Kalimba Duets and Trios for Alto Kalimba, Treble Kalimba, Cloud 9 Marimbula, Sansula, Treblito, Pentatonic Kalimba, Karimba, and 8-Note Kalimba Mark Holdaway www.kalimbamagic.com This book is designed to help the growing kalimba community open to the possibilities of kalimba music for groups. There has been very little kalimba music written for groups, largely because it can sound so exciting and fun when kalimba groups improvise or make up their own parts. This collection of kalimba duets is unique, and it seeks to achieve significant depth in pieces such as Los Lobos Saint Behind the Glass and The Dance of Time, while maintaining significant breadth by including material for a wide range of kalimbas. There is also a wide range of difficulty in this book: the pieces in the beginning of this book are easy enough that many beginners can learn to play them in a single sitting, but even expert players will be challenged by the material at the end of the book. Several people have contributed to this book effort: Sharon Eaton has written, co-written, and arranged several pieces in this book, and she has also been instrumental in perfecting the interface with KTabS and in proofreading. Deb Driskill co-wrote two pieces in this book and did the photography. And two of my students, Glen Davis and Della Estrada, each co-wrote a duet. The KTabS Software will show you how these songs go Unlike the other Kalimba Magic books, this one does not come with a CD. We expect to produce an artistic CD using many of these duets later this year. But you don t have to wait for the CD to hear what these tunes sound like: you can download the KTabS files for all of these tunes for free! Go to http://ktabs.theirhouse.org, register, go to the MyKTabS page, and download the Duets KPack. To play these files, you must also get the trial version of KTabS, or purchase KTabS or the KTabS reader. The KTabS programs allow you to play these songs on your Windows computer: on the screen you will see the tines to be played are highlighted as the sound they make comes out the speakers. To play both parts of a duet together in KTabS, Open both duet files, select Tile Windows to display them side by side, and select Tie All Views Together to make all windows play together, and then click on the play button. This will be a valuable tool for helping you understand how each piece is to be played. copyright 2007 Mark Holdaway
Table of Contents Jewelry Box Alto-Treble 5 Waters Alto-Treble 6 Sansula Song Sansula-Cloud9 8 Hourglass Sansula-Alto 9 Silly Duet Treble-Alto 10 Lazy Summer Alto-Cloud9-Treble 11 Lilting Lullaby Treble-Alto 12 Dark and Light Alto-Treble 16 Dona Nobis Pachem Four Altos 18 Buddy Holly Alto-Alto 20 Out of the Whirlwind Sansula-Treblito 21 SnowDay Treble-Alto 24 RestStop Treble-Alto-Cloud9 28 Peanut Vendor Cloud9-Alto-Treble 31 Cloud Walk Alto-Treble-Cloud9 34 Go Down Into Your Cellar Alto-Treble 37 African Karimba-Pentatonic 38 GreyCat Sansula-Treblito 40 Stardust Sansula-Treblito 41 Classical African Waltz Alto-Alto 42 Cool Song for the 8-Note 8-Note-Cloud9 44 Moon Jump Alto-Treble-Alto 46 Karimba City Three Karimbas 47 Glen s Song Sansula-Cloud9 48 Gillian Welch DmTreble-Cloud9 50 Carol of the Bells Alto-Treble 54 Dance of Time Treble-Alto-Alto 56 Ding Dong Duet Treble-Alto 62 Saint Behind the Glass Treble-Cloud9 64 White Coral Bells Treble-Treble-Alto 67 Bach to Bach Alto-Treble 68 Goodnight Irene Treble-Alto 71
Kalimba Tablature 3 The duets and trios in this book are written in Kalimba Tablature. Regular music staff has five lines per stanza and runs left to right across the page. Music written on a staff is general and is not tied to any specific instrument, and so requires an extra symbolic operation: translating from written music to which note to play, and then translating the note to be played to a specific action on your instrument (ie, which tine to play on the kalimba). Kalimba Tablature is more physically symbolic of the specific kalimba you have in your hand. Instead of five lines, the kalimba tablature in this book has 8, 9, 11, 15, or 17 spaces, each representing a kalimba tine, running up the page from bottom to top. The advantage is its simplicity: it is just a map of your kalimba, and it shows you which tines to play, and when. You don t need to know anything about which note you are playing, though it doesn t hurt to know. A disadvantage is that you need a different sort of tablature for each new kalimba. However, once you learn how to read the tablature for one kalimba, you will find the tablature for the other kalimbas to be very similar. Here is a short two measure example of the Alto kalimba s tablature, or tab for short. The diagram looks like the tines of an Alto kalimba. The thin dark line in the center indicates an invisible boundary between tines which generally belong to the right and left thumbs. On the Alto kalimba, several tines are painted to help you keep your place. We shade those tines in the tab, which helps you transfer the note from the page to your kalimba. The longer tines are represented as longer in the tab. If you understand a bit of music theory, the note names included at the bottom will be helpful. Some duets use kalimbas with non-standard tunings, and the note names will indicate how to tune your kalimba. The numbers to the right of the tab indicate the measure number. The horizonal line next to 2 is a bar line, and this is the beginning of measure 2. The symbol at the very top, a double horizontal line with two small Alto Tablature dots, means repeat. If a number is shown between the two dots, that tells you how many times to repeat (if no number is present, just repeat once; if 2 is present, play it the first time, then repeat twice, or 3 times in all). The 3/4 at bottom left indicates this piece is in 3/4 time, which means three beats per measure and a quarter note gets a beat. Sansula Tablature To the left is a two measure example of Sansula tablature. The tines on a sansula do not make a simple triangular pattern as the Alto does, so we don t try to represent that detail in the tab. An important detail to note is the use of shaded tines in the Sansula tablature. The Sansula has no shaded tines, but the four short, raised tines are represented in the tab with shaded spaces. This use of shading, to represent shorter tines interleaved among longer, unshaded tines, is used for the Sansula, the Cloud 9 Marimbula, and for the Hugh Tracey Karimba. This tab does not indicate a time signature; in this book, if no time signature is provided, 4/4 time is assumed. The T=150 in the lower left indicates the tempo is 150 beats per minute. If no tempo is indicated, the piece was written at 120 bpm.
4 If almost none of that made sense, if you don t know what a quarter note or a time signature is, you may need some more help with this tablature. You could: a) consult a friend who knows how to read music, as the rhythmic aspects of tablature and staff music are identical, b) download the Duets KPack from the website http://ktabs.theirhouse.org and listen to how the songs go, comparing the sound to what the tablature looks like, and you ll probably get it, c) purchase one of the easier books from my website http://www.kalimbamagic.com, or d) drop me an email at kalimba@markholdaway.com. Some notes on conventions: separate parts, different repeats Often duets are written with the two parts connected, measure by measure. Instead, we print each instrument s part separately. In so doing, we sometimes break standard conventions and it may appear that the two different parts have different numbers of measures. If this appears to be the case, then the part that appears shorter will compensate for this apparent difference by repeating some section more times so that the actual length of the two parts is the same. This should become apparent when you play the KTabS versions. Several duets are more than two pages long, so you will have to copy one part, and one player can look at the book while the other player looks at the copy. If not stated explicitly, the music was composed or arranged for kalimba by Mark Holdaway. Tuning Your Kalimba The most important thing you can do to make this music sound good is to be in tune. I recommend the Korg CA-30 electronic tuner, which costs $20-$30. For more tuning tips, check the archive of the Kalimba Tips of the Day at http://www.kalimbamagic.com/tipoftheday/tip.php Where to Get Kalimbas African Musical Instruments makes the Hugh Tracey kalimbas used in this book: the Alto, Treble, Karimba, Pentatonic, and Treblito. If you go to www.kalimbamagic.com, you can look up the Hugh Tracey Kalimba retailers (I always like to play an instrument before I buy it), or you can purchase a kalimba on line at the same site. As the Treblito is made by removing 8 out of the 17 tines on the Treble, you will have to make it yourself or special order it from me. The Sansulas are made by Hokema, and they are also available at Kalimba Magic. There are many 8-Note kalimbas available on the market, but I prefer the Catania and Hugh Tracey 8-Note kalimbas. Building Duets to Build Love Of course, you are free to use this book however you want. But I ll share with you my vision of how the duets in this book might be used: to build trust, love, intimacy, and joy. You probably already know the kalimba is a magical instrument capable of instantaneously changing your entire outlook on life for the better. Just think what could happen if you unleashed that power on groups of two or three people? There are many ways of playing together, and playing set music such as these duets is just one way. I hope you will make these tunes your own by arranging them to suit your needs, by adding improvised sections or creating your own original variations. Or use the ideas in these tunes as starting-off points for your own creations. But I do hope that the music in this book helps to make your corner of the world a better and more beautiful place. -Blessings! -Mark Holdaway, January 2007
Jewelry Box Alto and Treble 5 Alto Treble
6 Waters Alto Sharon Eaton & Mark Holdaway
Waters Treble Sharon Eaton & Mark Holdaway 7
8 A Sansula Song Sansula and Cloud 9 Sansula Cloud 9
Hourglass Sansula and Alto 9 Sansula Alto
10 Silly Duet Treble and Alto Treble Alto
Lazy Summer Alto, Cloud 9, and Treble The alto and treble kalimbas require special tunings. 11 Alto Cloud 9 Treble This song is in the key of C and requires retuning the alto and treble kalimbas. Let the treble chords ring out, and use your wah wah. Try other chords and see how they work.
12 Lilting Lullaby Treble, p 1 Sharon Eaton This piece requires tuning to the key of C. The alto and treble kalimbas come in the key of G, ie with F#. Tune them down to F natural to get to the key of C.
Lilting Lullaby Alto, p 1 Sharon Eaton This piece requires tuning to the key of C. 13 The alto and treble kalimbas come in the key of G, ie with F#. Tune them down to F natural to get to the key of C.
14 Lilting Lullaby Treble, p 2 Sharon Eaton This piece requires tuning to the key of C.
Lilting Lullaby Alto, p 2 Sharon Eaton This piece requires tuning to the key of C. 15
16 Dark and Light Alto This is the title track to Mark Holdaway s new CD, Between the Dark and the Light. The two kalimbas trade off parts that compliment each other, two sides of a Yin- Yang symbol.
Dark and Light Treble 17
18 Dona Nobis Pachem Four Altos This song is a well-known round with three different parts. The first three Alto parts correspond more or less to the vocal parts. You can play the 2nd and 3rd parts on a Treble with no problem. Alto 1 Alto 2
Usually this round is sung without instrumental accompaniment. However, the kalimba makes a beautiful compliment to the vocals. This fancy part can go well with the three vocal parts. 19 Alto 3 Fancy Alto
20 Buddy Holly Alto and Alto Alto 1 Alto 2
Out of the Whirlwind Sansula and Treblito 21 Sansula Treblito
22 Out of the Whirlwind (variation) Sansula Variations are easy to make on the kalimba. An easy way to make a variation is to make a mistake that happens to sound good. If you do that, just make a note of what you did different, and file that away in your index of variations. You can build complicated structures by arranging the variations, either in advance or on the fly. Here are variations on the song on the previous page. You could mix and match, using one treblito part and the other sansula part, but note that the parts here are 16 measures, while the parts on the previous page are 8 measures.
Out of the Whirlwind (variation) Treblito 23
24 Snow Day Treble, p 1 Sharon Eaton & Mark Holdaway
Snow Day Alto, p 1 Sharon Eaton & Mark Holdaway 25
26 Snow Day Treble, p 2 Sharon Eaton & Mark Holdaway
Snow Day Alto, p 2 Sharon Eaton & Mark Holdaway 27
28 Rest Stop Treble Mark Holdaway and Deb Driskill
Rest Stop Alto Mark Holdaway and Deb Driskill 29
30 Rest Stop Cloud 9 Mark Holdaway and Deb Driskill
The Peanut Vendor Cloud 9 Simons & Sunshine 31
32 The Peanut Vendor Alto Simons & Sunshine This is a famous standard in Latin Jazz, and you can find many good recordings of it. One of the less known recordings is on my Kalimba CD, Between the Dark and the Light. It works perfectly well as a duet between the Alto and the Treble, but a bass part really makes it swing. If you don t have a Cloud Nine Marimbula, see if you can get someone to play an upright bass part. Once the Alto accompaniment riff is going, the Treble kalimba could improvise all day long, but the Treble part shown here should get you started!
The Peanut Vendor Treble Simons & Sunshine 33
34 Cloud Walk Alto
Cloud Walk Treble 35
36 Cloud Walk Cloud 9
Go Down Into Your Cellar Alto and Treble traditional 37 Alto Treble
38 African Karimba It is easier to play African-sounding melodies on the African Karimba and the pentatonic kalimba. I have retuned my personal karimba from its native A down to G so it can play with the other Hugh Tracey kalimbas.
African Pentatonic 39 The pentatonic kalimba is a good choice for a lead instrument against the textured fabric of the karimba.
40 GreyCat Sansula & Treblito Della Estrada & Mark Holdaway Sansula Treblito