Wow. That's quite a historical instrument. I bet it's small easily transportable size has a lot to do with how it quickly spread so far and wide around the world. It's a perfect instrument for travel.
For years I was intrigued by the strange instrument being played by that guy in The Gods Must be Crazy. Only recently did I learn that it was a mbira so now I've decided to buy a kalimba. I don't have one yet but I've been binging on kalimba content in the meantime. The fact that you can easily adjust the tuning of each note really appeals to me, as does its simplicity. Thanks for such an informative video!
Fantastic history video with tons of info! Thank you so much! I recently got myself one & figured I ought to learn the history of it for sure! Mine is a coconut one with 7 keys. Love this video! ❤
I love how I learn different things to do with it like how there are options to add things for different sound & how you told us about using the hole in the front to add more melody!
The pronunciation for 'mbira' is actually Mmmmm-bih-ra. Not MAH-bih-ra. I've been playing mbiras and kalimbas (as well as the Latin version, lakimba) since the early 70s with my first being a gift from someone you mention in this video.
Ohh, I see. Thanks for the pronunciation tip! I think I do remember hearing it like that before. But I must have instinctually Americanized when I recorded this video.
It was very cool to listen the kalimbas. There were lots of old music items always more interested! Right now , you can play with Modern kalimba and learned more music items. Great!
This is pretty cool, thanks man. I was confused because I just got a kalimba but I wanted to know why some notes were missing; turns out they are just on the opposite side lol
Yeah, it's true, I did use Wikipedia for learning a lot about the kalimba and quoted it a bunch. I guess I feel that I reworded things enough and added my own sections enough to not need to mention it? Plus, it's kind of just factual information, not an opinion kind of piece. If I had been traveling with Hugh Tracey to learn about the kalimba myself, I would probably be able to just put everything into my own words more. But, good idea, I may as well mention that in the description.