February 6, 2019

This technique can get you a lower bass note to better support the music Making a chord is simple on a diatonic kalimba: Pick the note you want the chord to be based on – let’s say C – and then play that note and the next two shorter tines on the same side of the kalimba. Those three tines will make a triad with the notes 1 – 3 – 5. Will it be major or minor, or even diminished? It depends on which key you are in and what note you started on – but it will always be a beautiful chord. (“Diatonic” means your kalimba plays only

Its amazing music puts you in the headspace of Ancient Africa One of the most important things I can say about the kalimba (including the karimba and mbira) is that the understanding of how to play these instruments comes to dwell in my thumbs, while the interpretation of the music into phrases or pulses takes place in my ear or my head. The brain’s frontal cortex is where we slowly puzzle out the music when we’re first starting to learn it.  But once we get rolling, it is a different, more primitive part of the brain that is making the music happen – I am guessing it is the cerebellum, which