Mark Holdaway's Tip Of The Day

The Hugh Tracey Kalimba is the best kalimba I know, and we are selling several different types of Hugh Tracey Kalimbas.

Here's another site where you can learn about playing the Hugh Tracey Kalimba

As you can see, this page is ancient history. However, the ideas that were developed right here on this page gave rise to a new system of kalimba tablature which is now available in three different books for the Hugh Tracey Kalimba. You can also purchase the Hugh Tracey Kalimba.

2004 Dec 31
Auld Lang Syne

Happy New Year! -Mark

You can do the same thing with the kalimba, except it would probably be called "thumb picking". Once you learn or invent a particular pattern, you can do the same pattern for many different chords.

Here is a simple thumb picking pattern for the G chord. Use your left thumb on the left side, and your right thumb for the right side. Time goes from the bottom of the page to the top of the page.

Good Picking -Mark

• As a melody instrument, playing the melody of a well known song
• As a "lead" instrument, playing an improvised melody
• As a "rhythm" instrument - ie, playing an arpegio, achoring the rhythm and letting the chords change around you. As this happens, notes that were strong structural tones for one chord (ie, the root or 5th) will become passing or suspended tones (ie, the 2nd or 4th) for another chord.
• As a chording instrument, providing support for another instrument on melody, or for a voice.

Explore! -Mark

So, relax, maybe simplify, and find a place where you and your partner can both keep a unified concept of the beat going. That doesn't mean you need to do the same thing, but both of you (or all of you) need to understand where the pulse is.

THUMP! -Mark

HOWEVER, you are a unique person, with your own unique head and heart and understandings and talents. Go inside yourself over time and try to find out what is special about YOU and YOUR ANGLE ON MUSIC. You have something to offer the world that is your own. Good luck finding it!

You are YOU for a reason -Mark

Build Community Through Music -Mark

Notes:

• The heavy vertical line represents the division between Left and Right thumbing.
• Time goes from bottom to top
• There should be a one-to-one correspondence between the tines on your kalimba and the vertical white and blue stripes on the tablature.
• The double notes can be played simultaneously with one thumb, touching the thumb nail to two tines at the same time.
• On the first beat, you play two notes with the Right hand and one note with the Left hand.
• The last notes played will be three notes played nearly simultaneously. You will need to do a glissando, sliding the thumb past the three tines you need to play.
• If you have a Treble Hugh Tracy Kalimba, you can't play the lowest note, but the blue lines will line up the right way, so this tablature should still be useful to you.

Of course, I expect that there will be times when the instrument just hypnotizes you, and you can't get away. Who would want to, though? It is on those days, when you play for an hour and start to discover things, start to understand things, that you really start making leaps and bounds.

BUT BE CAREFUL! You can easily get RSI (repetitive stress injury) or carpel tunnel syndrome by playing relentlessly. Rather, listen to your body. Find the ways of holding the kalimba and striking the tines that are easy on your hands, and if your hands cry out, put the kalimba down for a while, or for the day.

Respect your body and its messages to you! -Mark

Become friends with your kalimba -Mark

This rule goes beyond chords: anything you learn down low on the kalimba can be taken up an octave higher, but whatever WAS on the RIGHT side gets switched to LEFT and vise-versa.

Become friends with the underlying logic! -Mark

Learn all the chords! -Mark

Learn the Bm chord! -Mark

Learn the Am chord! -Mark

Note that E minor is very similar to the G major chord. They are two sides of the same coin, and Em is called the "relative minor" to G.

Learn the Em chord! -Mark

Buy Books! -Mark

Now, for our kalimba in "G", 1,4,5 is actually "G", "C", "D". For example, the song "Oh Susanna", played in the key of "G", would have these chords:

     G                                    D
Oh I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee

    G                    G         D      G
I'm goin' to Lousiana my true love for to see

C              G                 D
Oh Susanna, oh don't you cry for me

      G                        G     D     G
For I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee

Learn! -Mark

The Treble kalimba goes higher than the Alto: the Alto ends on a high "G", while the Treble goes on to "A-B-C-D". These diagrams don't tell you explicitly what to do, but if the chord has "D" in it, you can also play the high "D" that goes beyond the Alto kalimba scale.

Expand! -Mark

Learn the D chord! -Mark

Learn the C chord! -Mark

• Play an arpegio, which means play the notes of a chord one note at a time in quick succession, from bottom to top or top to bottom.
• It is easy to play two notes at the same time: either adjacent notes, or a pair of notes on opposite sides so you play with L and R thumbs.
• Or, you could do a glissando to quickly cover three different notes (you can also play one or more notes with the opposite thumb).

Learn the G chord! -Mark

In the coming weeks, I'll be experimenting with kalimba tablature. I'd appreciate hearing from you on how effective the experiments are! email me!

Try It! -Mark

However, let me tell you a story. I play the hammered dulcimer, totally "by ear", never taken a lesson or read anything about how to do it. The notes are arranged in a very strange way, but it makes certain kinds of note patterns very simple to do. Unfortunately, other note patterns seem like bending over to touch the back of your head to the floor! Well, I ran into a great dulcimer player while vacationing in Portland, and I watched him play for about 30 minutes. I paid great attention to what he was doing, how he was stretching, but doing it naturally. When I got back to Tucson, I sat down and wrote a song based on how I had seen this player move. Hey, he gave me a free lesson, and all I did was pay attention to what he was doing!

Of course, YOU can come and pay attention to what I'LL be doing at one of my upcoming concerts:

• December 17, 2004
• December 18, 2004

So, what do you do if you need an accidental that you just don't have?

• FAKE IT! for example, try a nearby note in place of the note you don't have, often a "third" away from the one that you wish you had -- that way, the note you play will at least harmonize with the note that is really in the melody, so it won't clash with the note that people "hear" in their minds if they know how the melody is supposed to go.
• You could play with another musician, like a guitarist (the guitar has ALL the notes), and get THEM to play the missing note, or more likely, give them the whole phrase or section, and just play some kalimba notes that fit and stay out of the way of the accidentals.
• I have actually played a song with two different kalimbas tuned to different keys: when I got to the accidental, I jumped over to the second kalimba (which had that note), and then jumped back to the original kalimba to finish the song. Tricky!
• Or, if you are recording, you could SAMPLE the missing note and just insert it where it needs to go!
• But usually, if a song NEEDS an accidental, I don't need to play that song.

You don't need to understand how electricity works to use it. Similarly, you don't need to understand how music works to make music. This kalimba has its own song, just sit down and explore its own little world.
Wild Wonder!, -Mark

One particular kalimba I have only has 8 tines. It was obviously designed to be a one-octave diatonic kalimba. Well, I wanted it to have a wide range from lowest to highest note, so I retuned it to the pentatonic scale, starting on 5, and I got one and a half octaves out of it.
Enjoy!, -Mark

Hugh Tracy kalimbas, and many other kalimbas made in the US, are in the diatonic scale. However, I once met Samite, a famous kalimba player from Uganda, and his kalimbas were just tuned to pentatonic scales -- he didn't know what to do with my diatonic kalimba from South Africa! Also, I've made a few kalimbas which are tuned to the pentatonic scale.

So, whats good about the pentatonic scale? It is REALLY SIMPLE! Have you ever played with JUST the black keys on the piano? That is the pentatonic scale. It is also called the "no-fault" scale.
Cool!, -Mark

So, pick those two notes, straight across from each other, and play them at the same time. Chances are, they are too "close" to each other in pitch to sound very good. Mark's "Rule of Thumb" is: if you want to play two notes at the same time with both left and right thumbs, they should NOT be directly opposite each other. Move one thumb lower (longer tine, lower pitch), and move the other thumb higher (shorter tine, higher pitch). They should sound good together now.

Now do the opposite; start with the thumbs directly across from each other, and let the low thumb go high and the high thumb go low.

Play around. Once you find a good configuration, let both thumbs go up until one reaches the top, or let them both go low till the other reaches the bottom.
Wild Wonder!, -Mark

Pick a note near the center, place your right thumb on it, now imagine that note and the next two notes further right. Try to slide your thumb nail quickly over those three notes.

OK, it may be hard to stop at exactly the third note, and if you do four or five, they probably sound good too!

Why three notes? Three adjacent notes on the kalimba will make a triad, a 1-3-5, and will make a nice chord. Add a forth, and you get 1-3-5-7, which will usually be nice too. Add another, and you have 1-3-5-7-9. which is getting a bit jazzy, and may or may not work, depending upon your degree of skill and luck!

Practice your glissandos! Find out which groups of three, four, or five notes you like together.
Dude!, -Mark

But here is the advantage of the kalimba being layed out this way: if you try to play fast, you won't do very well by staying on the same side: Right-Right-Right can only go so fast. But if you stick a Left in between each of those Rights, you will be able to go fully TWICE as fast. Try it.

Back-and-forth, or Left-and-Right, is one of the main things you do on the kalimba.
Dude!, -Mark

A fancy way of saying it is that your thumb and fingers waving in front of the holes are changing the resonant properties of the air inside the box. It is very much like having a sweepable mid-range filter, which is exactly what a wah-wah peddle is.

Here is a way to understand it. Just like a string vibrates at certain frequencies, the air inside the kalimba box will also vibrate at certain frequencies. Find the notes that sound the loudest on your kalimba. These are most likely the notes that correspond to the resonant frequencies of the air inside the kalimba box. The "wah" should work best with these notes. If you closed those holes, then DIFFERENT notes would be louder, and these ones will be softer. So, waving your fingers in front of the holes is a lot like turning a tone knob.

-Mark

-Mark

If your kalimba has a hollow box with holes, you can get the "Wah" sound. Play two or three adjacent notes on the kalimba and as soon as you do, wave your thumb in front of the sound hole. If you have holes on the back, wave your fingers in front of them in time with your thumb. Imagine the music is an elastic substance sitting in the box. When you push your thumb and fingers into the holes, imagine pushing against the spring of the musical substance.

Note that the "Wah" effect does not work equally well for every note - some notes will not be affected at all, and some notes, usually in the mid-range of the instrument, will be drastically affected by the thumbs and fingers in front of the holes. Why? Stay tuned!

Take care,
-Mark

But most kalimbas are BI-LINEAR. The shorter tines are higher pitched, the longer ones are lower pitched. Most kalimbas are low in the middle but get high on BOTH the far left and the far right. SO, our brain now has a totally different concept to sit with. If you are just trying to make some nice sounds, the kalimba is wonderfully easy. But if you are trying to perform an actual SONG, the kalimba is not so easy, a really new concept, because two notes that sound like they should be close to each other are actually on opposite sides of the instrument.

We will find that there are some interesting tradeoffs that occur when we arrange the kalimba this way. Some things are harder - playing a scale requires L-R-L-R back and forth action. But some things are easier - any two adjacent notes will be part of a chord, and any three adjacent notes will be a triad (assuming the two or three notes don't straddle the central, or lowest note).

Dude!, -Mark

Consider the complexity of music in all its potential. There are so many notes that can be played in so many combinations in so many ways. WOAH! It is a bit terrifying, all the possibilities! How can someone who doesn't know a great deal already make any progress at all?

In mathematics or physics, if something is too complicated, we reduce the number of variables or dimensions. We can do that in music too.

The simplest thing to do is to make a kalimba that plays one chord, three or four or five notes that sound pretty good together.

The next simplest thing to do is to make the pentatonic, or five tone scale. You can't play many standard songs in this scale, but everything you play will sound great!

The Hugh Tracey Kalimba, and a great many others, are tuned to the diatonic scale, or the regular "Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do" scale. Some notes (Mi and Fa, Ti and Do) are very close together and can sound bad when played at the same time, but pretty much there are NO WRONG NOTES! They all sound pretty good together.

Make some BEAUTY in this world!,
-Mark

If I get a buzz, I get rid of it by cutting out a strip or paper about 1/8 inch wide by 1-2 inches long. I lift up the buzzing metal tine off of the metal bridge, insert the paper between the two metal surfaces, and slowly let the metal tine down. Then I tear off the rest of the paper and stick it inside my kalimba so I can retrieve it later when I need it. Sometimes the paper deadens the note too much. If that happens, take off the paper - you might not need it anymore, or try putting in a smaller piece of paper.

You might develop a buzz in the middle of a performance. I've been able to eliminate the buzz by either pushing down hard on the tine or by sliding the tine from side to side and bringing it back to the initial place. Imagine that one of the pieces of metal is a bit dirty or rusty, and you are sort of grinding that rust away to make a clean vibration. This method can work for a short time, perhaps 5 minutes, perhaps 5 hours, perhaps not at all.
Take care, -Mark

• You may be playing with a singer (or even sing yourself). The typical human voice has a range of about two octaves, and most songs have a range of about one and a half octaves. That being said, it is like a Cadilac in a parallel parking space - there is not a lot of room to move around! You often can't raise or lower the key of the singing to match the kalimba, you've instead go to tune the kalimba to match the singer's key.
• You may want to accompany someone on another instrument (or even have them accompany you). Lets say you are playing with a guitar player. They may want to play in D or A for a specific song, and your kalimba is in, say, G. You could learn which notes in the key of G are not in A or D and avoid those "klunkers" -- or you may want to retune, adding a sharp or two to fit well with the guitar.
• Even if the kalimba is king, and the other instruments are servants to the kalimba, you may want to retune to add variety to the kalimba music. I've got an entire CD of kalimba music which is in the key of G (ie, G major, or E minor, or B minor [avoiding the C naturals], or A minor, or D mixolydian -- we'll get to find out how these are all forms of the G major scale later). Anyway, someone listening too long might get bored with this, because there is not very much harmonic diversity. Next time, I'll retune in the middle of the CD!
• You may just want something new to help you break out of old patterns. After playing the kalimba for months or years, you might think you know everything, or might have a hard time figuring out new kinds of things to do. A sure way to get you out of that space is to retune your kalimba to a different key. First of all, the old familair thumb patterns should still work, but they will sound different! And second, in order to do things like you used to, your thumbs will need to do something different, and you'll accidentally discover new things while trying to do just the same old stuff.
• Your kalimba may have a not at the top or bottom that just doesn't sound any good. The kalimba has a natural range of notes that will sound good on it, and if you make a tine go higher or lower than that natural range, the note won't sound so good. SO, you may want to lower or raise all of the notes for that reason. If you DO want to tune ALL the notes, you may want to consider moving the bridge a bit up or down to get the right approximate change in all the notes, and then fine tune each note as required. Some kalimbas' bridges don't move (like a guitar), but the Hugh Tracey has a movable bridge (like a mandolin). You will want the help of a friend: one of you will lift up all the tines to release the tension on the bridge, and the other will actually shift the bridge up (to make the freely vibrating part of the tines longer and lower pitch) or down (to make the tine length shorter, or higher pitch). This is like minor kalimba surgery, and should not be attempted unless you know what you are doing or your kalimba is sick and needs the change.

Once you have had a bit of practice with retuning your kalimba, you should be able to change the key by adding one or two sharps or flats in about a minute -ie, it is possible to do on stage between songs. Electronic tuners are a big help, but if the other notes are not getting retuned, many musicians will have good enough ears to make it work without messing with the electronic tuners.

Take care,
-Mark

The first time you try this, it will take you a good 30 minutes or more for a 15 note kalimba. After a bit of practice, you should be able to fine tune a mildly de-tuned kalimba in about 5-10 minutes.
Take care, -Mark

Any questions? Please e-mail me!
Peace,
-Mark

If have a suggestion for a future tip, or a comment or question regarding these tips, please email me!

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