “Cocus”, which like the models we’d seen used half of a coconut shell for its resonator. We cold hammered out its keys from 1.6 mm high carbon steel.
But soon we realized we wanted a lower pitched kalimba which meant longer keys, and since larger coconuts were not available, we built “Boardus” which has a thick hardwood ( rose wood ) base, and keys made from 1.8 mm steel.
“Boardus” turned out to have a bell-like but rather small tone, therefore we were pleased to discover that if we played it while it was sitting on some resonating surface ( floor or table ), it produced a much louder and richer sound.
However despite this discovery, at that time we were still thinking primarily in terms of hand-held thumb pianos. So when we decided to make an even lower pitched kalimba, we kept the same general shape, but built it with a wooden soundbox to make it louder. Of course we also gave our new instrument thicker (2.1 mm) and longer keys.
At the same time since we’d become dissatisfied with our instruments’ “wild” tunings, and didn’t want to go to some diatonic tuning like that of the instruments one finds in ethnic instrument stores, we built “Boxus” with chromatic tuning.
But even though “Boxus” had its own resonator, we discovered we still preferred the larger richer sound we got when we played it on a resonating surface. Since this meant we no longer had to hold the instrument as we played it, we quickly began to stroke the keys with all of our fingers, rather than with just our thumbs, and this naturally suggested arranging the keys linearly by increasing pitch, rather than alternating them left-right as in the hand-held instrument ( where the left-right arrangement makes sense so you can “walk” a scale with your thumbs ).
And so in three logical steps we’d evolved from the traditional thumb piano to our “Basus” , an instrument so different from the traditional kalimba, it should properly be considered a totally new instrument.
To maximize its sound, even though we always played it on a resonating surface, we built it with a rosewood resonating box. We cold hammered out its keys from 2.5 mm high carbon steel rod.
Though “Basus” was the last member of our kalimba family to be built while we were still living in India ( Doing Music Differently, The Indian Music Scene ), even back then we had started speculating about making an instrument where the linearly arranged adjacent keys were only a quartertone apart.
This may have been because at that time we were immersed in Indian music which gives substantial official recognition to the importance of microtones.
But it was not until the winter of 2004 that we actually got around to building such a beast. By then we were living in the United States and had already built one of our Bowus Family instruments with hardwood plywood and a hardwood frame, and so we decided to use the same technique for “Quartus”.
But first, to test our construction method and because we wanted a second linearly arranged chromatically tuned kalimba, we built “4-woods” which has 24 keys hammered out of 2.1 mm Indian steel.
Only after this did we feel ready to build our two-octave quartertone kalimba with 48 keys hammered out of 2.5 mm Indian steel.
To tune our quartertone kalimbas, we first tuned every other key to a chromatic ( half-tone ) scale and then tried to put the other keys half-way between them. But since it’s tricky hearing such small intervals, certainly some of the splits are more like 55-45 than 50-50.
However having the tuning slightly irregular doesn’t bother us. Indeed we prefer it, even as we prefer walking a rough mountain trail to striding over perfectly flat and uniform city pavement.
( Notation )
As for creating music with a quartertone scale, mostly we just let our fingers dance while listening carefully to the resulting sound. Then instead of having to invent quartertone music, we can discover it. ( Our Instruments )
More recently we have finally realized our dream of building a second quartertone kalimba to allow us to play two such instruments together.
Since when they were played together, we wanted the sound of this second instrument to be easily distinguishable from that of Boxus Quartus, our first quartertone kalimba, we built Boardus Quartus with a hardwood soundboard rather than a resonating soundbox.
Also rather than using 2.5 mm. Indian steel like for Boxus Quartus, we used thinner but even harder 1.8 mm. Indian steel.
The result was an instrument with a small but very clear and bell-like tone, and with a lovely feather-light touch.
However recording Boardus Quartus turned out to be a little tricky since when played loudly its sound board sustains its ring for many seconds. Fortunately once we got more familiar with our new recording setup ( Our Recording ) and figured out a better way of miking our kalimbas ( Microphone Placement ) it became clear that the recorded sound of Boardus Quartus was if anything more powerful than that of its older brother. Which perhaps should not have surprized us, since instruments designed to be played amplified ( like electric guitars ) are often built with solid bodies rather than hollow sound boxes.
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Two Octaves Is Enough……
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None of our kalimba family instruments have more than a two octave range, but this seems to be more than enough to give us full expressiveness.
In fact we can not help but suspect that the urge of most conventional keyboard players to have more and more keys spanning more and more range, is just another aspect of the materialism which in the name of “more is better”, has consistently diminished conventional music.
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Building The Beasts…….
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Like the most recent of our bowus family instruments, 4-woods and our first Quartus are built with hardwood plywood clamped and glued onto hardwood frames.
It’s basically the same technique we’ve used for our most recent furniture, except that the joints of our furniture are glue nailed rather than being just glued and clamped, and of course our furniture uses cheaper thicker softwood for the frame and cheaper thicker construction grade plywood for the skin.
So when you see these instruments and our furniture next to each other, it’s obvious that they are cousin-brothers.
( Unspecialized )
The photos below show successive stages of assembling and gluing our first Quartus.
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Doing Music Differently***Our Instruments***Shoki Family***Bowus Family***Unspecialized
Work In Progress Frozen mp3 Blog****Notation****Buy Our Music****Our Recording
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