August 21, 2010

Volume 5, Number 6

Kalimba Magic NEWS

• In This Issue
• Message from Mark: Tunings Are Palettes of Color
• What's the Buzz at Kalimba Magic?
• Interview with Steve Catania of Catania Kalimbas
• Kalimba of the Month: Catania Electric Pentatonic
• Also New from Catania: The 6-Note Pentatonic
• Nowhere Man: Tablature
• The Gods Must Be Crazy: Tablature
• Turn Your Alto into a Maurice White Pentatonic
• Tunings of the Sansula, Part 2: Morocco E
• 15 Original "2B" 9-Note Tunings Available
• Kalani Drum Circle = Community, Wellness & Joy
• Kalimba Community

Message from Mark
Kalimba Tunings: Like Palettes of Color

If you've read any of our newsletters, you know we usually have at least an article or three about kalimba tunings. In this month's newsletter, we've got four articles that talk about tunings:

• Tunings of the Sansula, Part 2: Morocco E
• Kalimba of the Month: Catania Electric Pentatonic
• Turn Your Alto into a Maurice White Pentatonic
• 15 New 2B/9-Note Kalimba Tunings

Why are tunings such a big deal in the kalimba universe?

Partly the answer is technical: which notes do you need to be able to play with other instruments that are playing in a certain key. But there is something absolutely artistic about tuning choice as well.

Each tuning is like a palette of colors that is available for you to paint with. Many tunings use some of the same colors, but different amounts of each. The musical picture you paint will depend on the tuning palette you have in your kalimba. A more complicated instrument like a piano (or the new and exceptional Chromatic kalimba) has all the notes. A violin can give you even more - notes between the ones we recognize on the piano. But a kalimba has to select a subset from all these possibilities. So the first act of creativity on a kalimba is: Which notes? Which tuning? Which colors will we want to paint with?

In the 2B article in this newsletter, I rate 15 tunings as good, great, or unrated. So what makes a good or great tuning? I look for a feeling of freedom and expansiveness in a tuning. Does it open doors? Is it intuitive? Can you just twiddle your thumbs in a natural pattern and have music come out? Is it unlike any kalimba tuning I have played in the last month, or unlike any kalimba tuning I have ever played? Does it take me back to some song I heard on the radio in 1970, but I can't even remember the name of? How does the tuning make me feel when I play it? Does it make me feel like I am skating down a hill, or floating in a cool mountain pool or the sky, or singing like a bird? Does the tuning take me somewhere - perhaps back in time, or to another country or world? Does it make me feel like a different person, or let me see music or life from the perspective of someone else? Admittedly, this rating is somewhat subjective. But that is what a great tuning can do for me and that is why I am so interested in different kalimba tunings.

You become a more versatile kalimba musician when you become adept at retuning and knowledgeable about the tunings that are possible with your kalimba. You can learn more about how to tune here and you can learn more about the family of kalimbas that will give you the capability to tune to the entire span of Western keys here. But I encourage you to advance from mere expertise to an ingenuity that sprouts wings. Experiment, explore and create new tunings that reveal the spirit of your kalimba and breathe life into the music that is within you.

—Mark Holdaway, August 19, 2010