Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Paper Weave Weaves Too Much?

Last week, I gave a tip from Martin Rzeszut, who suggested that you can achieve a nice buzz on your kalimba by weaving a strip of paper through the tines.

Upon reading this tip, Martin wrote that if you play this way for long, the vibrations of the tines will cause the strip of paper to shift from its desired location, and that a tiny drop of glue connecting the strip of paper to a few tines can prevent this. He says the small drops of glue won't affect the tuning (I don't imagine they would, though the closer to the tip, the more affect you would have for a given mass of glue; in Africa, they do tune kalimba tines by placing bees wax under the tip of the tine). My concern would be to use some sort of glue that you are sure would come off of the metal tines. Silicon caulking? Elmers? It's your kalimba, use something you are comfortable with if you go this route.