I had one of these many years ago after seeing Taj Mahal in concert where he began by holding a Hugh Tracey version of this up to the microphone and noodling around with it and saying "Everybody should have one of these!" I bought one almost immediately and enjoyed it for many years but it gradually bit the dust what with moving around and letting toddlers play with it. I have always missed it and found this at a very reasonable price so I snapped it up. It arrived almost overnight, and initially I had a sinking feeling that what other reviewers had written about its horrible sound possibly being true. They're not true at all -- it's a great little instrument with a very nice tone, once it's tuned properly.<br /><br />For some reason (probably to keep the cost low) this arrives untuned, so it sounds horrible with none of the beautiful resonance that happens when it is played after being tuned. The instructions, while being accurate about how to tune it, in my opinion are horribly off-base when they suggest that it should be tuned to a D major scale. As another reviewer has already pointed out, when it's tuned to D the highest tines are too short to produce decent sounding notes. I remembered my original Kalimba being tuned to a C major scale, so I just spent the last half-hour tuning my new one to a C major scale and it sounds great, just like I remember.<br /><br />It's very unfortunate that this arrives untuned because non-musicians who simply want to enjoy the pleasures of making pleasing sounds on it are sadly disappointed and unless they have musician-friends to help them tune it, it's worthless to them. I used a combination of my ears, matching the tines to the pitches on the piano and then used an electronic tuner for the final fine-tuning. Initially it's very difficult to move the tines, and trying to push it with the flat edge of a screwdriver like it says in the instructions is not very productive. I needed to use small pliers to grab the playing end of each tine and slide it side-to-side while pulling to make the longer. After each tine began to move it got easier to move it but initially the tines were very stiff. It's important to pay attention to the pliers because they will slip off the tine easily if you're not careful and they can scratch the wooden resonating box.<br /><br />So my 5-star rating is because of how nice it is when it's tuned -- I wish I could give a rating for what it's like out of the box and another rating for how it ends up. For non-musicians, how it comes is only 1 star in my opinion. For musicians who have the patience and the skill to tune it, I would rate it 3 stars right out of the box. But once it's tuned to the key of C major, it rates 5 stars.
Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]