Tips

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

They say you can only think of one thing at a time – kalimba requires you to think of two things at a time! When I was 10 years old, my father said “I’ll give you a dollar if you can go 10 seconds without thinking of a brown bear!”  I jumped up from the dinner table, went to stand in the corner, and started chanting “White bear! White bear!” and got a huge laugh from my whole family. But truth be told?  I was actually thinking of brown bears the entire time I was trying to fill my mind with images and words of white bears. Playing kalimba is

Structure grounds and binds you to a song or tradition. Play sets you free. Go to product page for “Kalimba Doctor Tuning” Most people who pick up a kalimba will have an experience rich in play. There is always a little tug of war going on between structured playing – learning what other people have done on the kalimba between the present and 1000 years before now, or figuring out your own song in a detailed manner, and free play – just playing what comes into your head, or more likely, what your thumbs decide to do. My best playing and my best experiences occur when I am able to

If playing kalimba is fun, you will want to do it more Archival Practice Tips There are many different ways to practice kalimba, and you should find the way that makes you happy.  Don’t worry about the “right” way, but do search for the way that is right for you. Everybody plays a bit differently, and everyone learns in different ways.  You do want a challenge so that you feel you are getting better, but you don’t often want something that is so challenging that it is not fun. I share some of the ways that I practice kalimba, and rate them by how fun I find them to be.

… you can hear them in your head even though they were not played Archival Practice Tips Your ear is the best tool you have for progressing in music. While most people I know could not tell you why something in music is wrong, almost everyone will have a clue that something is wrong, because they hear it as sounding odd or incorrect. Rely upon your ear to guide you, and always ask: “Does this sound right?” When I play, the “ear” in my head is also at work in a different direction – I actually hear notes that I did not play. It is like my soul or my

…but you need to do more than just explore Archival Practice Tips Welcome to your kalimba.  Based on the tuning and the note layout of your instrument, your kalimba represents a whole continent of sounds and musical possibilities, and it is well worth exploring it in depth. When I started playing kalimba in 1986, there was no map to this continent.  There was no internet, and seemingly no information about the kalimba.  What did I do?  I explored my kalimba on my own, gradually learning more and more each day I played. Here’s a very valuable tip that can help you in your kalimba explorations. The short form of the tip