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Mark Holdaway

66 Songs for the 17-Note Kalimba in C

The 66 Songs Download has been replaced with user friendly 44-Beginners-Songs and 33-Intermediate-Songs Get the Easy-to-Use 44 Song Download The 44 songs in the download were taken from various Kalimba Magic collections and modified for use with the 17-Note “Treble” Kalimba in the key of C, which is sold under a great many brand names at this time – Donner, Walter, Heart-17, and Gecko, among others.  The collections that went into this download include: African American Spirituals, traditional African karimba tunes, classical pieces, folk and pop music, Americana and patriotic, and some children’s songs. These songs are rated by difficulty, with songs in each category between 1 and 5.  

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

New Exotic B11 Tuning: The Wizard

This is one magical tuning Get yourself a B11 Kalimba today! The Hokema B11 Kalimba – also called the “Melody Kalimba” – has a lot of untapped potential. In its standard G major tuning, it does a lot of nice music. But so many other exotic tunings are also possible, and the exotic tunings have not really been explored at all – until now. Today we are looking at the exotic B11 tuning that I call “The Wizard.”  An exotic tuning can take a kalimba to a new and magical place, transforming the music it plays and the experience you have with it. At Kalimba Magic laboratories, we took all

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

Three Against Two for Structure – 1

The Fabric of a simple “Three against Two” pattern is strong enough to be the foundation of a song What does “John Huffington” have to do with the classic African three-against-two multi-rhythm? I don’t know a John Huffington, but here’s his name, embodied in this rhythmic riff when I play it on the Hugh Tracey Alto Kalimba. When I fall into the groove of this pattern, I hear my kalimba saying  the name “John Huffington.” The three against two pattern requires that one thumb play one thing (three notes) in the same space as the other thumb is playing something else (two notes). And repeat. You can play this sort

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

An Interesting Kalimba Purchase Strategy

Buy the Download First I have a few customers who purchase mainly downloads from Kalimba Magic. One wants to get the music because he is interested in using it in his video work. Another just likes to hear what new music is available for the kalimba. But there is a growing group of people who see the downloads as a collection of music that is representative of what a particular kalimba style or tuning has to offer.  As such, the download is a key that opens some of the secrets that the kalimba has to offer.   Several first-time customers purchase one or more instructional downloads first. A few days later,

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

The Kalimba, its African History, and Black Pride – Your “Rough” Guide

This exciting presentation takes you on a quick trip through the kalimba’s history from its beginnings to present day. Download the Free PDF on Kalimba History   “The Kalimba, its African History, and Black Pride” is a quick, enjoyable vignette, almost a snapshot, of all the moving parts of the the kalimba’s story. It will engage you and take you on a lively romp that covers ancient and contemporary music, science, and the annals of human history. It is so much fun that you will hardly know how much you’ve just absorbed. It tells, in entertaining graphic novel style, about early human ingenuity and the evolution of musical instruments, the

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

My Experience Learning to Play on the 10-Note Heart Kalimba

True confessions of an old musical dog learning new tricks All my life I’ve been a musician. My family sang together, I played and loved piano (even piano lessons), sang in all kinds of groups growing up, and played recorder, pennywhistle, and a bit of guitar. I mostly sing and play pennywhistle these days. Classical and folk, and world music were and are my stomping grounds. Reading music was always the key to the door into the musical world. Never a brilliant music reader, I made my way through it and very happily discovered new melodies. In my adult life reading music has not been a focus for me, rather

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

New In Stock – The 10-Note Heart Kalimba – a great kalimba to start on

Very economical, high quality, Great for Students, plays great music Visit the 10-Note Heart Kalimba Product Page Kalimba Magic is known for selling some of the best kalimbas in the world, but we have been a bit sparse in the student kalimba department. That all changes right now. We have long known that sooner or later, the Chinese would start manufacturing kalimbas, and, eventually, good ones. That day has arrived, and rather than stick its head in the sand, Kalimba Magic is embracing these new Chinese-made kalimbas – in part because they perfectly fill our gap of entry-level instruments in the Kalimba Magic catalog, and in part because these are really nice

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

Over the Rainbow

Free Tablature for Alto, Treble, and Chromatic Kalimbas – and learn about the Secondary Dominant I never really understood the big deal about “The Wizard of Oz” when I was growing up. We had a black and white TV, and I remember in high school, a friend asked me “Hey, you know how when Dorothy lands in Oz, everything is suddenly in color?” I answered “No…” and suddenly realized part of why I had never gotten the movie! The music from this movie did not become a favorite part of my life as it did for so many. But when you are a performing musician, it is not always about

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

Free Blank Tablature for Ten Different Kalimbas

Click, Save, Print, and Fill in Your Own Notes Kalimba Tablature is generalizable to any kalimba, and is powerful enough to cover almost any music You may or may not know that I invented kalimba tablature in 2004. My first kalimba student would take in my personal instruction well, but then when he went home, he would forget what I had taught him and would not be able to practice it. When I put marks indicating notes on a paper representation of his 15-Note Alto kalimba, he did not need to remember, and could pick up his kalimba each day and practice.  What marks did I use? The standard symbols for

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