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Want to Nail Your Kalimba Playing? It’s All in the Keratin! Acrylic nals on my right thumb and index finger help me play The sounding of the bell is only as good as its ringer and the chime of a kalimba’s song is only as good as the nails on its player! Ready to connect with your kalimba voice? It all begins with the tips of your thumbnails. For those of you who possess the gentic code for thick tough evergrowing fingernails, we are happy for you. This tip however is for those of you whose nails just seem to break, crack, bend and shred; no matter how many vitamin

Double or triple your Kalimba’s volume with a tambourine Tambourine amplifier for kalimba The kalimba is naturally a very sweet and sensitive African folk instrument. It can be played for mainly personal enjoyment – in a busy, noisy world, only you may be able to hear or want to hear that soft voice of your kalimba. Yet, it doesn’t always have to be that way. There may be times you want your sound to be heard above the din of street noise, singers, or other musicians. A simple method of kalimba amplification available to almost every kalimba player’s instrument  is to partner it with a kalimba “resonator” or amplifier of

Understanding ties and dots – extending the length of notes Are you having difficulty understanding note and timing symbols in the tablature? This blog post is just for you – it’s the second of our series on learning how to read kalimba tablature.  In the first post, we talked about what the “tine map” means, looked at the different types of notes and how long each kind lasts, and introduced how to understand timing and keeping time.   This installment of the multi-part series on reading tablature covers the details of the “tie” symbol (a sideways smile) and the “dot” (a dot immediately after – or “above” – any note

FAST SAME-SIDE PLAYING: AN ESSENTIAL STRENGTH FOR MAKING MBIRA MUSIC ON KALIMBA These exercises will help you play traditional mbira music on the Alto kalimba   To me, traditional African mbira music is one of the best musics I have ever experienced.  I feel it’s the pinnacle of African music.  It has pure logic, with a spiritual core.  Even though its structure is many centuries old, every time I hear it, it sounds fresh and modern to me.  (You can hear two wonderful mbira songs right now by clicking in Related Articles below, on “Listen to Mark…” or the YouTube song below it.) This music is magical, speaking to a

This traditional mbira song transfers well to karimba Click to download the full PDF tablature for “Mahororo” “Mahororo” is usually played on the mbira dzavadzimu (commonly called the mbira), and is one of the classic songs that fit the chord progression described by Andrew Tracey in his seminal 1973 paper “The System of the Mbira” which studies in depth the ages-old mbira playing of the peoples he and his father Hugh studied for decades. This implies that “Mahororo” is probably one of those “old songs” – meaning it may be something like 500 – 800 years old. Ivodne Galatea pointed out that it could be played on the karimba. With

This traditional mbira song transfers well to karimba Click to download the full PDF tablature for “Mahororo” “Mahororo” is usually played on the mbira dzavadzimu (commonly called the mbira), and is one of the classic songs that fit the chord progression described by Andrew Tracey in his seminal 1973 paper “The System of the Mbira” which studies in depth the ages-old mbira playing of the peoples he and his father Hugh studied for decades . This implies that “Mahororo” is probably one of those “old songs” – meaning it may be something like 500 – 800 years old. Ivodne Galatea pointed out that it could be played on the karimba.

Yes, but what if you don’t feel like using your right index finger? You can use the thumb slide-off technique! Buy the African Tuned Karimba, save 13% with coupon code CAT13 I find the addition of the right index finger to the two thumbs to be essential to playing African music, and in expanding the capabilities of kalimbas in general.  However, it typically feels unnatural at first, no matter which approach you take.  A great many people resist using their (non-thumb) fingers on these instruments. If you just don’t want to (or cannot) use a forefinger, what are you to do? It’s not just beginners who feel awkward twisting their

Free Tablature to help you play the music in this YouTube video on your Alto Kalimba Click to download the PDF tablature for this exercise When you look at a kalimba, you see a tiny, unassuming instrument. But if the possibilities of the kalimba are considered all at once, they can boggle the mind. An easy way to reduce the overwhelm when starting to learn something new is to pare down the number of tines you use, making the kalimba into a simpler instrument.   If your Alto kalimba only had six notes rather than fifteen, it would be much easier, right?  This video will teach a very useful trick –

This traditional mbira song transfers well to karimba Click to download the full PDF tablature for “Mahororo” “Mahororo” is usually played on the mbira dzavadzimu (commonly called the mbira), and is one of the classic songs that fit the chord progression described by Andrew Tracey in his seminal 1973 paper “The System of the Mbira” which studies in depth the ages-old mbira playing of the peoples he and his father Hugh studied for decades . This implies that “Mahororo” is probably one of those “old songs” – meaning it may be something like 500 – 800 years old. Ivodne Galatea pointed out that it could be played on the karimba.