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The “karimba style” use of the right index finger puts it over the top of a tine, plucking down Buy the African Tuned Karimba with coupon code CAT13 for 13% off How do you play the kalimba?  Mainly, you use your two thumbs, but you should not overlook the fingers.  It turns out there are multiple ways to use the right index finger, and you can adapt these techniques to a wide variety of kalimbas. The technique we show here is the “karimba style” use of the right index finger.  The “mbira style” (discussed in the previous tip in this series) used the right index finger coming from below the

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.

Get this free tablature that illustrates the use of accents in your kalimba playing Click to download the PDF tablature for this exercise When you play kalimba, you should always be willing to accent special melody notes, and let the other support notes come in at a lower volume.  Why is this important?  Not always, but often, melody notes will be fairly high in an instrument’s range, and accompaniment notes will occur in the middle or at the low end.  A guitar has a three and a half-octave range.  The piano has a seven-octave range.  On both of these instruments, you have a big difference in the pitch of the

Playing strong can help you learn; playing softly can help you discover the “feel” of the music Don’t you hate all those internet ads that start with “Try this one weird trick” and then promise that if you do, it will change your life in a profound way? Well, I have something for you that may seem like a weird trick, but it is really a great little tool that indeed has had a profound effect on my own kalimba, karimba, and mbira playing. People tend to play kalimba music with every note at the same volume level.  But I can point to three big benefits you can get from

The “mbira style” use of the right index finger puts it under the tine, flicking upward Save 13% with the coupon code CAT13 when you buy the African Tuned Karimba How do you play the kalimba? It’s a thumb piano, so mainly you use your two thumbs!  The Brazilian masters like to use four or six fingers, playing the kalimba as it sits in their lap – but I don’t teach that style. That’s because my kalimba playing is a lot about movement of the body while playing, and if you hold the kalimba in your hands and play with your thumbs, you can get up and walk, run, or

Don’t get stuck and let your kalimba gather dust – get some lessons NOW! Get a one hour kalimba lesson I know there are people who purchase kalimbas and just jump right on board and start flying.  And then there are other people who really want to play, but don’t quite know what to do with their kalimbas. If you fall into that second category, you can get tutoring in kalimba ABC’s from an excellent, gentle, and compassionate teacher – me! If you are already familiar with the kalimba and you need some help ramping up to the next level, or if you are working on a particular song and just

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.

Playing without looking helps you improve in so many ways Archival Practice Tips Part of what is so great about playing the kalimba is that it is all right there in front of your eyes.   You can see the entire instrument, all its notes, all that it can do, in one glance.  You might not understand it yet, but you can easily see that it is understandable.  Map the shorter kalimba tines to higher notes and the lower tines to lower notes.  Simple, right? But an even more important tip I can give you is to NOT look at the kalimba as you play. In this tip we are going

Can you really pay attention to two things at once? You can, but it’s a skill you have to cultivate When I was 24, I finally learned how to talk and play guitar at the same time.  Until then, when playing guitar, I could hear what was being said, and could understand it, but I could not speak or even answer simple questions.  Why could I not speak and play guitar at the same time?  I suppose the “music generation” part of my brain overlapped too much with the “speech generation” part of my brain.  And how, exactly, did I learn to speak and play at the same time?  And