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I was with someone while they had a panic attack – fortunately I had my kalimba I was visiting with a friend the other day when, out of the blue, she started to have a panic attack. I had something like a panic attack once – it was not a very enjoyable experience.  It seemed like the pressure of the entire world was pressing down on my heart and chest. I have never been with someone else who was experiencing a panic attack, and I don’t know much about them. While I immediately recognized that something was wrong, I didn’t really have a clue.  Her breath became shallow and rapid,

NOSTALGIC, SENSUAL, MYSTERIOUS, SWEET…. THIS KALIMBA PLAYS TRULY UNIQUE MUSIC. THE IMPROVED AND ENHANCED DOWNLOAD IS AVAILABLE NOW. IF YOU HAVE IT ALREADY, UPGRADE IT FOR FREE! Get the Freygish Download   “The Freygish-tuned karimba plays delightful songs, mostly in C harmonic minor.  This instrument brings alive baroque melodies and harmonies, romantic music box waltzes, fiery Middle-Eastern music, and hot Latino cumbia – nostalgic, sensual, mysterious and sweet.  This karimba plays unique music that is not played by any other.” (From the back cover of the Freygish karimba download.) The instrument that you can hear right now, which is playing in the video below, is the Freygish karimba, and the

Playing Karimba for Ayahuasca Ceremonies – PART 1 Learning to play the karimba and facilitating Ceremonies for the local Ayahuasca Church accompanied each other into my life. The karimba brightened my days during a particularly explicit flare-up of an old state of auto-immunity (see the blog post “Thumbing the Karimba at Chronic Pain”). The beads rattled like yapping puppy teeth, wanting to cuddle, and I was delighted. We made noise together. It was a good, wholesome, and healthy noise. In contrast, the Ayahuasca Ceremonies held by the Church lasted all night, ended at dawn, and were conducted in silence. Under the influence of medicine that expands your senses like so

Learning tablature, and a new book, opened up the exciting and beautiful world of traditional African songs. By leslee morrison “Bungu Utete” was the first Karimba song Leslee learned For me, learning the African tuned karimba with its repertoire of ancient African music is an  infusion of new excitement and inspiration in my playing. I call it “Vitamin K”. The instructions that came along with my new Hugh Tracey 17-note karimba said that it is a beginner’s instrument; but with 17 tines instead of the 11 that I was familiar with, and with the additional “buzzers,” I discovered that a lot of new and exciting sound can come out of

A karimba song that echoes more complex mbira music structure Click to download karimba tablature for the song “Kukaiwa” “Kukaiwa” is one of my favorite songs in our recently published “About 30 Traditional Karimba Songs” book and instructional download.  This arrangement comes to us from kalimba maven Ivodne Galatea, who mentions that CD liner notes indicate that “Kukaiwa” may be traditional, or it may be original to Dumisani Maraire. Mariaire brought the marimba band movement to the western United States in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. He may also be the man who first brought the karimba, which he called mbira nyunga nyunga, to the USA.   This arrangement of