Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Relating Kalimba Notes to Piano Notes

Here is one way to think about the notes on the kalimba: it's like taking just the white notes on the piano, and putting every other one (i.e., 1, 3, 5, 7) on the right side, and the other notes (i.e., 2, 4, 6, 8) on the left side.

To add more notes, just keeping going, every other note on the two sides. The Alto and the Treble follow the same ladder of notes--they just start at different places.

This scale, the "white notes" scale, or 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, is called the diatonic scale.

Actually, many of the Hugh Tracey kalimbas are tuned to the G major scale, so this diagram is still true in spirit, though in detail you need to start on G as the 1 note and add an F#.

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