Coconut Karimbu Instrument | Nature’s Rhythm Maker

A karimbu is one of the lamellophones, the family of African instruments played by plucking tuned metal tongues with the thumbs. You will also see them sold as kalimbas or thumb pianos. The tongues are fixed over a hollow body, and the body is what gives each one its voice. Ours are made in Bali rather than in Africa, in the same workshops as the shakers and the frame drums.

This one is built on a coconut shell and engraved rather than deeply carved. It is the larger of the two, and a bigger round hollow gives a fuller note with more ring on the end of it. The shell keeps the whole instrument very light in the hand.

It is an easy instrument to start on. You can hold a pattern with your thumbs while your attention sits somewhere else, the way you would use a rattle or a drum, and that is what makes it useful in ritual rather than only in music.

Good to Know

Roughly 4 inches tall and 6.5 inches across. Natural coconut shell, engraved by hand, so color, grain and pattern vary and no two sound quite alike.

An inexpensive handmade instrument rather than a concert kalimba. It arrives roughly in tune with itself and not to concert pitch.

Pair It With

The Carved Karimbu is the smaller one with a tighter, quicker note. For rhythm underneath it, the Labora Shaker. More in sound.