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This exotic scale sounds “WOW” on the Alto Kalimba I remember being 8 years old, getting to stay up late to watch “Lawrence of Arabia” on TV. Even as I drowsed, I found myself listening attentively to its dazzling music. How grand! The music’s sumptuous scales sounded ethnic and different. It was moving and magical. Did the composer actually understand middle-eastern music and scales? Or was he just “making it up”? Probably both. The cool thing about the kalimba is that you can just “make it up.” Here, I have made up the “Hitzaskiar” tuning for the Hugh Tracey Alto Kalimba. The Hitzaskiar is an actual ancient scale from Persia, but

you Can Play This Music on Two Different Kalimbas Many people born in the last couple of decades were first turned on to the sound of the kalimba by the animated TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The kalimba was regularly featured in the sound track.  The kalimba can really pull on your heartstrings in a sweet, simple way… a perfect accompaniment for animation! In this post we feature two different Youtube videos by people who acquired their kalimbas in order to learn how to play some of the kalimba music from Avatar: the Last Airbender:  one on the Hugh Tracey D Treble Kalimba, the other on the Goshen 11-note Kalimba. In

An Easy Way To Do It, Even If You Don’t Do Math The tuner registers a perfectly tuned A referenced to 432 Hz “Just” intonation is tuning based on the notion that ratios of frequencies should be ratios of simple whole numbers. That is a complicated way of saying: the distance between notes in a scale should be simple. And it turns out the ear agrees: “just” intervals sound more pleasing than what your $20 digital tuner or your cell phone app will lead you to tune. We’ll explain a simple way you can get most of the benefit of a just tuning. Oh, and 432 Hz? We’ll talk about

Customer Linda Hears that Music Do you experience music everywhere? Linda called me one afternoon earlier this year to order a kalimba – she wanted the pentatonic kalimba. She wanted this kalimba not just for herself – she really wanted to pass this kalimba on to her son and grandchild when she was gone. “There is music EVERYWHERE! I see and hear music just everywhere. In the evening, I hear the music on the breeze, and see the music of the stars, and the song of the clouds as they blow in and cover the stars, and blow out again to release the stars. And I want the kalimba to

This tired old download just got a total rewrite Click to get the Easy Alto Download There are three resources that I have recommended to beginning Alto players: the Alto Fundamentals Book, the Alto Primer, and the Easy Alto Download. I include a free, paper Primer when people purchase an Alto kalimba. The Alto Fundamentals Book is sold only as a hard copy. And the Easy Alto Download, though electronic, used to resemble a pile of music dropped into your lap with little instruction by your crazy uncle. Until now. I am happy to announce the NEW and GREATLY IMPROVED Easy Alto Download! If you purchased the Easy Alto Download

…Instead of following my head, I had to learn to follow my heart The pentatonic kalimba is available in several different exotic tunings For 6 months, I was the sole worker at Kalimba Magic. I wrote the newsletters, wrote the books, I answered the phone and took the orders, maintained inventory, assembled,  tuned and painted kalimbas, and packed and shipped. This work was a great time for me. A Zen-like focus on my craft resulted. I surely came out of this period a better human. When I recently hired Kacy Todirita to help with the kalimba business, there was suddenly enough slack in my schedule that I decided to try and change

Welcome to Kacy Todirita – International Sales – The making of the Kalimba Magic App Kacy Todirita, bass player for the band Planet Jam, is now assisting me in tuning, packing, and shipping kalimbas all over the world I have run Kalimba Magic out of my home since 2005. The business, the packing room, the photo and sound studio, the warehouse, the rehearsal studio – these now amount to 66% of my home. Fortunately, the goals of my business align pretty well with my own personal goals: to play as much music as I can, and to share the joy of music and specifically the kalimba, with as many people

How to play them, what they mean, and what is I, V, and all that The essential chords on your Alto Kalimba that are playing now The kalimba, with its unique bi-directional note layout, makes playing scales a bit difficult because you have to zigzag your way up and down the tines, plucking first one on the right side, then one on the left, then the right, and working your way up or down the scale. It is easy zigzagging at the bottom of the scale, where the tines are close together in the center. The higher you go, the higher the chance of misplacing a finger, and zagging where

The essential harmonic progression in western music, going from the “V” chord to the “I” chord, is ubiquitous in African music too! Music of the karimba and mbira are analyzed and understood in terms of classical western harmony   The core principle in western music theory is that when you are on the “V” chord – denoting a chord based in the fifth degree of a scale – (or “V7” chord) it pushes the music to go to the “I” – denoting a chord based in the first degree of the scale. Everything else in music theory is window dressing, giving us interesting ways of taking our time to get