The Joy of Composing Kalimba Music With KTabS

Melissa Ghimenti, spouse of Anthony Ghimenti (new owner of Kalimba Magic as of October 14, 2024) has undertaken a project of creating kalimba duets from two different songs played simultaneously. She writes:

“I am so excited about learning how to notate music in KTabS! I desperately want to play duets on kalimbas with a friend to experiment playing two different songs and making a new mashup.”

Ah, but that is where KTabS comes in. Sometimes, it is hard to play one song when a different song is playing. However, KTabS doesn’t care! It will play the two different songs simultaneously, no matter what they are. Use the Tie All Views Together icon to play back all opened songs together. (Hints: Use the same tempo for both files. If one song has a pickup, add a pickup of rests of the same length to the second song, as in the example above.)

The adjacent icon to the right is Tile Windows, which is also useful – this will arrange all song windows within the KTabS window so that you can see them all moving when you play back.

Of course, if you have other songs open that don’t blend with the songs you are duetting, you want to close them before you Tie All Views and Tile Windows.

An important KTabS tip from Melissa:

“I have learned the importance of saving as inputting into the tablature. If there is a glitch and the app suddenly closes, and you didn’t save the tablature, guess what is gone? Everything inputted from the last time you saved it or the song is completely gone if not saved at all. There is a lot of joy in writing the duets for a book.”

Getting KTabS

By the way, Kalimba Magic does not sell the KTabS program. You can get KTabS from Randy and Sharon Eaton here for $30.  That said, the kalimba tablature in KTabS follows all the conventions that I created when I started writing my first kalimba books in 2005… with the graphics and notes done “by hand”. KTabS is such an improvement!

I think KTabS is well worth your while. I have spent hundreds of hours each year using the KTabS program, for over 18 years now. (If you are doing the math, I ended up paying less than $0.01 per hour of KTabS use… not counting all the registrations I bought for other people!)

Yes, KTabS is an old program, but it is powerful and is capable of creating great music on virtually any type of kalimba, with any number of tines and in any tuning. And if you want to write a kalimba book, this tool’s for you!

Melissa recently installed and registered KTabS on her laptop running Windows 11, and except for our slowness in realizing we just needed to run the downloaded INSTALL executable file, it was a piece of cake.

New Book of Duets Coming Soon

Melissa Ghimenti and I will be coming out with a new kalimba book filled with “Two Song Duets” – duets made by playing two different songs in counterpoint with each other. Look for it in November 2024.

Browse Our Kalimba Tablature Instructional Downloads

The really good news about Anthony Ghimenti purchasing Kalimba Magic? The stores of information at KalimbaMagic.com will persist. And the sound files and ancillary web pages to help you get the most out of your Kalimba Magic Instructional Download will persist for years to come.

Just for perspective: there are currently 78 instructional downloads for sale, for these different kalimbas and tunings: 17-Note Kalimba in C, 17-Note in C with 5-painted tine system, 17-Note in Middle Eastern Tuning, 10-Note Kalimba in C, African-Tuned Karimba, A Minor Karimba, Mbira Nyunga Nyunga,Student Karimba,  8-Note Kalimba, Sansula in various tunings (standard Am, Heavenly A, Beautiful E, and C Major), Hugh Tracey Alto Kalimba, C-tuned Alto Kalimba, Hugh Tracey Treble Kalimba, Hugh Tracey 11-Note “Hot-Shot”, Hugh Tracey Pentatonic Kalimba, Bb Treble Kalimba, Catania 12-Note Kalimba, the vintage Afroharp, Lotus Karimba, Freygish Karimba, the Celtic D Karimba, the Hokema B11 in various tunings (standard G, Four Winds, The Wizard), the I-Ching Kalimba, the Mini-7 (M7) Kalimba, Magadi Moon-10 in various tunings (standard, Desert Moon, Golden Moon, Silver Moon, and Blue Moon), the Star-13 in various tunings (standard C tuning, G Major, Desert Star, A Harmonic Minor, Bebey G9, Lotus Lyte, and Bothe E), and general resources such as the EZ Numbers Based Book and the “Just the Tips” book.

If you are counting, I come up with downloads for  40  different kalimba types and tunings. So, if you are stuck in a rut with your kalimba playing, come on over and check out our kalimba downloads. Who knows what magic you might find?

Browse Our Kalimba Hard Copy Books

Yes, hard copy books are old fashioned. I certainly hope my kalimba books don’t end up in the land fill, but just that possibility might be enough to pull you in the direction of the downloads.  If you feel you need something tangible printed on a piece of paper, why don’t you try doing a download, and printing out just those pages that you are working on?

Or if you really need the book, we do have 37 hard copy books available. And for the record, those books cover these kalimba models and tunings:   17-Note Kalimba in C, 10-Note Kalimba in C, 8-Note Kalimba, Hugh Tracey Alto Kalimba, Hugh Tracey Treble Kalimba, Hugh Tracey Pentatonic Kalimba, the Sansula (in standard Am tuning, Heavenly A tuning, or Beautiful C tuning),  the Karimba, the Student Karimba, the Hokema B11, the Magadi Mini-7, the Magadi Star-13, the Magadi Moon-10, the Magadi Olive-9, the Catania 6-Note Pentatonic, and the Afroharp. That is a total of 18 different instrument setups that we have written books for over the years.