Kalimba is a musical instrument making sounds by thumbs flicking the thin tines on the body. In Kenya, it is called thumb piano. There are different names in different countries. in Congo, people call it Likebme, and there are many other names, such as Sanza, Thumb drum, and Wood finger piano.

       Kalimba originated in Africa. Its rudiment appeared in West Africa over 3000 years ago. People think that the music played by kalimba can not only drive away the evil spirits of patients but also pray for rain; it is a symbol of luckiness. It is popular. Currently, kalimba users are spread all over the world and the number is increasing.

      At present, many kalimba manufacturers around the world produce a wide variety of kalimba. Most of the products are still in the toy stage and have only the appearance. our kalimba factory adopts the operation mode of R & D, shaping, testing, and launching. Each kalimba has undergone thousands of appearances, sound effects testing, and the product can be launched to the market after successful testing.

       In order to meet the ever-increasing market quality requirements, our company has launched the MAGADI （涟韵）brand Kalimba. The MAGADI brand represents the research and production of kalimba at the performance level.

       Choose MAGADI, choose professional kalimba manufacturer.

       MAGADI, spokesman of professional kalimba.

Tips Of Kalimba

Kalimba is an ancient percussion that originated in African and known by more and more people since the beginning of the 2000s. It could be easily searched in many world-known online stores or found in brick-and-mortar stores all around the world.

After many years of development, there are three styles of kalimba structures mainly, one is boxed, the second is solid, and the third one is skinned. At the beginning of the kalimba, restricted by technology and material, almost all of the kalimba takes the boxed shape with one hole on the middle of the face. Until now there are many manufacturers producing kalimba with boxed shapes, especially in South China and Africa. When we come to around 2000, several manufacturers start to research and develop solid wood kalimba and skinned kalimba, One in Germany is the excellent one of them. Magadi is another one born in China. Both of them are the greatest manufacturers committed to producing high-quality kalimba, just kalimba. By now the boxed shape is still mainstream on the market.

At the beginning of the kalimba, nearly all of them have 17 tines with the same tone permutation. The appearance differences that we could see are most in wooden material, and the tines surface treatment. Mahogany or cherry wood, tine without treatment or electroplated with nickel. Factories in China always paint the kalimba with oiled paint like the surface of the mirror. The rest of them paint their kalimba with botanic oil like linseed. About the tines, 99 percent of the tines are electroplated with nickel. The nickel layer makes the tine bright, but at the same time, the thick nickel layer makes tines hard and tough, which is not good for players. It always makes thumbs painful if playing for more than fifteen minutes.

Why tines should be covered by a thick nickel layer? That is the key, if without electroplating; the tine is easy to rust. With electroplating, the tine could avoid rusting, but easy to break if covered with a thin nickel layer. Every coin has two sides. The key is to seek balance. The cost is expensive and difficult. Magadi did it. They tested thousand times to find the balance point. Congratulations.

Another style of the tine is without any treatment, just keeping the original of the spring steel, the benefit is to save cost and energy. The harmful side is easy to rust, especially in the rainy season. That is up to the manufacturer. Hard to say which one is better?

Now we come to the most important part, the key tone accuracy. That is a technical job. It decides the quality of kalimba sound directly. Before you play the kalimba, you must make sure that it is in tune, or it will sound wrong. That is very important. There are many videos and articles about how to tune a kalimba. You could get one easily.