New to Music Instruments

[Caley Hand]

Steve, Thanks so much for looking for these things. I also found these, and the price shocked me, $3 per bolt. I've decided to try another way using square grounding strips that have 7 holes in them. This allows me to put a complete row of C-D-E-F-G-A-B at once. I just have to splay them a bit to give some separation Caley Ann

[Steve Sawyer]

There are other sources, including Ali Express that may be cheaper. Search for M5 Eyebolts, and select images only in your resluts. Click-through to the source for the ones that look like the ones you want. Also, if you can find them in plain plated steel instead of stainless, they'll be considerably cheaper if not quite as pretty.

[Caley Hand]

Steve, Already ordered those square grounding terminals. They work something like the purpose made framework used by "Kalimba Magic" for their flat tines. I would rather have flat tines, but I already purchased a new replacement roll of 1/8x.062 fishing tape.

Right now I am playing with them using a wingnut bolt through a washer into wood to hold down the tine, while I pluck it to see what sound it makes. I think the wide fender washer is causing changes to the sound that the shorter hold downs like the square terminal posts would not cause. I am still trying to learn about the piano notes scale. Been downloading a lot of diagrams with information like frequencies, key designations, so that maybe I can get these tines tuned properly. Also learning about sharps and flats, and normal type notes, as aparently these Kalimbas use those. Caley Ann

[Caley Hand]

So far I have not found a reference to how long each tine for a Kalimba should be. I know that probably depends on the material, and its size used.

I am using narrow electrician's fishing tape that is .062 thick; pretty hefty stuff.

I have been using a tone meter with external mike to measure things, and found that anything over 4 5/8 inches just makes a thunk. But, from these tines that are that length or under, I have gotten every basic note C, D, E, F G, A and B. While I have not modified these tines to hit these notes exactly, they are within the range.

What I would like to know is whether these notes are considered different if they are above or below the center (normal) note. Some are just below or just above the center mark, while others are almost off either end, but still registering as that note. Don't know if I am making sense. I have not found anything that gives me any guidance on creating a 61 note Kalimba. That has both the black and while keys on a piano.

I wanted to use frequencies to tune these tines, but I found the frequencies for the most part, fall well outside of the tuning meter abilities, and sensitivity.

Anyone have suggestions on how to come up with each key grouping. The only thing I can think of is to create a set of tines (white keys), and adjust them so they all fall in the center reading on the meter. Then create another seven tines that fall a certain way below that center mark, and the same for above that center mark. And I keep doing the same for each set, just matching where the tone hits on the meter.

Needless to say, I really do not know what I am doing. I never studied music, and in particular the physics of instruments. Apparently there is a lot of math in this area, and that is an area where I absolutely do not do well in.

[Charlie Schultz]

Our library has a good amount of info on kalimbas: http://www.mimf.com/ksearch/ksearch.cgi ... y=50&all=1

[Jim McConkey]

You are correct that different materials will tune a little differently. In the video you originally referenced, his longest tine is about 5" (13 cm), based on the size of his hand. That is just a little longer than you found was the lowest practical pitch, probably because he is using rods and not tape.

The pitch of each note is adjusted by changing the free vibrating length of the tine past the fret. Making the tine longer lowers the pitch, and making it shorter raises the pitch. If your tuner shows a note as somewhat below or to the left of center, then the pitch is too low, and you need to shorten the tine to raise the pitch. If the tuner shows high or right of center, you need to lengthen the tine to lower the pitch. You want to aim for each note being exactly on or very close to the center line on your tuner. As a rule of thumb, whatever your lowest note is, the note exactly one octave above it (12 tines) should be almost exactly half the length. The note 2 octaves up (24 tines) would be 1/2 of that, or 1/4 the length of the lowest note. While it is possible to calculate all this, just pick a note to start with and get its pitch centered on your tuner. Then make the next tine up a little shorter and tune to the next note up, and the previous tine a little longer and tune to the next note down.

As for grouping, if you are building a chromatic instrument, then try to mimic a piano, with the "black key notes" raised slightly. The design in the video does just this. Each of his blocks covers one octave, and he has 5 octaves on the finished instrument. You can see for each octave that the shortest note is about half the length of the longest note.

[Caley Hand]

Jim, I really appreciate taking the time to explain this. I am still muddling through webpages that explain this, but some who try explaining, make it almost impossible to understand. They throw in too much technical jargon, which I am not familiar with. Guess, if you ever were a music student, then you would have an understanding.

I would love to to a chromatic version, but I am beginning to see that I probably should start with something a bit easier. I found a diagram with all the notes printed on each tine. It has 34 tines, and says something about circle of fifths. Not sure this is any easier to learn to play. I still have lots of difficulty on my piano due to my severely arthritic right hand. But I have always loved music, and just want to create some, even if it is terrible. Caley Ann

[Jim McConkey]

The only real difference between a chromatic and not-completely-chromatic version is the number of tines. Build whichever version you want. Once you learn to build and tune one tine, you know how to build all the rest.

[Caley Hand]

I was so proud of what my work looked like, but once I saw this picture, I just drooped. It is really ugly in the picture. Guess a camera picks out every imperfection. Never was very good at wood work, but thought this was pretty good. Sigh!!!

Now all I have to do is cut the tines to the necessary lengths to get 34 of them to match the varying notes needed. Caley Ann

[Caley Hand]

Seems what work I did to figure out what some of my tine notes were, was a waste of time. I found the three all had exactly the same note, Bb. I had tested these on what I thought would be OK, a solid test block. Now I know that there is a definite difference in resonance between a hollow sounding board and a solid one.

I had cut sixteen tines, and now have them tagged with the note I hope they will end up being. I cut them to 1/4 inch difference, but I am not seeing that a difference of just 1/8 inch can take it to the next note, at least on my sound board. And in one case, two tines were only 1/16 difference, and one was a C and the other a C#.

I just did a quick check, making surwe all the notes were at center, or on the high side. I found I could not adjust anything on the low side because I would have had to lengthen the tine, impossible.

I've got a lot more experimenting to do in order to learn just how much difference the tine length makes. I also found that filing the underside of a tine, just a head of the front bridge, can bring a note that is on the positive side, down to center on the meter scale. It's really tedious filing, then testing, then filing again, until the tine hits the note you want.

I also found out that the long tines that went thunk on my solid testing board, resonate nicely on my hollow instrument board.

Gee! This is so much fun. Caley Ann

[Karl Wicklund]

I’m enjoying following your progress through this. Keep it up!

[Jim McConkey]

Caley, without getting into the math, from the bass end each tine should be 0.9438743 times the length of its lower neighbor (assuming a chromatic instrument). For example, assuming your bass note is 100 mm (about 4"), the lengths going up should be 100.00, 94.39, 89.09, 84.09, 79.37, 74.91, etc. The note one octave (12 half steps) up should be exactly half the length of the note an octave below. This means the bass notes will be more drastically different in length than the treble notes. The lowest two tines of this hypothetical scale starting with 100 mm would be 6 mm or 1/4" different in length, but the treble notes will be a lot less different. Two octaves up from the bass the notes would only be about 1/16" different.

Another way of looking at it is that the first octave will have tines that range from 100 mm to 50 mm, the second octave would be 50 mm to 25 mm, the third octave would be from 25 to 12.5 mm, the fourth octave from 12.5 to 6.25 mm, etc.

Hopefully that will give you a better idea of what lengths your notes should look like.

[Caley Hand]

Jim, Yes, it definitely gives me something to work with, though I am not sure that it will apply with these thick tines. They are 1/8 inch wide by ,062 thick; pretty hefty.

I've run into what I think is another problem, and that is crossover of a tone through the continuous front bridge. When I just have one or two tines screwed down, the notes are good, but once I stuff more than the two, I start getting really odd notes coming from the tines I know I had down pat. I think that is the reason why the gentleman in the video, who did the Chromatic Kalimba build, isolated each tine. And I have the feeling that I will have to do the same. This means tearing everything apart above the sound box, and reengineering it. It also means I will have to invest in those eyebolts, which are truly expensive.

At least I am learning as I go along, even if it may be costing me money. Guess that is why the major Kalimba and MBira makers have such sweet sounding instruments. They more than likely had a music background to start with. Then they put that, along with trial and error to produce their instruments.

I just do not want to buy something I know I can build. It will just take time and experimentation. Caley Ann