October 5, 2006
Playing the G Minor Pentatonic with a D Minor Tuned Treble Kalimba

More background about the pentatonic kalimba/pentatonic scale from the Learn How section of this site.

I'm sure other people have tuned their kalimbas to D minor (or F major), but I am getting a lot of milage out of this tuning, so I'm sharing. I tuned it this way so that it would play with Glen's G minor tuned Pentatonic. You might think: "but wouldn't a G minor kalimba NOT work with a D minor kalimba?"

Check it out: Compare the D minor Treble tuning:

And the G minor pentatonic tuning:

There are no conflicting notes (i.e., no cases of B flat against a B natural - that would be BAAAD). G minor SHOULD have an E flat, but the pentatonic minor skips the E totally, so the E natural found in the D minor tuning totall works against the G minor pentatonic.

Try it, you'll like it!