Kawai Piano Prices: Hugh Tracey Alto Kalimba 15-key Alto Kalimba Review

When I was growing up, a family friend had a Hugh Tracey Kalimba on their coffee table, and I used to love to plink on it, but I never really knew the magic it had in it until one day 20 years ago when some of my friends were fooling around with a brand new Alto Hugh Tracey Kalimba.A stranger walked into the house and started playing the kalimba, and the most amazingly beautiful music started pouring out of this thing!I immediately ran out and bought one myself, and have spent 20 years chasing the memory of that fateful day.

OK, some specifics: this is the first kalimba to be marketed outside of Africa, starting around 1960, and this is the instrument that started the Kalimba Craze.It is STILL made in South Africa, and it is STILL among the top quality kalimbas commercially available.Abundant instructional material now exists online.The wood is Kiaat, a resonant hardwood that is abundant in southern Africa.The tone is clear, the tines are delicate and smooth, easy on your thumbs and nails; the two octave range from low "DO" to high "DO" is easy to wrap your brain around (the Treble kalimba starts on the 3rd of the scale, or "Mi"; BTW, this kalimba is LARGER than the Pakistani-made immitation of the HT Treble kalimba which is marketed as the "Large Rosewood Kalimba").The tines are wider than the Treble, which makes it easier to play.The one drawback is that children and women with small hands are not so comfortable with this model.For them, I do suggest the Hugh Tracey Treble kalimba or theTM Alto, a newer model with the same tines as the ALTO, but mounted on a 0.5 inch kiaat board.The TM ALTO is easy for small hands to hold, but then you don't have the wonderful "Wah Wah" effect from the sound holes in the resonant box.

This instrument has been the joy of my life, and I cannot recommend it enough.I have found it deeply disturbing that the US market has been dominated by inferior kalimbas for the last several years.In this rush to globalization and Walmart-ization of consumer goods where the bottom line is just about how much money a product costs, we risk losing the real quality products out there.YES, the African-made Hugh Tracey Kalimba costs a lot more than the Pakistani-made immitation, but its WORTH it!It is a real musical instrument, capable of bringing great beauty and joy into the world.

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Product Description:
Hugh Tracey Kalimbas are hand made thumb pianos from South Africa, known the world over for their beautiful tone. These instruments are truly authentic both in construction and sound. The Kalimba - depending on the region also called Thumb Piano, Finger Piano, Mbira, Sanza or Likembe - is a wood box on which a collection of metal strips are mounted. The Kalimba is held in the hand or on the knee and the musician plucks the free hanging strips with the thumb or fingers.

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