December 14, 2006
Changing Tuning Makes the Same Pattern into a Different Song

More about the pentatonic kalimba/pentatonic scale.

Last week, we looked into how KTabS can take a pattern and change the feel completely by changing the tuning on the "virtual kalimba" that lives inside of KTabS. This week we actually DO it!

We start with a Pentatonic kalimba tuned to G minor. Here is a not-too-difficult but interesting pattern in Tuning #1:

Listen to the Song with Tuning #1

The letters at the bottom tell you the tuning of the kalimba.

So here's what I did. I took that pattern and went into the CONFIGURATION setup where I could change the tuning of the tines, and clicked on a tine, and then the piano key I wanted to change the tine to. I changed the Bb to C and the C to Db, in both octaves. Why? Don't know, I tried a few other things, and ended up here on try number 4. I liked it, so I tried to change something else in addition to these changes, but I liked that less, so I went back to this one.

Listen to the Song with Tuning #2

See, the pattern is the same as the first case, but the tuning is different. This turns the pattern into a completely different song.