Hokema Kalimbas B11 Melody Mbira Lamellophone

Kalimbas are sound tongue instruments that originate in southern Africa and can be found there in countless forms and executions. Our Kalimba B11 ‘Melody’ is made of solid American cherry (black cherry) with careful manual work. The surfaces are treated with vegetable oils and waxes and polished. The 11 reeds are precisely tuned in G major scale, which allows a variety of well-known songs to be played. Likewise, the ‘Melody’ is also suitable for improvising and intuitive play. In the arrangement of the reeds, we alternately mounted long and shorter reeds for technical and sound reasons. The six shorter tongues have been bent so that their ends are in a higher plane than those of the long tongues, so that they can be easily reached by the thumbs. When playing the sounds from low to high, the five long tongues are first plucked from the center outwards alternately with both thumbs – the right thumb starts on tongue No. 6 – then the six short tongues, also from the center to the outside. The left thumb begins on tongue 5. We have marinated the eleven tongues from left to right. The even numbers 2,4,6,8,10 are the long, lower notes, the odd numbers are the shorter, kinked tongues. Normally – in unanimous melodies – the left thumb (L) is responsible for the tongues 1-6 and the right thumb (R) for 6 -11. Factory tuning: G major g, a, e, d, c, g, d, g, fis. h. a solid American cherry sound block