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Careful, precise, and planned – or Wild, Free, In-the-moment – both are important Orderly and planned…. or wild and free? How about BOTH? When I’m asked how I learned kalimba, I tell this story: while I had known what a kalimba was since the age of two, I only discovered how wonderful kalimba music could be when I was 24 and I witnessed an amazing player close up. I immediately went out and bought a kalimba, and then I wandered alone in the wilderness for 10 years, finding my own way. In that wandering, I found that my path branched in two opposing directions. On one, I tried to learn songs

If you don’t have much thumb nail, these inexpensive piks can help Click to go to Alaska Pik product page When I would teach large kalimba classes in the past, one of the supplies I had to bring with me was the Alaska Pik. If you have no thumb nails, plucking the kalimba’s metal tines can be painful. Eventually, novice players will either grow their thumb nails or develop calluses on the playing surface of their thumbs. Until then, or in emergencies, the Alaska pik can be a life saver! Ken Purcell, the inventor of Alaska piks, was vacationing in Alaska when he got the idea for his PVC guitar

Learn how to play guitar chords with any sansula – and get a taste of the rules of chorded improvisation Get yourself a sansula today My friend Andrea Eckardt and I are back with another exotic Sansula tuning, showing the world just how easy it is for a Sansula and a guitar to make great music together. The Sansula is made by Hokema in Germany. The tines of this exotic kalimba make a crystal-clear sound, amplified by the Sansula’s oval-frame drum body. Today we are going take a very close look at how the guitar accompanies the Sansula; I dissect our improvisation “blow by blow,” and share six rules that

The subtle brilliance of Hugh Tracey’s Treble Kalimba Tuning The Hugh Tracey Treble Kalimba has some of the most silvery tones When Hugh Tracey started making the Treble kalimba with five painted tines and 17 notes  in 1954, it was the very first commercial kalimba. The Treble has a rich history, though the instrument’s setup is somewhat problematic. On most modern kalimbas, the “key note” or “root note” is the lowest note on the instrument and this has great advantages. The Treble kalimba, however, is in the key of G but is missing that low G and A. It actually starts on B, the 3rd of the scale. It can take

Learn the 10-Note and prepare for the 17-Note – You can sample one lesson from each of our four 10-Note downloads Do you have your 10-Note Heart Kalimba Yet? I am really taken with the 10-Note kalimba. I think it is one of the best choices you can make for most kids ages 8-14. But I also think there are a lot of adults who get a 17-Note kalimba and then get frustrated with it, because it is more complicated than they are ready for. To try to woo you toward the 10-Note kalimba, I am sharing a lesson from each of my four instructional downloads: “Fun and Games on

This is so different from the Sansula’s melancholy standard A minor tuning That’s me, Mark, on guitar and friend Andrea Eckhardt playing a Sansula Renaissance in G Major Pentatonic tuning “Oh – it’s so small… it only has nine notes – that’s not much.” I must admit, hearing comments like that always leave me a bit disconcerted. Yes, she was a piano player who was accustomed to having scores of notes at her fingertips. I could have explained to her: “This is a magical instrument that just creates its own music, just the way it is. These 9 notes have a special story to tell.” But the words did not

The Small case fits the 10-Note Kalimba, Medium fits the 17-Note or Treble, Large fits the Alto and Chromatic Visit the “Accessories Page” to get one now How do you safely travel with your kalimba, keeping it from potential accidental trauma? For an unfortunately long period of time, my answer has been “I pack it between my underwear and socks.” The fragile Sansula has a nice soft bag and a very nice wood case. But if you play one of the more standard kalimbas, once its box wears out, you might be packing yours between a few T-shirts too. To those who would persist about this glaring deficiency, I would say:

Our Older Downloads Come As a ZIP File, a collection of tablature PDFs for multiple songs Click to read the Wikihow article “Opening ZIP files without gettng WinZip”  Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post about our “New and Improved Downloads.” They are great and convenient – a single PDF file, easily downloaded, with live links to the MP3 files and to other helpful kalimba resources online. Kalimba Magic’s older downloads were and still are sent out as ZIP files. Many people have no problem navigating the ZIP file. In recent times I have sold hundreds of the “66 Songs for 17-Note Kalimba in C” (ZIP file) download, and

a profusion of possible colors! A Box Lotus and a Regular Lotus Karimba Come with me for a moment, to stand behind Hugh Tracey, circa 1952. For years before he began selling his kalimbas, Dr. Tracey worked at perfecting a new kalimba invention, creating over 100 prototypes, experimenting with various design features. When he finally settled on what worked and sounded best for his Treble kalimba, he had really accomplished a tremendous feat. Hugh Tracey kalimbas still look almost exactly as they did in 1954, when he started selling them to the world, and many kalimba makers across the globe copy the Hugh Tracey Treble design. Hugh Tracey’s work is the standard by