Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Building a Gourd Resonator or a Gourd Kalimba:
Make One or Purchase One?

While it is fun and educational to make a kalimba, the big benefit seems to me that you have a musical instrument you can hopefully use for the rest of your life, and you have a whole-body memory of where that kalimba came from. If you make a kalimba with your partner, that kalimba and its history becomes a shared memory and can be deeply meaningful.

On the other hand, I realize that I can't make kalimbas that are good as the ones that I can buy. For example, the Catania 8-Note and 12-Note Gourd Pianos are very nice instruments - a combination of beauty, high quality, good sound, and these models are surprisingly inexpensive for being American-made.

The Catania 8-Note Gourd Piano is available for only $54.

The Catania 12-Note Gourd Piano is available for only $64.