Kalimba Magic NEWS

This is a great story about a 50 year old who realizes he isn't getting any younger and just goes out and jumps on board an instrument he has been intending to play for years. It is also the story of what it is like to be a beginning mbira player. It is a story about mbira instructor and ethnomusicologist Claire Jones, and about how she inspired the idea for an exciting new kalimba/mbira.

While learning the song Bangidza, Claire Jones first taught us a variation of the song that did not use any of the notes on the mbira dzavadzimu's lower course of tines - just the right and the upper left course of tines. She said that playing this way was called kwe pomusoro playing ("in the head" - no low notes). Within half an hour, I realized that I could transform a Hugh Tracey Celeste Treble into a Hugh Tracey 17-note Kwe Pomusoro Mbira.

• Prices Holding Steady in 2012
• Hugh Tracey Altos Will Be Back Soon!
• Tip of the Day becomes Tip of the Week
• Sansula Books
• 12-Note Books

My son Tim Holdaway has chosen an interesting career path since graduation from the University of Arizona last spring, and Kalimba Magic is benefiting from his sharp mind. He has set up the Kalimba Magic Wood Shop, and has produced about 30 kalimbas. Eleven of those kalimbas are little baby Alto Kalimbas. He calls them the Pocket Alto - but please don't put them in your pocket!

Last month on February 25, I traveled north to Phoenix, AZ for a special event at the Musical Instrument Museum (The MIM): the opening of an exhibit with 125 African sanzas and kalimbas collected over the 20th century. This unique collection will be at The MIM through October 1, 2012, so if you are in the Phoenix area,stop in and see these beautiful traditional kalimbas first hand. If you can't make it, you can still take home this beautiful 64 page catalog of the sanzas in this exhibit.

Greetings and Salutations from Chicago. I've asked Mark to let me write a series of tutorials that will explain how to interface and use your kalimba with your computer. The series will be initially geared to those in our community who are beginners, and will progress into some fairly advanced methods and practices. Please note that while I am writing these for the kalimba, they will cover other instruments too, so if you have a guitar, or a balliphone or an mbira, you'll be able to apply what you learn to those instruments as well.

We have gathered here a collection of videos demonstrating various Sansula tunings. Also, follow this link to learn more about Rick Tarquinio (Tark, was ReturnToSound on YouTube). Also in the Sansula news, Hokema has come out with a tunable Sansula App for the Ipad and Iphone.

Last newsletter, we put out an offer to any teacher who would reply: Tell Kalimba Magic what you would do with a Student karimba in your classroom, and we will select four of these to receive a Goshen 9-Note Student karimba and a Student karimba book. This month, we announce the winners, and include their letters here...

I get one or two dozen emails each day asking me all sorts of questions, and I answer almost every one. Some questions get asked over and over again. I try to include those questions in my "Ask Mark" column.