The Kalimba

The kalimba is an African insrtument that you can hear by clicking this link to Kalimba Magic. How do you pronounce kalimba? Click here to hear one person's pronunciation.

My kalimba is a Hugh Tracey brand. The wikipedia article on Kalimbas talks all about it. I found mine on Craigslist. If you've never been to the Craigslist or Wikipedia websites, you're guaranteed to love them. Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales are big inspirations for Zoobird. But, I digress...

Anyway, I first encountered a kalimba through my music teacher. He even took it to Portland and recorded some tunes at a funky studio called Dead Aunt Thelma's. Just being there was exciting to me. I felt as though I were in hallowed halls that famous musicians had trodden. And, that's probably true.

If you click here, you'll go to the International Library of African Music. Just search for "kalimba" and you'll find about a dozen MP3's you can download and listen to. I'm not sure about their copyright so I won't upload them here. But, I've listened to them and they are simple to download. Just as easy there as here, in fact. They include original Hugh Tracey recordings. You can hear Hugh's voice and his beautiful kalimba music. After all, he is a kalimba expert.