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Mark Holdaway

TIP: Alto Kalimba Riff #1

Free Tablature to help you play the music in this YouTube video on your Alto Kalimba Click to download the PDF tablature for this exercise When you look at a kalimba, you see a tiny, unassuming instrument. But if the possibilities of the kalimba are considered all at once, they can boggle the mind. An easy way to reduce the overwhelm when starting to learn something new is to pare down the number of tines you use, making the kalimba into a simpler instrument.   If your Alto kalimba only had six notes rather than fifteen, it would be much easier, right?  This video will teach a very useful trick –

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Mark Holdaway

Free Tablature! Alto and Pentatonic Kalimba Kushaura and Kutsinhira

Following the lead of traditional mbira music works great on modern day kalimbas too! Click to download the tablature for the song you’re hearing, “Pfumvu Paruzevha” How do you play two kalimbas together?  There is no particular tradition for doing that, but there is a deep, wide, and wild tradition of playing two mbira dzavadzimu together – one plays the kushaura part (the leading part) and the other plays the kutsinhira part (the following part).  Often the same high notes are played in the two parts, but the kutsinhira part’s high notes will echo the kushaura part’s high notes.  If a particular high note is repeated in the first part,

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

TIP: Playing “Mahororo” on the African Karimba – 3 / 5

This traditional mbira song transfers well to karimba Click to download the full PDF tablature for “Mahororo” “Mahororo” is usually played on the mbira dzavadzimu (commonly called the mbira), and is one of the classic songs that fit the chord progression described by Andrew Tracey in his seminal 1973 paper “The System of the Mbira” which studies in depth the ages-old mbira playing of the peoples he and his father Hugh studied for decades . This implies that “Mahororo” is probably one of those “old songs” – meaning it may be something like 500 – 800 years old. Ivodne Galatea pointed out that it could be played on the karimba.

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

New! Hugh Tracey Alto and Pentatonic Kalimba Package

Two Great Kalimbas that go Great Together! Click to visit the Alto / Pentatonic Package product page One of my favorite things to do is to play kalimba duets with a close friend. The Hugh Tracey Alto kalimba is one of the most popular and most capable of all kalimbas.  In many ways, it is the gold standard by which all other kalimbas are measured.  I have written more books and music for the Alto Kalimba than for any other, and very often it is still one of my Altos (I have them in G, C, and F now) that I grab when I walk out the door. The Hugh Tracey

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

Kalimba and Mindfulness – 2

Please study this application of mindfulness to the process of learning to play specific music on kalimba Photo by Glen Davis. Kalimba by Andrew Masters Have you ever struggled to learn a piece of music on the kalimba, really studied in detail the exact notes you need to play?  It seems that the kalimba is a simple instrument – there are only a few tines for your left thumb and a few tines for the right thumb.  Surely this is simple.  You should be able to master this instrument after a week of playing it, right? But as soon as you approach a challenging song on the kalimba (and “challenging”

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

TIP:Technique: Playing with the right index finger – 2

The “karimba style” use of the right index finger puts it over the top of a tine, plucking down Buy the African Tuned Karimba with coupon code CAT13 for 13% off How do you play the kalimba?  Mainly, you use your two thumbs, but you should not overlook the fingers.  It turns out there are multiple ways to use the right index finger, and you can adapt these techniques to a wide variety of kalimbas. The technique we show here is the “karimba style” use of the right index finger.  The “mbira style” (discussed in the previous tip in this series) used the right index finger coming from below the

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

TIP: Playing “Mahororo” on the African Karimba – 2 / 5

This traditional mbira song transfers well to karimba Click to download the full PDF tablature for “Mahororo” “Mahororo” is usually played on the mbira dzavadzimu (commonly called the mbira), and is one of the classic songs that fit the chord progression described by Andrew Tracey in his seminal 1973 paper “The System of the Mbira” which studies in depth the ages-old mbira playing of the peoples he and his father Hugh studied for decades . This implies that “Mahororo” is probably one of those “old songs” – meaning it may be something like 500 – 800 years old. Ivodne Galatea pointed out that it could be played on the karimba.

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

Why Kalimba Tablature? Greensleeves!

The tremendous assistance that kalimba tablature can provide in arranging and learning songs…plus a free CD or 25% coupon! Click to download the Greensleeves tablature in PDF I have a symbiotic relationship with kalimba tablature:  I work really hard to notate really wonderful music in tablature.  Through working on this tablature, I come to be able to play music that is more difficult and more polished than I would otherwise be able to perform. I make kalimba tablature better, and kalimba tablature makes me better.  To get your free Greensleeves tablature PDF, which will work for 8-Note, Alto, or Bb Treble kalimbas, click the image above. What is the best

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Blog
Mark Holdaway

TIP: Alto Kalimba – Accents can make a part stand out

Get this free tablature that illustrates the use of accents in your kalimba playing Click to download the PDF tablature for this exercise When you play kalimba, you should always be willing to accent special melody notes, and let the other support notes come in at a lower volume.  Why is this important?  Not always, but often, melody notes will be fairly high in an instrument’s range, and accompaniment notes will occur in the middle or at the low end.  A guitar has a three and a half-octave range.  The piano has a seven-octave range.  On both of these instruments, you have a big difference in the pitch of the

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