September 1, 2006
Those Folks at AMI Sure Know How to Make Their Kalimbas Sing

The folks at African Musical Instruments (AMI, the company that Hugh Tracey started in the late 1950s to bring the kalimba to the world) have been staying up late at night figuring out how to make the best kalimbas in the world even better.

If you hold a new Hugh Tracey Kalimba in your right hand and a 30 year old Hugh Tracey Kalimba in your left hand, you'd better be right handed, because the new one weighs quite a bit more. The weakness in the face wood that swallowed up the "A" note in the Treble (or perhaps the E or F# note in the Alto) has been addressed with thicker face wood. But of course, the proof is in the notes.

To do the proper experiment, we would have to age the new kalimba by 30 years, without aging the 30 year old kalimba at all. Or even take 100 new kalimbas and age them all by 30 years so we can do some statistics, because not every old kalimba suffers from the dead note syndrome.

I'm not really up to that task right now, so instead, I'll just play a glissando with the D, F#, A, C a the new Hugh Tracey Kalimba and see how the spectrum decays.

0.0 to 0.1 seconds

0.1 to 0.2 seconds

0.2 to 0.3 seconds

0.3-0.4 seconds

Notice that the A note is a bit weaker than the other notes. Interesting, eh? That's fodder for a future Friday tip.

From the first plot (0.0-0.1 seconds) to the second plot (0.1-0.2 seconds), the power in the notes goes down a little bit. But then the next two plots, out to 0.4 seconds, the power in those notes is virtually unchanged. That means that the new Hugh Tracey Kalimbas have lots of sustain. The notes just keep on vibrating. This is a GOOD THING!

And now, a message from our sponsor, Kalimba Magic: You can purchase the NEW HUGH TRACEY KALIMBAS at our Kalimba Shop.

Until next time, this has been Captain Science, solving the mysteries of the kalimba world and illuminating minds across the globe. Come back next Friday--we've got lots more kalimba science to explore!