Kalimba Community

Gerhard Kubik's Book: Theory of African Music

Gerhard Kubik's book Theory of African Music is being reprinted in paperback and is available for $27 for each of Volume 1 and Volume 2. When learning of this, I immediately bought both, even though they won't be available until later this month.

This book is a classic, and it spans the whole of African music - linking the harmonic structure of overtone bows to the scales used on marimbas and kalimbas. If you want to understand African music, this is an excellent place to begin.

Cutting and pasting from Wikipedia: "Gerhard Kubik is perhaps the most broadly knowledgeable and prolific scholar of the musical traditions of Africa and the Black Diaspora. Kubik went to Africa every year for the past 48 years. From 1958 he has published over 300 articles and books on Africa and African-Americans, based on his field work in fifteen African countries, in Venezuela and Brazil. Kubik's topics are music and dance, oral traditions and traditional systems of education, the extension of African culture to the Americas (especially Brazil) and the linguistics of the Bantu languages of central Africa. Kubik has compiled the largest collection of African traditional music worldwide, with over 25,000 recordings, mostly archived at the Phonogrammarchiv Wien in Vienna."

Dan DeBruler on Therapeutic Kalimbas and Throw Down Your Heart

I haven't bought anything from Kalimba Magic in a while, but I've sure been inspired since my first purchases. Over the past couple of months I've been making and donating kalimbas to brain injury survivors. The hand-eye-reward combination is a great tool for those recovering from a life-altering injury.

My wife sustained a traumatic brain injury (and then some) when struck by a truck while riding her bicycle to work. Working through her rehabilitation demonstrated the importance of hand-eye-reward exercises, and I recently began making kalimbas and other hand made instruments to donate to local TBI survivors and families. I use various woods, gourds, and other materials, and buy my spring steel from Kalimba Magic. I've been inspired by articles in past newsletters to spread out into creative design and tunings.

On another topic: I recently watched a documentary made by Bela Fleck. The video journal followed him on a trek to rediscover the roots of the banjo in Africa, and featured some AMAZING thumb piano artists. If you haven't seen it - check it out sometime. The title is Throw Down Your Heart, and features some of Africa's best indigenous musicians, including Ugandan folk musician Haruna Walusimbi. The documentary is currently available on demand (for free) at NetFlix.

From one musician to another, I can certainly recommend it.

Dan DeBruler
Fayetteville, NC

 

 

Ostrich Egg Kalimba

Anne King of The Carved Egg shares her lovely ostrich egg kalimba with us, and mentions that you can get kalimba building kits from Bonnie Gibson's Arizona Gourds right in my own backyard here in Tucson, Arizona.

By the way, the tines in these kits are on the long side. Keep these two options in mind: In order to resonate well at the low nates made when the tines are out all the way, you will need a rather large gourd or ostrich egg. Or, if you have a smaller resonator, you will want to "choke up" on the tines, pushing them in so that they are short enough to make a pitch high enough so the body can resonate at that pitch.

Bob Danziger of the Bass Kalimba

Bob Danziger is one of those famous kalimba players that I have missed because he isn't an egomaniac and I haven't had my eyes open at the right moments. Something that makes him easy to miss as a kalimba player is all the other things he does: when Bob isn't twiddling his thumbs, he is busy working as a consultant, energy activist, lawyer, inventor, lecturer, artist, photographer, and musician.

OK, OK, Bob contacted me years ago, and I dropped the ball. Sorry Bob, but now I understand why you didn't get back to me sooner - you are a busy guy!

Bob played the box-shaped marimbula (bass kalimba) shown in the photo with Supertramp on the 1999 album "Some Things Never Change", and the Cello-mounted marimbula is a new one he recently made using "a cheap cello and a Stradivarius Musica Saw (for the tines). Notice the curve of the tines. The bridge is ebony."

Find out more about Bob at his web page, or go and get some of his music at CD Baby.

Great Kalimba Video

Kevin Spears' innovative kalimba playing really shines in this video of him working his magic with a Hugh Tracey Alto Kalimba through a BOSS loop station. His percussive hits are as important to the music as his kalimba notes.

Stick with the video and listen as he uses a vocoder to get some really interesting kalimba sounds.

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Paco Sery is a great African kalimba player - here he is playing a Hugh Tracey with duct tape to reduce the sustain of the instrument, with the Zawinul Syndicate. He plays so fast he needs something like this.

Paco Sery again, in a small club - may be a Hugh Tracey.

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Cool chromatic kalimba video:
When you play a note on a kalimba, the neighboring notes will also vibrate a bit. In the standard Hugh Tracey note layout, this results in lovely harmony. However, if you try to make a chromatic kalimba with a linear (piano-like) note layout, you are in for some sonic mud as the dissonant half steps resonate - unless each note has a separate bridge so that all notes will vibrate more or less independently. That is what is behind these chromatic kalimbas:

• Chromatic Kalimba - Erina Koyama
• Chromatic Kalimba - Erina Koyama
• Chromatic Kalimba - Erina Koyama
• Chromatic Kalimba - Erina Koyama
• Chromatic Kalimba - Erina Koyama
• Chromatic Kalimba - Brian Eno

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Peaceful New Age Sansula by Guy and Marc Bijl Relaxationmusic.

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Most peaceful kalimba ever - and only 66 hits when I wrote this page - do the world a favor and watch this video, again, and again.

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Trevor Gordon Hall plays kalimba and guitar at the same time. This video gives "66 hits" a whole new meaning - better watch it to see just what I mean. Suffice it to say, this has never been done before!

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Steve Wells the great kalimba maker plays too! Does it sound as beautiful as his kalimbas look? You decide!

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Beautiful : La kalimba del corazón, by Carlos del Rio (choose this selection in playlist when you go to his MySpace page.)

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Befoggingexposure on YouTube added some instruments to my song First Look Inside.

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John Lee in Hong Kong:

• Treble Kalimba - Walking with a Smile
• Sansula and overtone singing
• Sansula solo

Lucinda Ellison and her New Harmonic Journey Web Site

Lucinda Ellison has a new Harmonic Journey website. If you are not familiar with Lucinda's work, she is a true kalimba artist - check out her beautiful instruments.

Some of the best names in the music industry have Lucinda's kalimbas in their hands: Maurice White, Philip Bailey, Pat Metheny, The Kingston Trio, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Taj Majal, R.E.M., Kalani, Futureman (Roy Wooten). With so many big names going for her instruments, she must be doing something right!

 

 

Music from Greg McClure

i've been enjoying your news letters, like the new tunings, thanx. i recently reworked this tune, added drums, guitar, etc. Really it is completely different - kind of a spacious ambient journey ....thought you might enjoy it.

Listen to Gregorio's new music.

Life is good here on the big isle, thanx... feeling a huge wave of creative energy these days, lottsa live and studio recording... sounds like you're staying positive and creative also, keep the vibe goin... one love —Greg

More Bass Kalimba Innovation from Eric Freeman

Eric Freeman continues to build his hand-held bass kalimbas. He makes them from Hugh Tracey Alto bodies, his own tines, and very live pickups mounted under the bridge. These instruments don't really sound accoustically - the body is too small to resonate with the long low tines. But if you plug it in, you get a rich woody bass sound. And there is nothing easier than taking one of these bass kalimbas to a rehearsal or a gig, they are as light as... well, as a kalimba!

The Music of Tim Sterling

Tim sent me this nice Sansula music from Australia. I can't remember anything else about it, but good music speaks for itself. It is a nice improvisation in the standard tuning. I like the way the music is layered, it gradually unfolds itself.

Scott Holt on the Electric Kalimba

Scott Holt has had a kalimba for years, but it was always out of tune. Recently he figured out it could be tuned, and now he is learning everything he can about the kalimba. We'll be hearing more from this guy as he explores new vistas of kalimba possibilities, but today we'll hear his opinions on the electric signal path for his Hugh Tracey Kalimba with Pickup. —Mark

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I have a wonderful guitar player/technician that has opened me up to the amplifier. I explained to you that he gave me three different affect boxes: one was an EQ box to set all the highs and lows. The pickup makes the lower notes much stronger. So the first thing you have to do is get the high and low notes to be on an equal sound plain. The lower register of the kalimba keyboard is always going to be louder. I have learned that my thumbs are the final mixing tool.

The second box is called the compressor. It condenses what you get out of the EQ. The first thing I found out when I plug in was the natural acoustics of the kalimba are greatly diminished. The back holes don't work [to make the wah wah sound] at all, and the front hole only works on a few notes. I'm sure you could work in tandem with a microphone. I do believe they make little miniature microphones that you can hook onto kalimba. But that sounds like too much electronics. So for the time being, I am using a third box, which is called the tremolo box, which puts a little modulation back.

My guitar friend said that I should split my time playing the electric and acoustic kalimba. Obviously there are things you can get out of the acoustic kalimba. That is very valuable but just like Bob Dylan, once he got his hands on an electric guitar, there was no looking back. So although I love the electric aspect of the kalimba. I'll always balance it by playing acoustically. And of course you could put a microphone in front of the kalimba. That's what you do, and it sounds wonderful.

—Scott Holt

My Parting Words

There is a lot that I do at Kalimba Magic, but I believe that one of the most important things I do is help focus the energies of the many kalimba enthusiasts out there by bringing these rays of creativity and insight and knowledge together into one place where the rest of the world can learn and theseappreciate from those who are inspired. There are master kalimba players spread all across this blue-green-brown-white globe of ours, and we each do our part. So my part right now is to be a good cheerleader!

—Mark Holdaway, Kalimba Magic