Oh no. My kalimba has a crack in it!
For those of you who don't know what a kalimba is, it's an African thumb piano, an instrument that requires a LOT of digital dexterity to play.
If you've listened to Earth Wind & Fire throughout the years, especially to anything off of the “I Am” album, you've heard a kalimba as played by Maurice White. Now I have absolutely no talent when it comes to playing a kalimba, but as an Earth Wind & Fire fan I'm very familiar with the instrument, so when I saw one on sale a while ago at an alternative craft fair in Marquette, I scooped it up.
After all, how many people actually have a kalimba, even if they can't play it?
Because I can't play it (or more precisely, can play it but can't play it melodically) it's just been sitting on a shelf as a decoration, as opposed to a working musical instrument, and I haven't really paid much attention to it over the past few years. That's why I wasn't too surprised when this past weekend I had to move the kalimba to get at something else on the shelf, and noticed a huge crack in the bottom of it.
I guess now I'll never become a master of the kalimba.
I can't say I'm surprised it's cracked; after all, I bought it probably 20 years ago and it's just been sitting around since then. And since I picked it up at a craft fair I'm sure it was more ornament than functional musical instrument. Still, when I plucked the keys it did produce something resembling a musical tone, and who knows—I was planning on actually figuring out how to play it one of these years.
I guess it just won't be on that particular kalimba. And I guess my dreams of joining Earth Wind & Fire will have to go on the back-burner, at least for now.
Sigh...
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