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Mark Holdaway

Christmas Kalimba Videos

Christmas Carols are so so beautiful on kalimba I had spent 10 years getting good at playing kalimba, comfortable with holding it in my hands… but I was still mostly about making music up on the spot and improvising. But in 2002, I decided to really learn a whole bunch of Christmas carols on the kalimba. Creating these arrangements and then committing them to memory was the single biggest step in my personal improvement as a kalimba player. But now that I have perfected so many of these Carols, I can pass these arrangements and this Kalimba Wisdom to you. Blessings!   Part One of my Classic Christmas Kalimba Medley

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

Easy Christmas Music: Book for 17-Note Kalimba in C

At last, the hard Copy Book is available! Get your Christmas Carol book today! Christmas carols on the kalimba can be so beautiful. They are my specialty – and now, they are my special gift that I share with the world. This collection of Christmas favorites has been arranged specifically for the 17-Note kalimba in C. This is the same content as the download of the same title, but it is a spiral-bound flat-laying hard copy book. This 60-page book has tablature and sound recordings for 32 different sacred and secular Christmas songs. Most are pretty easy, but there are also some more challenging carols to give you room to

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Mark Holdaway

Easy Christmas Music for Treble Kalimba

All your holiday favorites, arranged for the Hugh Tracey Treble in G Click to Purchase the Easy Christmas Treble PDF Download This collection of Christmas favorites has been arranged specifically for the Hugh Tracey Treble Kalimba in G. We started with a set of generic arrangements, but refined several of them so all the songs are comfortable and easy to play on the 17-Note Hugh Tracey Treble kalimba. I have been playing Christmas Carols on the kalimba for 20 years. Not only is it a fine way to learn your kalimba, working on songs you already know. It is also a fantastic way to cultivate feelings of joy and gratitude during the lead-up

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

Easy Christmas Carols – “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” on Alto

You may be surprised – you can play this simple carol and you can read tablature! Click to download free tablature for “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” I’ve heard this story from more than a hundred people by now: people had been living under the burden of the belief that they were simply unable to make music, but then they discovered the kalimba, and they discovered they could make music on the kalimba, and they were even appreciated for the music they were able to make. If you are reading these words, you probably know you can make music.  But you might be convinced that you cannot read tablature.  This

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

Easy Christmas Music for Alto Kalimba

All your holiday favorites, arranged for the 15-note Alto in G Click to Purchase the Easy Christmas PDF Download This collection of Christmas favorites has been arranged specifically for the Hugh Tracey Alto Kalimba in G. We started with a set of generic arrangements, but refined several of them so all the songs are comfortable and easy to play on the 15-Note Alto. I myself have been playing Christmas Carols on the kalimba for 20 years. Playing carols is a fine way to learn your kalimba, working on songs you already know. It is also a great way to learn about classical harmony. Playing carols is a fantastic way to cultivate feelings

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

Experiencing Gratitude – Walking, Kalimba, and Christmas Carols

This is the main technique I use to keep on the happy side of life The Christmas Medley you hear is available on the Kalimba Christmas CD While I have not been diagnosed with clinical depression, I am prone to struggle with depression.   Or rather, I would struggle with depression, except that I have a powerful tool at my disposal that proves effective against depression. Some days I wake up and tell myself I don’t need my early morning walk, and on those days, I tend to take a nosedive around 9 or 10 AM.  By then, I realize that this is my wake-up call.  If I don’t go out,

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Mark Holdaway

Amazing Tunings of the Magical Star-13 Kalimba

Are you looking for a different kind of kalimba experience? The Star-13 Kalimba is quite different from your standard 17-Note kalimba:   This kalimba has a crystal clear, beautiful ringing tone and long sustain. The special wah-wah effect, made by raising the kalimba up and down on a flat surface, gives you a great level of tonal expressiveness. The note layout, with 6 upper row notes and 7 lower row notes, provides interesting harmonic opportunities. It also inspires combining melody and self accompaniment. The range is soothing, going down to a G, lower than your typical kalimba in C. Even though the low note on the Star-13 Kalimba is G,

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Mark Holdaway

Instructional Booklet for the Star-13 Kalimba

  This 40-page booklet uses colorful photos, graphical illustrations, tablature, and live sound links to convey how I play some of my favorite songs on the Magadi Star-13 kalimba. The Magadi Star-13 Kalimba is a super cool instrument. It is angelic in sound, with expressive mind-blowing special effects, and it is also really fun to play because of the unique note layout. Available Oct 11 2021: This hard copy booklet (small format, 6″ x 6″, so it fits the kalimba’s footprint) has 40 pages in four sections: Quick Start for people who already play kalimba (8 pages); Introduction for people new to the kalimba (10) pages); Easy Songs (8 pages);

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

Do You Want to Travel Strange New Lands With Your Kalimba? Consider Exotic Tunings

Whenever I change the tuning on my kalimba in a small way, I have the sense that I am standing next to a great ocean of possibilities. I have experimented with hundreds of retunings. However, even a 13 tine kalimba will have billions of possible tunings. No matter how deep I go into alternative kalimba tunings, I will only scratch the surface of those possibilities. This blog post tries to do the math in a simple but persuasive way. By the way, those billions of tunings? Some will have redundant notes, meaning the same note twice, or more. But that is a thing in traditional African tunings. Another consideration: there

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