May 15, 2011 Vol. 6, Num. 4

Kalimba Magic NEWS In This Issue Message from Mark: My Job Before Kalimba Magic What's the Buzz at Kalimba Magic Kalimba Magic Travel Log Spring 2011 Kalimba in Addiction Recovery Sound Journaling with the Sansula Kalimba in Music Therapy: a Collection of Resources Joy of Music Presentation & Jam, Mesa, AZ, June 24 Children's Workshop at MIM in Phoenix, AZ, July 23 Mbira Cycle: Synchronicity at Folk Fest & Contest Kalimba Community News

Kalimba Community News

• Finger Holes in your Kalimba?
• Snuffy's Paint Job
• Easier Music for the Alto?
• An Assortment of Kalimba Videos

Are you doing something cool with the kalimba? Have you released a new CD, or a new video on YouTube? Do you have an upcoming kalimba performance? Do you have some cool photos to share? Contact us and we'll get your story or pics onto the Community page to help you share your news or other good stuff with the kalimba world!

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Finger Holes in your Kalimba?

If you've been reading the Kalimba Magic newsletter forever, you may remember Andrew Ellis as the guy who made a wonderfully clever kalimba cover to protect the tines of his Hugh Tracey Alto. He writes about his latest great idea:

I'm really more of an mbira player, and to me kalimbas look incomplete without finger holes! As it happens, I found the chromatic difficult to play without holes. The corners felt too sharp and made it difficult to reach back and front at once. The biggest problem was holding the thing. With both thumbs and forefingers in use, I found it hard to grip the board with just my third and fourth fingers. My hands were tense and cramped.

With my little fingers through the holes, I'm able to hold the kalimba securely with a very relaxed grip. Suddenly I was able to be much more fluent in my playing both front and back.

I've also put a very angled hole in the karimba, which makes it much easier to hold while playing tunes like Kana Ndoda which utilise the first finger, just like on an mbira. (In this case, of course, you put your little finger through from the front.)

These are experiments - you need to get the holes in the right spot for your fingers.

I'd love to hear whether anyone else thought these were useful modifications.

—Andrew Ellis filmpositive("at")adelaide.on.net

Notice how Andrew smoothed the corners too - which brings me to something I recently did for a Kalimba Doctor case I had recently. Someone sent a really beautiful kalimba that had paint, marks, dents and scratches all over. I just sanded it down with fine and very fine sand paper and applied shea butter, and the wood on that 30 year old kalimba almost looked new.

Snuffy's Paint Job

Here's a photo of my newly redecorated HT Pentatonic (tuned to G minor). As you might remember, I used flat black for the colored tines and ivory for the rest (to cut the glare) on my HT Chromatic, but the black is so black it seems to disappear. I was thinking about something other than the traditional blue or red, maybe brown, when I saw this nice lavender at the hobby shop. It's "Model Master" brand. —Snuffy

By the way, Kalimba Magic has blue, red, green, black and white paint. The only kalimbas we routinely paint are Trebles (which we get so we can make Bb or D trebles) and old kalimbas sent to the kalimba doctor with paint chipping off. We sometimes also paint Catania and Goshen kalimbas so people can use our tablature for those kalimbas. AMI in Africa (and we at Kalimba Magic) uses protective enamel paint. You can get it at the hobby shop or at Home Depot. As for getting old paint off, I chip it with a screw driver. Careful not to impale your hands on the tines!

Easier Music for the Alto Kalimba?

The Alto music is too hard for me! Can I make it easier?

Yes, there is a set of exercises for an 11-note instrument that is the exact same as the upper 11-notes of the ALTO: Download these exercises for $5.

ALSO, my 8-Note book can be used for the LOWER 8-NOTES of the Alto (even though they are in different keys, the time layout and the physical motions are the same) - the 8-Note Book is not available as a downbload.

Another option: You can use the 6-note pentatonic NUMBERS BASED free download if you write the numbers on your kalimba tines: 1 2 3 5 6 8 == G A B D E G' === or as there is no 7 on the pentatonic, you could even do it in C ==> C D E G A C'

There's also the numbers based Catania 8-note book that can be used for the Alto, either in the lower octave or the upper octave.

But more to the point, we now have the Easy Alto Download.

—Mark

An Assortment of Kalimba Videos

• Thanks to Bryan Miller who pointed out that the Math Rock Animated Music Video for the Number "3" has a kalimba in the mix. I've seen that one like 50 times in the 70s but never noticed.
• Round Midnight as performed by Jomo Vibes on Chromatic Kalimba of his own design.
• MTV Video Kid buys Hugh Tracey Kalimba from 8th Street Music
• Array Mbira, hapi and hang
• Laina Gumboreshumba plays Chemutengure on the Karimba. By the way, Laina's father was Andrew Tracey's first mbira teacher.
• Valanga Khoza plays an Alto Hugh Tracey Kalimba in a deze. Great!
• OUTERNATIONAL MELTDOWN POPS MOHAMED KALIMBA JAM.
• Burundian kalimba music - very different!
• Cosmas Magaya and Ambuya Beauler Dyoko form a divine duet and create an unforgettable sound. This track is from their album, Afamba Apota. You can hear that this song follows the mbira cycle.
• Tark's Sanza release - played on pentatonic Andrew Masters Sanza.
• Samite playng a Tanzanian kalimba.
• Samite playing several kalimbas and other instruments in different cuts.
• Avatar music on a Hugh Tracey Alto Kalimba - well done. This is a great video to learn from.

Heads up to the people looking to get a kalimba on the cheap. If you want to sound like the music in these videos, you need to get a good kalimba. The people who buy the cheap kalimbas aren't making videos with them, in large part because they are difficult to play and don't sound so good.