Session musicians in Nashville write music in a form called a chart. Their charts don't have chord names that start with letters of the alphabet. They dispensed with all that and use the relative number from 1 to 7, of the notes in the scale. They did this for a really practical reason. If you chart the song out in G using letters of the alphabet type charting but it turns out the singer can't make the high notes in that key or you have a horn player reading it whose instrument is playing in another key. You have to stop the session and get someone to chart it out in the correct key. Lots of work and lost time! There had to be a better way and they invented it. They just used the relative number of the note in the scale to signify which chord they were playing. This number is a ratio and therefore doesn't change from key to key. The ratio from one note in the scale to the next note stays the same no matter what the key. If its in C... they start in the key of C on C. If its in G then they start in G on G and so forth. The chart would still look the same... no changes needed no matter what key they did it in. After a time when you think this way you hear the intervals and the chord changes and think of the number instead of a letter of the alphabet. This is a tremendous shortcut for a beginning musician or pro. It's great communication tool when you are jamming with someone and you can call out the changes as you go along and everyone is right there! This is how I teach it... It's also how I learned it!
The C Scale looks like this if you charted it out, in Alphabet note letters (top line), Nashville Notation (numbers), and scale syllables (bottom line):
So the using the notes available to build chords on a diatonically configured Kalimba tuned in C you would get:
In Nashville notation it would be:
On a Kalimba tuned in D the scale chords would be.
In Nashville notation it would be:
See the difference? Songs charted in Nashville notation look exactly the same no matter what key they are played in!
Songs charted in C look very different than songs charted in D or G if you use "alphabet Chords" to chart it. What's more when you compare even the same song to the song in another key you completely lose the association of the chords to song structure. It's like you end up having to memorize two separate sets of chords with letter names instead of one. Add another key or two to learn to play in and you begin to see the picture.
So, thinking this way... No matter what key your Kalimba is tuned in... the chord scale structure remains the same and you can make the musical connections in your mind very fast!!
Put together a chart of the chords for the model Kalimba you have and practice changing from chord to chord. Memorize the "Chord Shapes" and their corresponding number. Learn to hear the sounds the chords make. Sing with your playing and think... does this chord sound good here or this one. Pretty soon you are sounding out the right changes to songs and off you go!
Get some simple sheet music of songs you like and make yourself a chart (like above) so you can convert the chords to Nashville notation. Learn and enjoy!
After a while... even thinking about a song or it's chords may go away and the music will come up from inside you without thought! That's real joy! Go for it!
I'm putting together a book on playing the Kalimba where I'll go into this method in more detail with some graphics and stuff but that's it in a nutshell.