What's the Buzz at Kalimba Magic

Goshen Kalimbas Are Back in Stock

The Goshen kalimbas are really beautiful and feel and sound very sweet, but they require some pampering or they can end up needing frequent retuning. They are great as an instrument to keep next to your bed so you can play before you go to sleep or when you wake up. They are very good for walks even, but I would not put one in my back pack! Its tines would surely get snagged and pulled out of tuning by a thread inside the bag.

All four Goshen kalimba models are back in stock: the Goshen 8-Note Box Kalimba, the Goshen 11-Note Box Kalimba, the Goshen Double Bridge Gourd Kalimba,and the Goshen Mate Gourd Kalimba (pictured above). The Goshens are a great value, and Kalimba Magic is proud to share them with the kalimba community.

Hugh Tracey Altos Are Back, and a Note on Prices

The good news is that our most popular kalimbas, the Hugh Tracey Alto and the Hugh Tracey Alto with Pickup, are back in stock. The bad news is that they cost more than they did last month.

Since December 2008, the South African rand has become 50% more valuable in terms of U.S. dollars. This means that Hugh Tracey kalimbas cost me 50% more today than they did at Christmas time last year. Fluctuations in exchange rates are just part of doing business when one imports goods from overseas, and I try to insulate my customers from these changes by making conservative price changes once a year, post the holiday season. However, the current rather huge drift in the exchange rate mandates earlier action this year.

We have a lot of inventory at Kalimba Magic. Of course, most of that inventory was purchased months ago when the exchange rates were more favorable, and it would be greedy of me to charge more for these kalimbas that cost me less back then. However, all of the Altos I have in stock now were purchased only about a month ago after the exchange rate began to tilt - at a much higher price than the rest of my inventory.

So I have increased the prices of the Altos and Altos with pickup by 15%. You may be thinking that 15% is much smaller than 50%, and of course you would be right. I am making a much smaller profit on each Alto kalimba.

Of course, my hope is that the exchange rate will flop back the other way soon, so I'm not increasing prices by 50%, i.e., I am making a conservative change here. On the other hand, as I run out of old stock of other types of kalimbas, I will be forced to raise prices on them as well. And by January 2010, if the exchange rate isn't normalizing the way I had hoped it would, I will probably have to raise prices on Hugh Tracey kalimbas to a tune closer to 50% than to 15%.

Which leaves me to say what I am always saying anyway: Now is a great time to purchase Hugh Tracey kalimbas, before the prices go up!

August Special: 10% Off Chromatic Kalimbas

The G Chromatic kalimba is our kalimba of the month for August 2009. The front of this instrument is arranged just like the Alto, which means you can use any of the Alto instructional materials with this kalimba, but have the option to add chromatic notes.

Learn more about this month's August Special on Chromatic kalimbas on the Kalimba of the Month page, where you can also read Brian Wistler's very insightful review of the Chromatic kalimba.

Be sure to catch the August Thursday Tips on the G Chromatic Kalimba!

Tips of the Day: Update

Sometimes I am unable to keep up with the weekly schedule of Tips of the Day. Lately, when I'm not ready with a next day's tip, I've started throwing in a tip that references an older tips series, i.e., I dip into the classics archive. This week (at least) all the tips are current (except, of course, the Friday tips, which sort of dropped off the map altogether about a year and a half ago). Here's a summary of where we're at:

Monday Tips: We have just finished up the series on perfection and are starting a series on the African American Spirituals.

Tuesday Tips: Our Melodic-Harmonic tip series is back! If you don't have a formal education in music, this is a great series for you to learn more about how music works.

Wednesday Tips: We are finishing up with instruction on the song I'm Moving Tomorrow - and we finally got that song on YouTube. Next week we'll be starting a great new series on Advanced Kalimba Techniques.

Thursday Tips: We finally have gotten the Thursday Tips synchronized with the Kalimba of the Month, and this month that is the G Chromatic Kalimba.

Sansula Update

A lot is happening in the Sansula world at Kalimba Magic:

First, we have updated our Sansula resource page in the Learn How to Play section of our web site. Two important new features of this updated Sansula page are the new sound comparison of all four Sansula models, and a translated updated version of the German Sansula playing guide.

Second, you may be interested to know that I am finally writing the Sansula book. It will be multi-modal - with non technical exercises akin to guided meditations on the CD, multi-instrumental backing tracks on the CD to support your sansula improvisations, and technical information about chords, melodies, information on different alternative tunings, and suggestions for how to use the Sansula with various kalimbas and other instruments. This book should be available by October 1, in time for Christmas shoppers. While it is early to say exactly how big it will be, I am aiming for 100 pages and 99 CD tracks for $24. I am aiming to create a book that equals the Sansula itself in beauty and simplicity.

And third, I am anticipating a price increase on Sansulas around September 1. So presuming you aren't tired of hearing it: Now would be a good time to purchase a Sansula.

New Karimba Tuning

A customer requested a karimba tuned to E major. The karimba is normally tuned to A and, while it is possible to pull all the tines out and bring it down to G, we can't go all the way down to E, as the tines just aren't long enough. So, I invented this alternative karimba tuning in E major. I hope it will be useful for a few other folks out there!

 

Tuning in to Africa's First Payment to Africa

Last month, we sold three Premium Hugh Tracey kalimbas to fund our soon-to-be non-profit organization Tuning in to Africa. We sold them for $200 or $220, approximately twice the price of regular kalimbas, in just a few days. I have just sent $630 (ie, $640, minus $40 for processing, and plus $30 from a generous donor who just sent some money) to AMI to use in their Employee Assistance Program. The funds will help pay for health care and school fees for the immediate families of AMI employees. I myself have donated the cost of the kalimbas, and three proud kalimba owners have donated the money.

This feels so right to me - that the best and most beautiful kalimbas are funding an initiative that will help the very people who built these kalimbas. We plan on doing at least $600 a month for the first year of activities, and we'll ramp up with time, as there is more need in Africa than we can imagine. We have made connections with the Grahamstown Hospice and with a private school for homeless children, and we hope to be sending money to these institutions soon as well. However, I really did need to start with the AMI employees who make the Hugh Tracey kalimbas. A huge THANK YOU to everyone who helped, and a huge THANK YOU to the AMI employees who make some of the best kalimbas in the world!

Kalimba Magic at the AMTA Music Therapy Conference

November 11-15 2009, San Diego

Kalimba Magic is very happy to be a vendor at the National Conference of the American Music Therapy Association in San Diego Nov 11-15. But we are even happier to be presenting a one hour session on using the kalimba as a healing instrument. This is our first trip to the National AMTA Meeting. In the past, we have been very successful with the Western Region of the AMTA, and we are looking forward to working with people from all over the nation, as well as to breaking into the other AMTA regional meetings.

The big message of the kalimba session at the AMTA conference is that Kalimba Magic has transformed the kalimba world. Before we started our work four years ago, there were five educational resources for kalimba that I was aware of - Steve Catania had two small books for the 8 and 12 Note kalimbas (circa 2004), Paul Tracey has a tape that coached you on the Treble kalimba (circa 1975), Carol Burt-Beck had a book that notated the two hands independently (like piano music, 1979), and someone else had an instructional CD. Basically, Kalimba Magic has increased the number of kalimba resources available to the world ten-fold. There are hundreds of songs which are notated for the kalimba, we have books, CDs, instructional web pages, Tips of the Day, online lessons and more. The kalimba is no longer a percussion toy. It is a fully formed instrument, like a harp or a guitar, capable of creating wonderful music, capable of accompanying voice, capable of solo playing with melody, harmony, and counterpoint. My vision is that in 20 years, the kalimba will be part of the core competency required of all music therapists.

If you plan on attending the AMTA Meeting, pleae stop by and talk with us at our booth, and come join our kalimba session on November 15. We were hoping to get a 5 hour CMTE slot, but one hour is definitely a foot in the door, enough to show you that you really want more!

Coming Soon!

Advanced Christmas Carols for Alto and Treble Kalimbas

Last year, I wrote out arrangements for 20 of my favorite Christmas Carols. I probably do more performances in the month of December than the whole rest of the year put together, mainly because of my very popular Christmas Carol arrangements on the kalimba. These arrangements are available to the general kalimba community in the form of a KTabS/PDF download.

Sharon Eaton will be putting those advanced arrangements into book form (in the same style as the Hymnal and the Classical books), and they will be available for both the Treble and Alto kalimbas next month for $16. Thank you, Sharon!

A Note on Kalimba Knockoffs

Kalimba Imitators: Do You Have Something of Value to Contribute?

I'd like to call your attention to Meinl - an innovative company in Germany making really cool percussion instruments. Or at least I used to think they were innovative, now I don't know what they are.

You are probably aware of the wonderful Hokema Sansula. A large part of the charm of the Sansula is the tuning and note layout it comes in - a unique cross of the traditional African karimba and the Japanese Ake Bono scale. This note layout makes it very easy to play wonderful music.

Well, Meinl now produces a 9-Note kalimba which has the exact same note layout and tuning as the Hokema Sansula. The shape of the instrument is different, and it is not mounted on a frame drum, but the note layout was stolen from Hokema. I don't think the note layout is something that can be patented or protected from imitation, but I will go on the record right here and now to say that there are literally thousands of good kalimba tunings and note layouts available to the human imagination, and for Meinl to go and steal someone else's popular note layout for their new kalimbas demonstrates their lack of innovativeness.

This act of product copying makes me further question how innovative Meinl actually is with their other percussion instruments. Do they really come up with their cool ideas, or do they similarly steal them from other percussion makers? Perhaps I will never know. In any case, I will not carry the Meinl kalimbas, and I will do whatever I can to call attention to this unabashed rip-off of the Hokema kalimba.

And while we are railing against kalimba copiers, I must also mention that most kalimbas which people purchase on eBay are imitation kalimbas, usually copies of the Hugh Tracey Treble kalimba. You see them for 1/3 the price of the Hugh Tracey, they are billed as the "Large Rosewood Kalimba" or "Large Thumb Piano," and they are made in Pakistan, not in Africa. Most of the people who get these kalimbas can't play them. Many of them are never tuned up. They look like exact copies of the Hugh Tracey Treble, only the wood has been polished like a shiny coffee table - and it will look very good sitting there on the coffee table, which is exactly where it will stay as a curio, but not as a musical instrument.

The Meinl imitation Pocket Sansula is actually a fairly good musical instrument and doesn't quite deserve the comparison to the Pakistani Large Rosewood Kalimba. I've got two of those Pakistani kalimbas - they are not even worth the bother. One was sent to me by someone who bought it on eBay who thought I might be able to use it as a paper weight!

I'm going to send this message to the whole world of imitators - don't you have something of value to contribute? Surely there are some interesting Pakistani instruments that you could be bringing forth to the world, dear makers of the Large Rosewood Kalimba. Surely, Meinl, there must have been some other kalimba note layout you could have taken the time to invent.

My message to the world of consumers is this - you vote with your pocketbooks. What do you want? If you want cheap imitations, you should buy them, but then the companies that make the originals - the Hokemas and the Hugh Traceys of the world, the innovators who create something new and wonderful - will be at risk of going out of business. Imagine the things you would want in the world, and be willing to work or pay for that world.