Who would want a Pentatonic Kalimba?

So, if you can't even play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with the pentatonic kalimba why would anyone WANT one?

Many diverse cultures around the globe used the pentatonic scale in their music. Native Americans, Indonesians, Africans, and Chinese people all invented it independently. This scale has a universality that bridges time and space.

The minor pentatonic scale is the exact same "Blues Scale" that every beginner guitarist learned. In fact, it is even in the same key: E minor! So, you can amaze your high school buddies (new or old): while they are doing the twelve bar blues on their guitars, you can whip out your pentatonic kalimba and solo circles around them. Several of my musically accomplished jamming buddies just LOVE to play the pentatonic kalimba, because they can just totally get into the music making without worrying about that great inhibitor called "critical thought".

I think the most important aspect of the pentatonic scale is that the half-step intervals have been removed. Hence, it is not possible to play two notes at the same time that sound really bad. It is sometimes called the "no fault" scale, because people who know literally nothing about music can just go at it as a physical activity (plink-plank-plunk) without fear of messing up -- and in doing so can find their own way by listening to the sounds or phrases that they find most appealing.

So, that means the pentatonic kalimba is ideal for children. In fact, the Waldorf school uses the pentatonic scale exclusively until the children are about 9 years old.

More important to me, it also means the pentatonic kalimba is a perfect instrument for meditation, for inner journeying, for spacing out to relieve stress. I anticipate this instrument will be a big seller with Music Therapists.

The pentatonic scale is missing its 4 and 7. It has 1-2-3---5-6---8. It turns out that the 7 is a very important note in western harmony. It is so close to the tonic (8 note, or 1 note as well), and it is in the V chord. So, when you play the V chord, the 7 note pushes you into the 1 chord, or the root chord, or the tonic. (I just think of it as a harmonic "home base".) Furthermore, many western chord progressions are I-IV-V. How are we to make a IV chord when there is no 4 note to be the root? (It turns out there is a way, but it is sort of a trick.) So harmonically the pentatonic scale challenges two fundamental aspects of our comfortable western harmony. In fact, this scale forces us to re-examine our musical structures and challenges us to come up with something that sounds more like Africa than a more standard diatonic kalimba.

Related to the previous point, but coming from a heart place instead of a brain place, I value the Pentatonic kalimba because it is something new. I sometimes get stuck in my ways on my mainstay, the Alto kalimba. Can you remember back to the day when your diatonic kalimba still smelled new, and everything you did was filled with wonder and amazement? It seemed there was magic in every note or chord you played. Now that you understand a bit more about how the kalimba works, isn't it a bit like finding out the Wizard of Oz was just the man behind the curtain? And so you might get stuck doing the same things, because now you know what to expect from them. Remember the days when you had no idea what the kalimba would sound like if you did THIS or THAT, and WOW! 90% of the time it just sounded wonderful none-the-less. Trying to squeeze out the mistakes and make it 99.9% perfect, you can also squeeze out the magic.

Well, you can go back to those magical days without giving up any of the progress you've gained on the ALTO or TREBLE. Just pickup a Pentatonic. The octaves are still on the opposite side of the kalimba (because 5 and 7 are both odd numbers). But if you try to play anything with your tried and true thumb-picking patterns, what you will get is an intersection between the internal logic of the pentatonic kalimba and your own internal patterns, creating something new. And the coolest part? That sense of newness and magic translates back to your Alto or Treble. Try it -- you'll like it!

Here's some more pentatonic music.

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