Kalimba Magic

Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
Tablature for Alto, Treble and G Chromatic

The Hugh Tracey kalimba is the work of a lifetime. From 1920 to 1954, Hugh Tracey honed his appreciation and understanding of African music and musical instruments. From about 1950 to 1954, he built over 100 prototype instruments of various designs, integrating aspects of several traditional kalimbas. When he felt he had perfected his design, the Treble kalimba was born, and the deeper Alto followed a few years later.

But after Hugh Tracey had developed his masterpiece instrument, how could he get people interested in it? How could he get people to take it - and him - seriously? The answer to that was, in part, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", the beautiful piece by J.S. Bach that everybody loves to listen to. I have played this song at weddings, memorial services, and silent Quaker Meeting for Worship.

Beginning of "Jesu" for Alto.

I like to joke: "This is a song Johann S. Bach wrote when he spent a semester abroad in Johann S. Berg." Ed Morgan, Tucson lawyer, told me "The KALIMBA is truly the instrument that Jesu was written for."

And how true those words seemed. Hugh Tracey learned to play Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring on his Treble Kalimba, and would perform that piece when he gave lectures on African music and the kalimba. People had never before heard such pure and silvery music come forth... from... a little box with a rake on it?

And I have my own history with Jesu. I learned to play it about 10 years ago "by ear" - well, more like "by memory", and what I didn't remember, I made up. Especially in the B part. Worst of all, I misremembered a part, and actually dropped 1/3 of a measure - no, I don't think Bach would have switched to a single measure of 6/8 time. You are invited to see that error by purchasing my elementary Christmas Book for the Alto and Treble. OK, I suppose I will have to go back and fix it in the next printing.

But the good news for everyone - whether you bought the book or not - is that corrected arrangements of Jesu are now available for free below.

• Easy Alto Tablature (PDF)
• Easy Alto Tablature (KTabS*)
• Easy Treble Tablature (PDF)
• Easy Treble Tablature (KTabS*)
• Alto Tablature (PDF)
• Alto Tablature (KTabS*)
• Treble Tablature (PDF)
• Treble Tablature (KTabS*)
• G Chromatic Tablature (PDF)
• G Chromatic Tablature (KTabS*)

A few notes about these arrangements:

• They all fit on one page of paper, each with a first part and a second part. I usually do an A-B-A structure, which is very short but also very sweet. DC al Fine means go back to the beginning and stop when it says Fine = "The End".
• The "Easy Alto" and "Easy Treble" arrangements are mainly melody only (some chords in the slower second part), and are a good place to start.
• The Treble is a very clean translation from the Alto (Hugh Tracey would have said that backwards) - both Treble and Alto have very good and very similar parts.
• The G chromatic has only two back-side notes - strategically placed for a little richness. In other words, learn the Alto version, then learn to add those two little notes - it is the smallest of all possible steps into the ocean of the Chromatic kalimba.
• Jesu has two main repeating parts (and a few other one-time parts that will someday be arranged for the Chromatic - will be glorious I am sure). The first part has not changed much, but the second part has changed a lot in this new arrangement. It is a choral - slow, flowing. Ten years ago, I lacked confidence in my ability to sustain an audience's attention through those slow hanging notes, and I arranged a second part that kept the triplet eighth notes flowing. I still love that, but I welcome you into the new arrangement, much more true to Bach's choral. I think you will love it, and I suspect it will bring out something lovely from your own kalimba playing if you take the time to learn it.
• While I absolutely love ad libbing and improvisation, there is something absolutely amazing when you learn a piece note for note and play it with perfecton. After you get every note just right, the music still isn't actually perfect, but you can go deeper and deeper into the music and work on more nuanced musical issues.
• On the piano, there is a large natural separation in pitch between the left and right hand parts - the melody and harmony notes tend to between one and two octaves apart. On the kalimba, the melody and harmony tend to be much closer - sometimes only half a step, as at the beginning of the choral.
• On the chords, I encourage you to seek a light touch and emphasize the melody with the opposite hand. Bach usually only has a single note in melody and a single note in harmony (I guess "counterpoint" is more what he did), and I have arranged several notes at the same time - sometimes three on each side. If you want a more minimalist arrangement, you should feel free to take out some harmony notes.

* You can learn more about KTabS on this Learn How page. In order to view the KTabS format file, you will need to install the KTabS program on your Windows computer. You can download the KTabS Reader for free, or you can download the full KTabS Program in Demo version for free (it will work for two weeks, but you can't save any files). The full KTabS program costs $30, and I can tell you that with the number of hours I have used KTabS, it is worth $1000 to me! While it is not for the faint of heart, it is possible to get KTabS to run on the Mac.

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