Return After Long Hiatus

After about a 6 month hiatus from my last blog post, I will be returning back to posting more on kantele related subjects. Between starting and working at my new dream job, and other instrument builds (2 hardwood driftwood didgeridoo, erhu restoration, and planning for a new Chinese guqin I will start building shortly), I haven't focused very much on the kantele lately, however I have recently started to get back into more kantele playing and making. I have also just recently finished a new kantele in the past few days that I will be posting about in upcoming posts. It was a prototype and experimental kantele exploring a unique open back kantele design utilizing a live-edge redwood slab. I wanted a very unique looking design, which incorporated both the natural and raw aspects of the piece of wood alongside carved and shaped features. It has become my favorite sounding kantele yet, and I love the sound and look of redwood for the tonewood for kantele. I will definitely be making more of these live edge redwood kantele in the future, and will work on a kind of hybrid/fusion design between the kantele, natural wood instruments, and aspects of the Chinese guqin. Check out the next post in a few days for pics of the new kantele!