November 14, 2016

I’ve been jamming out on kalimba… playing along with Top 40 Radio! Click to download Tablature for the mbira song Chaminuka I was very disappointed on election night a couple weeks ago, as I am sure many of you were as well. Leading up to the election, I had taken to listening to more and more news and analysis, mostly on NPR and Democracy Now, and when I saw the writing on the wall, I decided I needed to take a huge break from the news. So now, when I drive somewhere, or when my clock radio wakes me up, I listen to a local Top 40 / variety radio

Learning this song on Alto Kalimba has put me into “Beginner’s Mind” Click to download tablature for “Taireva” played on Alto Kalimba Have you ever read the book, “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”?  The basic idea is that we can make great progress on our journey by approaching everything with an open, beginner’s mind, for it is in this state that we are ready to be taught, we are ready to see, and we are ready to understand.  The expert who already knows everything might not ever see the truth. While I like to think of myself as a kalimba expert, I do get knocked on my (musical) butt quite often. 

The chords and phrase structure behind most mbira music Click to download Tablature for the mbira song Chaminuka Most “primitive” music is so-called “two-phrase” music – basically a call phrase and a response phrase, or a question and an answer.  This simple musical form exists across cultures, in nursery rhymes, and in basic karimba music. Sometime between 600 and 1000 years ago in the Zambezi Valley of southeastern Africa – let’s suppose during the peak of the “Great Zimbabwe” civilization – an incredible innovation occurred: that primal two-phrase tune pattern evolved into a “four-phrase” pattern.  This innovation was momentous. Doubling the length of the original two-phrase cycle had the effect