News and Announcements

Pickups are now available on nearly all Hokemas The kalimba has always been a cool instrument. Different. Ethnic. New Age. Ancient. And just plain fun. But throw in an electronic pickup, and you can take the kalimba to a whole new level of FUN. It is a cliche, but the Germans do build things very well – smooth, precise, shiny… and now great sounding pickups for Hokema’s beautiful kalimbas. Thank you, Peter Hokema! The B7 Electro Hokema Kalimba Elektro The B7 has the lowest notes Kalimba Magic sells. The sound file below is recorded with a low D (low E is usually the lowest note on it). The wide tines

The Very First Episode of “Schoolhouse Rock!” in 1973 Had an Alto Kalimba in it! From the opening of “Three is a Magic Number” Listening to NPR this week, I learned of the passing of Bob Dorough, the dude who wrote all of the songs in the TV segment Schoolhouse Rock!  OK, dear ones, if you are younger than, oh, 35, you might not have any clue about Schoolhouse Rock! If you are my age, you might thank Schoolhouse Rock! for your ability to count by fives, or to multiply by 11. Or for your eternal knowledge of how conjunctions function in the English language. I was born in 1962, and

A New Book, Reviewed here by Sara Edelman, is now Available at Kalimba Magic Click to Buy the Book “Making Lamellaphones”   How well do you know your kalimba?  Could you create one? Ever feel the yearning to make your own? Bart Hopkin, the guru of creative musical instrument sound, design and construction, has written and published a book dedicated to building kalimbas, both traditional and inventive.  For those not in the know, the term “lamellaphone” refers to any instrument that makes sounds by the vibrating of lamellae (plural of lamella) or plates, and includes kalimbas, mbiras and modern variants – in other words, any instrument that goes “boing” when

The Treble Chromatic is the one kalimba that can do it You can get a Chromatic Treble Kalimba and play “Imagine” yourself! Recently someone told me that playing John Lennon’s song “Imagine” on kalimba was a goal of theirs. When I worked through the song in my head – I realized there is only one kalimba sold by Kalimba Magic that can play “Imagine,” and it’s the Hugh Tracey Chromatic Treble Kalimba. There is an amazing Russian musician, Natalya Obukhova, who has a YouTube channel called LadyChugun. She plays killer electric guitar, accordion, and… chromatic kalimba. And this amazing musician, LadyChugun, has figured out a great arrangement on the chromatic, and makes it look easy

One of the great mbira players Klara Wojtkowska is an accomplished musician and has contributed an array of interesting articles to Kalimba Magic. She has recently been abroad studying mbira and living in Zimbabwe. “Forward Kwenda’s inspiration is deeply spiritual and in a way he sees his role as a musician who channels from a realm beyond our physical grasp. It has been said of Forward, ‘It is almost impossible to believe that one person, playing one time, could make so much music with two thumbs and one finger! Of course, Forward Kwenda, considered by many to be the greatest living mbira player today, says that his spirits play the

How to renew someone special with cascades of the sansula’s easy, melodious sonorities   My lover had had a hard day. On the phone she told me that she had worked for 10 hours as a caregiver and she had been home for about 30 minutes. She was very tired. Her cat was sick, and she was worried about that too. I went to see her and brought my sansula to play. It was precisely what was needed, with its soft and mysterious and gorgeous sounds that seem to almost make themselves.   (Already familiar with them, my sweetie had had one many years ago, bought in Germany where sansulas

Yes, but for most of us it takes some practice Two people on one kalimba According to general understanding, we can only really concentrate on one thing at a time. But I know that this isn’t actually true. There are two of you (at least!) inside your head – a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere. Most of the time these two sub-brains work together. But our two thumbs are quite capable of doing quite different things from one another.  Probably the most interesting music on kalimba happens when the two thumbs are working independently, but in a coordinated manner.   Before we get to the kalimba lesson on this

The Mbira-style Treble Kalimba makes it simple The mbira dzavadzimu, and the Mbira-style Treble Kalimba (MBTK) without the mbira’s lower left row of notes When I get 10 requests for something, I know it’s time to sit up and listen. Total strangers to Kalimba Magic were finding their way to my eShop and sending requests for some strange new kalimba setup that was suddenly insanely popular on YouTube. The kalimba on the Youtube video was not in its factory setting; it was a 17-note kalimba that had been modified by the player.  I could put the Hugh Tracey 17-note Treble Kalimba in that tuning. So indeed, I could fulfill those

Working this dialectic can expand your playing amazingly I was speaking last night with my neighbor Geo, when he said:  “Somewhere between the party animal I was in my marriage and the zen meditator I’ve been in my current relationship… is the real Geo.” I could see the axis, drawn in space before our eyes: on one end of the imaginary “number line” was Geo as Beer-Drinking-Good-Timing-Party-Animal… and at the other end was Geo as Peaceful-Meditating-Man. And Geo’s quest right now was to feel along this axis and understand where he belongs. In my opinion, he exists all along that axis, occupying different places at different times, as everyone does. And the very same