Kalimba Magic NEWS

We have added quite a bit of music to the library. The Easter Hymns download includes both basic and advanced arrangements. The Student Karimba is a great new development that I hope will introduce a lot of kids to the body of traditional African music. In writing music for the G-tuned Chromatic Kalimba, we are basically suggesting that this tuning may be the way to go for the future.

Kevin Nathaniel is a top notch player and maker of African karimbas and mbiras: "If you make your instrument, you can reach for the sound you'd like it to 'voice' in your building process. So the instrument making process is itself part of the music, and it is a musical process in itself. When you build instruments over a long period of time, you (or at least I) tend to throw out the rulers and tape measure, and start feeling everything out. That is to say, working by feel. In this approach you start being guided also by the sound you are imagining coming from the instrument." —Kevin Nathaniel

The KTabS program has been my primary tool for documenting and disseminating kalimba music in a form that other people can readily understand. This month, I discuss:

The Hugh Tracey Alto Kalimba is the one I recommend to most people who want to buy a kalimba, but my own personal favorite is the Bb Treble Kalimba. This is my own invention, a recasting of the Hugh Tracey Treble Kalimba into the shape of the Alto Kalimba, and Kalimba Magic is the only place to get the Bb Treble Kalimba and its instructional materials.
So, what makes this my favorite kalimba?

Dear Mark, I got an Alto kalimba for my husband last Father's Day... Oh, he loves it SO much, thank you!
But when will I get my husband back?