Aug 20, 2009
Kalimba Magic NEWS
Playing Harmonica with the Kalimba
A physical connection with African music
The harmonica is a simple instrument that you can play with many instruments, including the kalimba! In this five part series, you will learn how the harmonica and the kalimba are related, and why the harmonica is such a great companion to the kalimba. Last month we address something called cross harp. This month we look at an interesting physical connection between the harmonica and the amadinda, a traditional African xylophone.
The amadinda is a Ugandan xylophone that AMI makes and we sell. Christian Carver, director of AMI, told me a story which tied the style of traditional amadinda music to the physical nature of the old amadinda instruments. You see, before amadindas were made on a sturdy wooden frame, they were basically xylophone notes placed on the ridges of two upside-down banana palm leaves.
A vibrating xylophone bar will have two "nodes" - places where the bar vibrates very little. If you try holding the bar at the end or in the middle - both "antinodes" where vibration is at a maximum - vibrational energy will be taken from the bar and transferred to your hand, resulting in the bar deadening and stopping, because your hand isn't stiff enough to vibrate at that frequency and resonate. The nodes are two spots about 1/5 of the bar's length from either end of the bar (i.e., the spot where the amadinda bars are supported). If you try to hold the bar at one of the nodes, the act of holding the bar will not cause the bar to deaden, but it will ring clear.
So, imagine the xylophone bars supported at their nodes, resting on the ridges of two upside-down banana palm fronds. Everything is good so far. But the bars are struck with sticks on their ends (not the middle, as with western marimbas), and when you do this, the bar will be pushed and will slide so the node of the bar is no longer right over the supporting palm frond ridge. If hit from the end too many times, the bar might slide right off!
Enter player number 2. Western xylophones are played by a single player who stands on the side where the low notes are on the left and the high notes are on the right (just as on the piano, or on the harmonica for that matter). They hit the bars at the antinode in the center of the bar. But the amadinda is played by two players, one on each side, who strike the bars at the antinodes at both ends of the bars. When one of the amadinda bars was pushed by player 1, player 2 on the opposite side must eventually hit it and push it back. The push back doesn't need to come right away, but certainly before long. The physical nature of the ancient amadinda mandated that each note be doubled, eventually. This provides a certain balance to the traditional amadinda music.
There is no analogous restriction on the kalimba - an instrument which actually incorporates player 1 onto the right side of the kalimba and player 2 on the left side of the kalimba, subsuming them into the left and right hemispheres of the kalimba player's brain.
However, harmonica playing has a similar requirement of balance built into it - you can only suck on the harmonica for so long before you are so full of air and you need to blow a bit.
Next month, we will provide suggestions for how to play harmonica and kalimba at the same time.
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