The quartertone marimba has been developed by Kjell Tore Innervik through the scholarship program for artistic research and development at the Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo.

Adams International delivered a marimba tuned one quartertone flat on a standard frame. The frame was partially altered by Ingvald Innervik and Martin Bergendal after instructions by Kjell Tore Innervik.

The process (Norwegian)

One of Kjell Tore Innervik's principal ideas was to extend the 5-octave Artist Classic MAHC55 model marimba with a quartertone-tuned marimba Artist Classic MAHV50. Thus one performer would be able to play on the "stacked" marimba as a solo instrument: the Artist Classic MAHV50 is shorter and allows the distance in the lower register to be handled by one performer. It was also important that it should be possible to play the instrument as two separate instruments, one conventionally tuned and one tuned a quartertone lower. Another issue was transportability: by extending the frame with just a few parts, it should be possible simply to transport these extra parts and to assemble them onto another instrument. My main focus has been to learn to play the instrument and to develop a new repertoire in collaboration with composers.

Paper on the process in Norwegian. (COMING SOON)

Alterations made to the marimba

Prototypes and early versions