November 26, 2009

Volume 4, Number 9

Kalimba Magic NEWS

• In This Issue
• Message from Mark: On Loving a Kalimba
• What's the Buzz at Kalimba Magic?
• Advanced Christmas Carols for Alto and Treble
• Announcing Playing the Sansula
• AMTA Music Therapists Discover the Kalimba
• Interview with Olusegun Williams
• Contest: Make Your Own Kalimba
• Playing Harmonica with the Kalimba
• KTabS Notebook: Kushaura & Kutsinhira Parts
• Kalimba of the Month: The Hokema Sansula
• Kalimba Community
• Ask Mark: Two Most Common Sansula Questions

Advanced Christmas Carols
For the Alto and Treble Kalimbas

I have always gotten a lot of joy from playing Christmas music. The Christmas season in general is a bit crazy for me, but even on the busiest days, when I am able to stop and find that place of inner peace and let beautiful kalimba music flow from that place, I know that I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. What a blessing, to have such a resource that I can draw on, and share with other people.

The Advanced Christmas books are here! I'm really excited about them. Back when I wrote my first Kalimba Christmas book for Alto and Treble four years ago, I was basically cutting and pasting the notes individually in a pure graphics program that wouldn't know if I made a mistake, like putting 5 or 6 beats into a 4 beat measure. Needless to say, I made a few mistakes in that first printing.

Unlike the mostly simple arrangements in the first Christmas book, the arrangements in the advanced books were worked out in KTabS, so I could play each arrangement over and over again on my computer until it was just right. These arrangements are very close to the sort of thing that I do around Christmas time on my own kalimba. After I released these advanced arrangements as a download last year, I got several requests for the printed versions, and Sharon Eaton of KTabS helped me fine tune these arrangements and the printed versions. She didn't want her name on the books, but this is a good time and place to give her a big public acknowledgement and THANK YOU.

The Advanced Alto and Treble Christmas books each have 20 Christmas carols:

• Angels from the Realms of Glory
• Angels We have Heard on High
• Away in a Manger (American)
• Away in a Manger (English)
• Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella
• Carol of the Bells
• Deck the Halls
• Emmanuel
• Fairest Lord Jesus
• The First Noel
• God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
• Good King Wenceslas
• Hark the Herald Angels Sing
• Jingle Bells
• Joy To the World
• Oh Christmas Tree
• O Come All Ye Faithful
• Silent Night
• We Three Kings
• We Wish You a Merry Christmas

We provide the tablature for "Angels We Have Heard on High" to show you the sort of arrangements we have here. This one is done up in a syncopated African sort of way during the verse:

Angels We Have Heard on High
Click for full song in PDF.

Advanced Christmas Carols for the Alto Kaliimba and Advanced Christmas Carols for the Treble Kalimba are both now available from Kalimba Magic for $16. If you get one of these books today, you will still have time to learn a bunch of these songs in time to do your own Christmas performances!