This is key: the high note we add is always on the opposite side to the chord. To the first chord, C major, we added the C note an octave higher. This music works beautifully, because the note we added at the top is actually the same as the note each chord is named after. We are going to add that scale to the chords we previous played. Then back (left) to the E, and alternate your way up to the high C, the last painted tine on the far right. Jump across to the next note up in the scale, D, which is also painted. You can make each one of these triad chords in the upper octave – the upper D minor chord will start on the middle of the right side, on D, then the two outer adjacent tines, F and A.īefore you try to play this tablature, start on your middle C – the painted tine in the middle of the left-hand side. The starting C major chord was on the lower right side.
You just take what the kalimba gives you, which fortunately is a good set of chordsĪt the very end of the tablature, we come back to the C major chord, on the mid-upper left side. You cannot control whether something is major or minor – this tuning automatically makes only C major, not ever C minor. You will note some triads are major and some are minor. We start with the C chord, then the D, then E, then F. And remember it!ĭo you see what this music is doing? It is systematically playing every triad on the kalimba (in standard inversions anyway – if that was Greek to you, don’t worry). Is it major, minor or diminished? You may be able to tell from the sound, and if you really need to know, look it up in the accompanying tablature image. What chord is it? Find the lowest note (longest, most central tine) of the three you played, and then find the name of that note.
Pluck them, one at a time, or strum them all at once with a glissando. Try this – pick out three adjacent tines at random (be sure not to cross the central black line). (Hey, does the low C belong to the left side or the right side? Do you see the black vertical line in the center of the accompanying tablature, between low C and D? That is an invisible line separating left tines from right tines. To do this, you will probably want to use the glissando technique (see links at the bottom of this blog post). In order to play a triad, play any three adjacent notes on the same side of the kalimba. While this sounds like an advanced technique, if you just focus on the basic thumb motions and ignore which notes you are playing, it is actually very straightforward.Ī triad is a certain type of chord that is common in music, typically made of the 1, 3, and 5 of a certain scale. This lesson will leverage that basic information to help you play chords and melodies together on kalimba. This is related to what I call “Mark’s Rule of Thumb” – if you play two notes that are straight across from each other, they will sound bad… but if you play one note lower and the other note higher, they will sound pleasing. The true beauty of Hugh Tracey’s kalimba design is that when a melody note is played high up with one thumb, then usually the chord that works with that melody note will be low down on the other side. At least for tines with identical thickness and steel properties, longer tines make lower notes and shorter tines make higher notes. Would you like to learn more?įirst, where are the high notes, and where are the low notes? If you are familiar with the kalimba, you know intuitively – the low notes are in the middle, and the high notes are on both the far left and the far right. That note arrangement makes it particularly easy to create melodies high up on the instrument, and simultaneously to produce good chords low down on the instrument that perfectly accompany that high melody. (Of course, they also owe their existence to the hundreds and thousands of people in Africa who pioneered and played the karimba, mbira and related instruments over the last 1000 years.) But most non-traditional kalimbas are copies of the Hugh Tracey kalimba’s design and note arrangement. In an article I wrote earlier this month, I said that every non-traditional kalimba in the world owes its existence to Hugh Tracey.
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