This 5-stringed kantele is made with traditional Finnish proportions and with the 'bird head' themed headstock.

We make it in our shop here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Every detail is crafted with longevity in mind. We hope this will be an instrument to last lifetimes, only fitting for such a historically significant music maker.

Your kantele will be made to order and require ~2 weeks to complete and ship.

The body is hewn from a single piece of Hard Maple. The ponsi ("pommel" - where the string bar is mounted) and the tuning pin reinforcement bar are from the same piece of wood. The soundboard is resawn from Western Red Cedar.

The soundboard is marked at the strings' centerpoints to assist with playing the harmonic overtones, essentially making it a 10 note instrument (or more! There are other harmonics available to those skilled in finding them).

It uses high quality zither pins for tuning, adjustable with the included T-handled tuning wrench.

The strings are 0.016" (0.41mm) diameter loop-ended plain steel. Tonal variation may be had through different string gauge choices.

This instrument is a delightful musical tool. The minimal number of notes is a feature, not a bug: no need to try to play every song out there, just let your fingers move on the strings as you develop an instinctive muscle-memory-to-melody connection. Spice it up with a minor tuning, go full-on-meditative with a pentatonic “no wrong notes” scale… it’s all good :-)

Many thanks to Michael J. King of TheLyreShop here on Etsy. When I learned about and became fascinated with small Kanteles his plans and guidance helped me make my first version and then start iterating on the theme.

Free shipping to US addresses!