Instructional Download: 8-Note Kalimba in Sansula Tuning

An exotic tuning on this otherwise vanilla kalimba makes for new and interestng music

The 8-Note kalimba is a great instrument on which to learn, and is usually tuned to one octave of the C major scale. As such, it is a pretty modest kalimba, playing songs such as “London Bridge is Falling Down” and “Joy to the World” (and NOT the “Jeremiah was a bullfrog” version).

If you are willing to retune your 8-Note kalimba, you can greatly increase the amount of music accessible to the 8-Note kalimba.  The standard A minor Sansula tuning is one of the least ordinary tunings you can put onto the 8-Note kalimba – if you do, you won’t be playing “Twinkle, Twinkle” anymore! AND if you don’t want to retune your kalimba, you can send your old 8-Note to the Kalimba Doctor and we will do the job for you, or you can order a new 8-Note in the Sansula tuning. (I am partial to the Goshen 8-Note kalimba.)

The Sansula is one of the more exotic instruments we stock. A large part of its beauty is its unique tuning. Even though the Sansula has nine tines, two of the tines are tuned to the same note in the standard A minor tuning, meaning there are only eight unique notes. Perfect! That means that the standard Sansula tuning fits perfectly on the 8-Note kalimba.

Now – why would you want to put the Sansula tuning on your 8-note kalimba? Perhaps you want your kid to play 8-Note kalimba along with your Sansula playing. Perhaps you have grown tired of the nursery rhymes of the 8-Note and want something different. Or perhaps you are attracted by the musical possibilities the Sansula tuning opens up to the 8-Note kalimba.

To underscore those musical possibilities, I have just created a 28-page instructional download for the 8-Note kalimba in Sansula tuning. I love the music this tuning creates. It is relaxing, meditative, ethnic, and exotic. And now, the door is wide open to you.

Any 8-Note kalimba ordered in Sansula tuning will get this download for free. If you already have an 8-Note kalimba, you can purchase the download a la carte.

This download consists of original songs and exercises that will instruct you on the intricacies of the lovely Sansula tuning. The information is transmitted through kalimba tablature, and recordings of each song are accessible by clicking on the song titles in this PDF download.

Here is an example page from the download – remember the song that was playing when you loaded this page? This example is half of the tablature for that song: