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Edging Up and Down the A minor scale A Box Lotus and a Regular Lotus Karimba This series of tips is about scales and how useful they are for the kalimba player. This is a great sort of exercise to help you gain familiarity with your kalimba. Each measure only has three different notes – for example, in the first measure, it goes A B C B A. It even rests a little extra time on that last note, to give you a chance to prepare for the next part. And what is the next part? This exercise, which I call a “spider,” inches up and back down… and then

An example of a song that uses the A Minor Scale A Box Lotus and a Regular Lotus Karimba This series of tips is about scales and how useful they are for the kalimba player. Really, this song lives in the A minor scale. It breathes the air and drinks the water of A minor. It knows the curves and twists of A minor, and it follows them. It is founded on the land of A minor. OK – I like to be dramatic. Do you remember the song “Those Were the Days, My Friend”? That is an example of a song that lives and breathes in a minor scale.

Here is the A Minor Scale A Box Lotus and a Regular Lotus Karimba This series of tips is about scales and how useful they are for the kalimba player.  We have already learned that different scales can be made by playing eight tonally consecutive notes on the kalimba, zigzagging our way back and forth over the instrument. We have played the D minor scale, made by starting on D, and going to E, F, G, A, B, C, and ending on D. We can get a slightly different minor scale by doing the same procedure, but starting on A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A.   (By the

Here is a kalimba melody that uses the D Minor Scale A Box Lotus and a Regular Lotus Karimba This series of tips is about scales and how useful they are for the kalimba player. This tip illustrates some music you can play in the D minor mode of your kalimba. Of course, the real lesson is for YOU to create some music in the D minor mode, so pay attention to this music and then try your hand at creating your own.     (By the way, the tablature here is for a 17-Note Kalimba in C, but the concept and even the tablature is the same for many

The Kalimba Plays Many Scales – here is a D Minor Scale A Box Lotus and a Regular Lotus Karimba This series of tips is about scales and how useful they are for the kalimba player. If you start on the middle tine – C – and alternate – right – left – right – left outward and upward and stop 8 notes higher, on the left side’s C, you have just made the C major scale. Now, instead of starting and ending on C, try starting on the low D just left of the center tine… and alternate your way up the scale, and stop on D. This is

Here is a song you know that utilizes the scale in its melody A Box Lotus and a Regular Lotus Karimba This series of tips is about scales and how useful they are for the kalimba player. The scale zigzags back and forth, left and right on your kalimba, gradually moving toward ever-shorter tines (to go up) or ever longer tines (to go down the scale). But why learn scales at all? Because they are useful. Check out Bach’s “Minuet in G” – yes, transposed to the C kalimba. If you can play your scales, you have already mastered half the notes.   (By the way, the tablature here is

While the scale isn’t the easiest thing to play on kalimba, you should have it at your fingertips A Box Lotus and a Regular Lotus Karimba The notes your kalimba plays are probably just like the white notes on the piano. However, the way you play them ends up being totally different from a piano… because the notes are organized differently than on a piano. Playing a scale on a piano, especially just on the white notes, is quite easy. Playing a scale on the kalimba is a bit harder, but the scale is one of the most useful bits of music you can learn – so please do learn

Only at Kalimba Magic This kalimba grew out of a beloved customer’s imagination and my interpretive kalimba skills This kalimba started life as a standard Hugh Tracey Alto kalimba with pickup, in standard G tuning. What is it now, and how did it get there? Let’s start with “How did this kalimba get to be this way?” This kalimba setup and tuning are the result of a series of requests from one of my repeat kalimba customers, Dajari Makena. He and I have collaborated developing great tunings. He wanted half the tines bent upward. He wanted a unique D minor tuning. He wanted something that reflected Africa. He wanted treble tines on

Play favorite folk and popular music on your Alto kalimba! Click to Purchase the Kalimba Americana Download This is the music I grew up with – the American song book! These are some of the songs that bind us together as citizens of the great American experiment. To many of us, this is some of the sweetest music in the world! This 54-page PDF download with clickable links to MP3 files has tablature for 29 different versions of 25 different songs. This book has enough easy songs to have a beginner playing right away, and it has enough complex songs to keep you working for months or longer!   This book’s