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TIP OF THE DAY
Tuesday, June 9, 2009 A lot of the flavor of music comes from the 3rd. There are two different flavors of 3rd, the major 3rd and the minor 3rd. Today we won't worry about that, we will just worry about the physical nature of playing 3rds on the kalimba, which brushes the major/minor thing under the carpet for now. Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do G A B C D E F# G 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8Listen to the scale. Now, B is the 3rd of G. C is the 3rd of A, D is the 3rd of B, and so on. The way the kalimba is set up, adjacent tines (neglecting, of course, crossing the center line on the kalimba) will make the 3rd interval. Will it be major or minor? It will be one or the other, depending upon where you are in the scale. The kalimba decides which one it will be, so you just go along for the ride. Here is an example of 3rd intervals on the Alto kalimba:
What could be easier? After learning octaves (on opposite sides) and 5ths (on the same side, but an awkward interval to make) and 4ths (on opposite sides), we are blessed with something simple - two adjacent tines will make a 3rd, and 3rds sound so pleasing. As promised, we show you an easy way to make the 1 and the 5 notes together. Two weeks ago when we covered the 5th interval we saw that playing 1 and 5 together requires skipping a tine in between, which is hard. If we played three tines adjacent to each other, we get the 1, 3 and 5. At first it seems that this is hard to do, but if you touch your thumbnail to the 1 tine and drag it across to the adjacent tine (the 3) and on to the next tine (the 5) you will be able to make a beautiful chord using the glissando technique.
Download KTabS file for this music. Listen to the 1-3-5 chords (mp3). The 1-3-5 is the classic chord, and is also called the triad. There are major triads and minor triads, but we don't really bother about that at this point. Try making triads on YOUR kalimba! This is a very easy thing to do, and very beautiful, so it is worth becoming comfortable with triads. Not familiar with KTabS?
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