At the end of last summer, Amazon sales of inexpensive Chinese-made 17-Note kalimbas tuned to the key of C started to spike. These kalimbas were delivered to people with either a short instructional manual in Chinese, or no instructions at all. Peeved customers who bought from Amazon found me, vented their frustrations, and begged me for an English version of the short Chinese manual.

Of course, I saw a great opportunity. I shot from the hip and made a "primitive" Zip file download for the 17-Note in C from an earlier version of "66 Songs" for a different kalimba. But a significant fraction of those who have purchased this Zip download have trouble a) finding the download button, and b) dealing with ZIP files.

With this new single PDF download, "44 Beginner Songs for the 17-Note Kalimba in C," I have eliminated the customer's need to deal with a ZIP file. You will, however, still need enough tech savvy to be able to find the download link in your Kalimba Magic email invoice. If not, there is always email.

Recently, Lilly wrote to Kalimba Magic:

"I am experienced with reading standard staff musical notation, and I don't really like the kalimba tablature, and I don't understand why you use it. Can I just read staff notation with my kalimba? Please give me the main advantage to using tablature to notate kalimba music."

Yes, Lilly, I think there are some really big advantages to using kalimba tablature rather than staff notation. Consider kalimba tablature to be my chosen way of expressing my 33 years of kalimba-playing experience to you. It is a doorway to my kalimba-playing thought process.

One of my good habits is to walk about 2 miles every morning while I play kalimba. This is time by myself, with the sky above me and the earth below me. It is time with a kalimba in my hands and a song in my heart. It is an essential element of my mental, physical, and spiritual wellness.

Most mornings, I stick with one song for most or all of the walk. I find the song deepens as my walk proceeds. On good mornings, I get an entire new song. And sometimes, I record them.

"Karimba Walk" is a syncopated walking-tempo song that I play here on the Hugh Tracey African-tuned Karimba, in the style of traditional African two-phrase karimba music. And now you can totally learn to play it too!

There are so many juicy details about karimba music here - if you play African karimba, this is a "must read."

My friend Andrea Eckardt and I are back with another exotic Sansula tuning, showing the world just how easy it is for a Sansula and a guitar to make great music together.

The Sansula is made by Hokema in Germany. The tines of this exotic kalimba make a crystal-clear sound, amplified by the Sansula's oval-frame drum body.

Today we are going take a very close look at how the guitar accompanies the Sansula; I dissect our improvisation "blow by blow," and share six rules that can help any chording instrument (guitar, piano) successfully and gracefully accompany a Sansula.

When I'm asked how I learned kalimba, I tell this story: while I had known what a kalimba was since the age of two, I only discovered how wonderful kalimba music could be when I was 24 and I witnessed an amazing player close up. I immediately went out and bought a kalimba, and then I wandered alone in the wilderness for 10 years, finding my own way.

In that wandering, I found that my path branched in two opposing directions. On one, I tried to learn songs exactly, with precision and repeatability. On the other, I aimed for pure delight in the spontaneous flow that come only from improvisation. And over time I learned that these two approaches enhance each other.

Today we'll talk a little more about improvisation versus learning specific riffs and songs, and see two recently-made videos that illustrate these two starkly different ways of approaching kalimba playing.

When I would teach large kalimba classes in the past, one of the supplies I had to bring with me was the Alaska Pik. If you have no thumb nails, plucking the kalimba's metal tines can be painful. Eventually, novice players will either grow their thumb nails or develop calluses on the playing surface of their thumbs. Until then, or in emergencies, the Alaska pik can be a life saver!

Ken Purcell, the inventor of Alaska piks, was vacationing in Alaska when he got the idea for his PVC guitar piks. While they were initially designed for guitar finger pickers, the piks also work great on kalimba players' thumbs. I always carry a set of three piks with me in case I break a nail or two before a gig. I carry three piks in case I step on one!

These days, most people find Kalimba Magic after they have bought an inexpensive Chinese-made 17-Note kalimba from Amazon or eBay, and they are mystified and confused and want to learn how to play it and maintain it. They google something like "Learn to play 17-Note Kalimba," up comes a results page dominated by Kalimba Magic content. There's a good reason for that!

Kalimba Magic is unique. Almost nobody in the world has created quality kalimba instructional materials. I have written 45 kalimba downloads and 25 kalimba books. And these books and ebooks are not small: 40, 60, some are even 100 pages. Most of the books link to MP3 files (older ones have CDs), and all of our downloads have MP3 files, so you can hear what the music that you're learning should sound like.

There are some other things to know about Kalimba Magic that can make your experience with kalimbas immeasurably more worthwhile and rewarding.

"Oh - it's so small... it only has nine notes - that's not much."

I must admit, hearing comments like that always leave me a bit disconcerted. Yes, she was a piano player who was accustomed to having scores of notes at her fingertips. I could have explained to her: "This is a magical instrument that just creates its own music, just the way it is. These 9 notes have a special story to tell."

But the words did not come out. Instead, I started playing that small nine-note Sansula... and then picked up another Sansula in a different tuning... and then another. After listening, she nodded with understanding, and said "Oh, what a charming little instrument! And it seems there is not a single wrong note on it." Of course not! With only nine notes, you have to make them all count!

How do you safely travel with your kalimba, keeping it from potential accidental trauma? For an unfortunately long period of time, my answer has been "I pack it between my underwear and socks." The fragile Sansula has a nice soft bag and a very nice wood case. But if you play one of the more standard kalimbas, once its box wears out, you might be packing yours between a few T-shirts too.

To those who would persist about this glaring deficiency, I would say: "Go to Target's back-to-school section in August, and pick out a nice padded/insulated, soft-sided lunch sack."

Today, I am happy to recommend a new solution: tough, attractive, black, zipping, form-fitting, well-padded soft-shell kalimba cases, at $10, $11.50, and $13. Most kalimba pages in the Kalimba Magic Shop now have the option to add one of these kalimba cases.

Yes, I have been making the point about the 10-Note and the 17-Note kalimbas for months: the lower notes (the 10 inner tines) on the 17-Note kalimba in C are an exact match to the notes of the 10-Note kalimba in C. One consequence: if playing on 17 notes is too hard, hide 7 of those tines and just play it as if it were a 10-Note, using the 10-Note downloads. Another consequence: if you get the 10-Note and do well with it, you can then buy the 17-Note kalimba and everything you learned on the 10-Note is immediately transferable to the 17-Note.

But today I am making a different point: if you are a mother, father, grandmother or grandfather, and you want to get a bigger kalimba for yourself and a simpler kalimba (which could be played together with yours) for your child or grandchild, I think the 10-Note and 17-Note kalimbas will make a great team for you and your special kalimba partner.

I am really taken with the 10-Note kalimba. I think it is one of the best choices you can make for most kids ages 8-14. But I also think there are a lot of adults who get a 17-Note kalimba and then get frustrated with it, because it is more complicated than they are ready for.

To try to woo you toward the 10-Note kalimba, I am sharing a lesson from each of my four instructional downloads: "Fun and Games on the 10-Note Kalimba," "Everything You Need to Know to Play the 10-Note Kalimba," "African Music on the 10-Note Kalimba," and "Easy Christmas Carols on the 10-Note Kalimba."

When Hugh Tracey started making the Treble kalimba with five painted tines and 17 notes  in 1954, it was the very first commercial kalimba. The Treble has a rich history, though the instrument's setup is somewhat problematic. On most modern kalimbas, the "key note" or "root note" is the lowest note on the instrument and this has great advantages. The Treble kalimba, however, is in the key of G but is missing that low G and A. It actually starts on B, the 3rd of the scale. It can take some work to play a Treble well.

So we see that the Treble setup is confusing all on its own. And what is making things trickier for the Treble is the new Chinese-made 17-Note kalimbas, which look just like the Treble kalimba, right down to those five painted tines. The new kalimbas are in the key of C, and also have C as the low note which makes this new tuning an obvious choice, and lots of people are going to this instrument in lieu of the Treble.

Even though the 17-Note looks like a Treble, it is not at all a Treble, and its tine-painting scheme makes it impossible to learn from any instructional materials that Kalimba Magic offers. But this is easily remedied and you can learn all about it in the recent post _________________________.

So is the venerable progenitor of the new 17-Note kalimbas going to way of the dodo?

When Hugh Tracey started making his 17-Note Treble kalimbas in South Africa in 1954, the instruments had one out of every three tines painted, on each side of the kalimba. These Treble kalimbas ended up with five painted tines, in the key of G, with the low note being B.

Now, a new crop of 17-note kalimbas from China has surfaced under names such as Gecko, Donner, and Walter kalimbas. They are all in the key of C. So while looking exactly like the Treble Hugh Tracey kalimba, they are in a different key, which changes everything. These kalimbas come unpainted with decals for marking the tines, and the manufacturers recommend marking five tines - which is the exact Treble painting scheme. But this can be a problem and here is why:

Tine painting defines how a person learns to play a kalimba and tremendously eases the process of learning songs from kalimba tablature.  Hugh Tracey's Treble kalimba is in the key of G and has its own unique tine-painting layout. But you cannot use Treble instructional materials with your 17-note in C. In order for you to take advantage of the vast offering of Kalimba Magic books, instructional downloads and hundreds of songs that are applicable to the 17-note in C (including all downloads for the 10-note kalimba, 66 Songs for the 17-Note, plus the entire body of Alto kalimba literature) - the Treble's five-tine painting scheme will simply not work. 

By using the six-tine painting scheme outlined in this post, your 17-note becomes part of a world of song instruction, help, and community at your fingertips.

I have just finished "Easy Christmas" ebooks for each of four of my best selling kalimbas. Part of every ebook is the sound recordings for each song. So, I have a great data set for comparing these four popular kalimbas, side by side.

This collection of Christmas favorites has been arranged specifically for the Hugh Tracey Treble Kalimba in G. We started with a set of generic arrangements, but refined several of them so all the songs are comfortable and easy to play on the 17-Note Hugh Tracey Treble kalimba.

I have been playing Christmas Carols on the kalimba for 20 years. Not only is it a fine way to learn your kalimba, working on songs you already know. It is also a fantastic way to cultivate feelings of joy and gratitude during the lead-up to the holiday season. It is also a great way to share joy with other people in your life.

This 59-page PDF download with clickable links to MP3 files has tablature for 32 different versions of 28 different carols. This book has enough easy songs to have you playing carols right away, and it has enough complex songs to keep you learning and playing carols each holiday season for years!

Two years ago, I made a video demonstration of my kalimba tablature (which I originally created in 2004 to facilitate learning and sharing music on kalimba), playing Greensleeves on the 8-Note kalimba. The illustration at the top of this article is from that video. Three of the kalimba's tines were painted red, and the three corresponding columns in the tablature were also colored red - the tablature is a replica of the kalimba, and each column represents a different tine.

What if you loved "Greensleeves" and wanted to play it on your 17-Note kalimba? Is it even possible to transfer music for one kalimba to a different one? Generally, you cannot play 17-Note kalimba music on an 8-Note kalimba; it just doesn't have all the notes you likely need. But you can generally do the opposite, which is to play 8-Note kalimba music on your 17-Note kalimba... if one crucial thing is true: that the 17-Note has tines painted in the same logical scheme. And this is possible even though the 17-Note is in C and the 8-Note is in D. Tine painting can make all things possible!

Come with me for a moment, to stand behind Hugh Tracey, circa 1952. For years before he began selling his kalimbas, Dr. Tracey worked at perfecting a new kalimba invention, creating over 100 prototypes, experimenting with various design features. When he finally settled on what worked and sounded best for his Treble kalimba, he had really accomplished a tremendous feat. Hugh Tracey kalimbas still look almost exactly as they did in 1954, when he started selling them to the world, and many kalimba makers across the globe copy the Hugh Tracey Treble design. Hugh Tracey's work is the standard by which modern kalimbas are judged.

One very significant change that Dr.Tracey made to traditional African instruments was to paint every third tine on his kalimba. Why? To help you find your way on its 17 otherwise indistinguishable tines.

Hugh Tracey kalimbas generally come with just RED or BLUE painted tines. But Kalimba Magic offers you LOTS MORE CHOICES...  including BLACK and _______.

The classic holiday song "Let it Snow" has a great trick that usually doesn't work on the kalimba. Some songs, including this one, modulate to a different key temporarily. Usually, when you modulate to another key, you have "accidentals" - that is, notes that are not in the original key, or even on the kalimba! Well, "Let it Snow" can be played happily on your kalimba with a bit of musical sleight-of-hand.

You can hear the modulation in "Let it Snow" - it happens in the bridge at 0:42 in the video. At that point, another note and another chord temporarily become "home base." How do you think I will navigate this?

 Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post about our "New and Improved Downloads." They are great and convenient - a single PDF file, easily downloaded, with live links to the MP3 files and to other helpful kalimba resources online.

Kalimba Magic's older downloads were and still are sent out as ZIP files. Many people have no problem navigating the ZIP file. In recent times I have sold hundreds of the "66 Songs for 17-Note Kalimba in C" (ZIP file) download, and several people have had issues with opening it. So I am addressing this issue here.

This collection of Christmas favorites has been arranged specifically for the 17-Note kalimba in C.

I have been playing Christmas Carols on the kalimba for 20 years. Not only is it a fine way to learn your kalimba, working on songs you already know. It is also a fantastic way to cultivate feelings of joy and gratitude during the lead-up to the holiday season. It is also a great way to share joy with other people in your life.

This 59-page PDF download with clickable links to MP3 files has tablature for 32 different versions of 28 different carols. This book has enough easy songs to have you playing carols right away, and it has enough complex songs to keep you learning carols each holiday season for years!

I often get asked "Hey, what kalimba should I get for my kids?"  My response is to say that it depends on how old they are. And the rule of thumb above is a good one.

People love to think of their kids as more advanced than they actually are. Maybe what we parents do is to see our child's potential rather than their actuality. I know for a fact that I was sometimes disadvantaged by my own parents' excessive belief in my abilities, and I did get a lot of gifts that were, frankly, a bit beyond me. In the beginning it's often better to be great on a simple thing than to get lost in a complicated one.

OK - so what kalimba will be right for your kids?

This collection of Christmas favorites has been arranged specifically for the Hugh Tracey Alto Kalimba in G. We started with a set of generic arrangements, but refined several of them so all the songs are comfortable and easy to play on the 15-Note Alto.

I myself have been playing Christmas Carols on the kalimba for 20 years. Playing carols is a fine way to learn your kalimba, working on songs you already know. It is also a great way to learn about classical harmony. Playing carols is a fantastic way to cultivate feelings of joy and gratitude during the leadup to the holiday season. It is also a great way to share joy with other people in your life.

This 59-page PDF download with clickable links to MP3 files has tablature for 32 different versions of 28 different carols. This book has enough easy songs to have you playing carols right away, and it has enough complex songs to keep you learning carols each holiday season for years!

I should have known better than to post a video of a kalimba in a strange new tuning, and then not also make that tuning available to everyone. Several folks have requested the Dajari-F B11 tuning, so here it is.

The initial plan for this year was to make instructional downloads for each of six exotic B11 tunings, to demonstrate the breadth of music that is possible on this otherwise unassuming but beautiful kalimba... but then Christmas came knocking, and with it came the creation of four new books of Easy Christmas Carols... to get this done, several items had to be put on hold including the exotic B11 project and the Dajari-F tuning.

We regret the delay, but now you are invited to explore this very clean and positive B11 tuning.

I write this blog post as a gift to the five people who have asked for the tablature.

I made a video of this song a few months ago to demo the 17-Note Heart Kalimba in C, but I wrote the song about 15 years ago. Originally, it was called "Chorale," and I wrote it originally on piano, as a love song for my sweetie, Deb.

The first 16 measures were included in my first kalimba book "Kalimba Fundamentals for the Alto Kalimba" under the name "Chorale." A longer version was included in the "Advanced Alto Download."

Are you wondering why I call this song "Forgiveness" now, and not "Chorale"?