I've benn making several kalimba's in the last couple weeks. One of the side effects of tuning a new kalimba, or even playing the kalimba for a long period of time, is that the keys either give you a blister on your thumbs or it wears the skin thin. This is especially true when the ends of the keys are rough cut and not finished, as during the pretuning of a new kalimba.
So, I went back to a trick that I learned from Stevie Ray Vaughn. That's right I learned this trick directly from the blues master himself. You see in college I worked security for concerts. It was a great way to make some extra cash and get a great spot to hear the music. The evening that Stevie Ray Vaughn was in town, I was given the detail to guard his bus. I got to spend a few minutes with Stevie before the show while we were waiting for the super glue to dry on his fingers. That's right, Stevie played so hard every night on tour that it would literally rip his finger tips apart, so he applied super glue in layers to his finger tips. During the show, it would wear through the super glue rather than his skin.
I tried the same trip for my "kalimba thumbs" and it works great!!
2 comments:
What a freaking interesting story, brother. When I first started reading your blog, I was thinking, he obviously don't play guitar. I messed with a Kalimba in the early 70's, and have to say it's one of the best instruments ever. Especially for a layman. Easy to figure out. And the superglue story was great. I actually made what could equate to thimbles for my fingers when I used to do slides. There really is so much you can do if you put your head to work. I hope you get to read this. Being a carpenter also gives me more than enough incentive to build one. From what I've seen, they're a little pricey! Kalimba on bro!
Hey, I recommend growing your nails so they do the work.
Post a Comment