Balafon Keys

Pitches and Dimensions

These are the rough dimensions of the keys on the balafon that I made. The wood I used was Paduk, which I believe comes from Africa. It is a fine grained hard wood, similar in many ways to Mahagony, but with a better "ring" to it. On each key, I then had to cut tuning arches to achieve the desired pitch. The tuning arches ranged from very extensive on the lowest keys, to reverse arches (under cutting the ends of the key, rather than the middle) on the very highest keys.

Key #	Pitch	Length	Width	Depth
1	G# +8	46.5 cm	3.8 cm	2.4 cm
2	A# -34	45.75	"	"
3	B +38	45.0	"	"
4	C# +10	44.25	"	"
5	D# -4	43.5	"	"
6	F -41	42.75	"	"
7	F# +34	42.0	"	"
8	G# +8	41.25	"	"
9	A# -34	40.5	"	"
10	B +38	39.75	"	"
11	C# +10	39.0	"	"
12	D# -4	38.25	"	"
13	F -41	37.5	"	"
14	F# +34	36.75	"	"
15	G# +8	36.0	"	"
16	A# -34	35.25	"	"
17	B +38	34.5	"	"
18	C# +10	33.75	"	"
19	D# -4	33.0	"	"