Mark Holdaway

This is an enchanting middle-eastern style tuning Even though the  Morocco E sansula tuning is one that I haven’t explored very much,  I actually have two instruments set up in this tuning!  I play around with this tuning because it is fun.  Morocco E tuning sounds quite serious, which is why I love it so much. Again, even if you have no interest in ever getting a sansula, look at the patterns in the tablature here and learn, as this stuff is applicable to any kalimba. Lesson 1: Lopsided phrase.   Measures 1-3 (on the left) are all cut from the same cloth, but measure 4 is totally different.  Measures 1-3

From the Heavenly A Sansula Song Book The Heavenly A Sansula Song Book The Heavenly A Sansula tuning is Rick Tarquinio’s answer to my Beautiful E Tuning.  True to its name, the Heavenly A Sansula is quite lovely.  Not only is this a good tuning in which to improvise, but this tuning actually supports a great many songs. The song in this lesson is “Sadza Madya Here”, a traditional African piece for the karimba, but it sounds great on the sansula as well. Even if you never move an inch toward learning this song, learn this song’s techniques.  You can hear it on the media player below. The first lesson:

From the Beautiful E Sansula Music Book Beautiful E Sansula Book While the standard-tuned sansula is lovely, many of the things it plays sound similar.  The Beautiful E Tuning for the Sansula not only has a totally different palette of colors and emotions, it can also play a much wider swathe of music than the standard tuning can. This tip shares the tablature and sound recording of one of the songs from the Beautiful E Sansula book to give you an idea of what the Beautiful E can do. The tablature here is from page 32 of the Beautiful E Sansula Music Book.  While this book does have several songs

Just retuning one of the A tines down to G increases the reach of the Sansula’s standard tuning Go to product page for “Kalimba Doctor Tuning” Modifying one note won’t totally transform the sansula, but it will alter, and in this case, extend the musical palette available to the instrument. And if you are going to take the plunge and experiment with alternative tunings for the first time, you should start with something easy. This tuning only requires retuning one tine by a whole step.  It is also easy to get back to the original tuning, though I don’t think you’d want to – I myself prefer to have that G than

Exactly how does one go about retuning a sansula? Learn about retuning your sansula When you think of retuning, you may envision tuning hammers, tuning prongs, and pliers, and people pushing and grunting, but if you are serious about retuning your sansula, I have one little piece of information that will save you a lot of time and frustration. And we also hook you up with a lot of kalimba tuning resources! Before I get too deep into the mechanics of retuning your sansula, just remember that under the “Kalimba Doctor” category in our shop, we offer a kalimba/sansula retuning service.  If you mess it up badly, you can send

Here are some of the tunings – many of them complete with sound recordings! Visit the Kalimba Doctor page to get your kalimba retuned Are you still wondering why the big fuss over all those different sansula tunings? This tip clarifies that very question.  The differences among the tunings are made clear, with rich descriptions of how I perceive the music they make. And in addition, you can listen to and watch different tunings in action in the video below, which is a YouTube Playlist containing 7 separate short demonstrations.     Standard A minor (Ake-bono-like) tuning:  This original tuning was part my initial attraction to the sansula – the tuning was

Changing the tuning can transform the music the sansula plays Go to product page for “Kalimba Doctor Tuning” Kalimba Magic started making the first alternative sansula tunings many years ago, and we are the only people to have made instructional materials for the sansula and its alternative tunings. This series of tips is an overview of Kalimba Magic’s sansula tunings and related instructional materials. Before we launch into several alternative tunings, it only seems fair that I explain why anyone would even want to try an alternative tuning on their sansula. In the previous tip, you saw that you could make good music by twiddling your thumbs in a strictly

This ground-breaking book inspired thousands Go to product page for “Playing the Sansula” Kalimba Magic started making the first alternative sansula tunings many years ago, and we are the only people to have made instructional materials for the sansula and its alternative tunings. This series of tips is an overview of Kalimba Magic’s sansula tunings and related instructional materials. This is a good example of the music played easily on the sansula in standard A minor tuning – it is one of the lessons from the book “Playing the Sansula”, which mostly covers the standard tuning. The media player at the bottom of the article will play a sound recording

The standard A minor tuning requires almost no effort and sounds great Renaissance Sansula product page Kalimba Magic started making the first alternative sansula tunings many years ago, and we are the only people to have made instructional materials for the sansula and its alternative tunings. This series of tips is an overview of Kalimba Magic’s sansula tunings and related instructional materials.  To gain some perspective, we take a close look at where the Sansula started – the standard A minor tuning. The notes of the sansula in standard tuning are shown on the left, and the roles these notes play is indicated in the numbers on the right.  The