HOKEMA - Sansula Basic

Product Information

The main reason the 8-Note Kalimba is great to learn on is that it shares all of the layout features with the bigger Alto and Treble Kalimbas, but it only has a few notes – just enough for you to get the principles without being overwhelmed. Everything you learn here can be fully transferred to the bigger Alto or Treble kalimbas. With fewer tines, this kalimba tilts the odds in favor of success. It is sized for young hands, but I actually have a few in my arsenal of instruments. I also have 25 of these set aside for working with children and adults when I give a large kalimba presentation. So, while they are basic instruments that are easy to learn on, they are still good instruments and anyone can play one. And the Deluxe Sansula, with a goatskin membrane, can (in a very dry climate) get dried out to the point that the low note sounds as both A and A sharp, beating together in a markedly unpleasant manner.

What we thought of as the standard sansula tuning is just one of many tunings. There are literally millions of possible tunings on a 9-note sansula, and who knows how many of those would sound fantastic? The important thing is that each tuning sounds different and plays different music. So this broadens the definition of what a sansula is even further.

Most people don’t hear much difference between the Renaissance Sansula and the Deluxe Sansula. I find the Deluxe Sansula to have a darker sound that I like better. The Sansula’s standard tuning is an A minor chord. This tuning is a double-edge sword – you will not be able to play any songs you might think of playing on it, but on the other hand, EVERYTHING you play will have a unique mystical and haunting beauty, whether you know anything about music or not.

If you live – at the other extreme on the spectrum of humidity – by the sea, or in the southeast US, or along the Mississippi, your Sansula (or you) will not have this problem with dry skin. Rather, the Sansula might have an issue with rusting tines. A series of 15 tips covering the whys and whats and hows of sansula retunings. We look at the music, emotions, and The Standard Sansula (which Kalimba Magic no longer carries) sounds good but has the considerable flaw that, when the instrument is dropped from a height of 1 meter or more, its paper-thin membrane will break.With only 9 notes, the Sansula seems underpowered. But the real strength of the Sansula lies in its simplicity and its beauty. It is very easy to make absolutely enchanting music with the Sansula, because of the high German engineering standards of the instrument and its materials, because of the simple and intuitive tuning, and because of the mind-blowing special effects. This is a truly delicate sounding instrument. Imagine going into a secret room that nobody but you knows about, a place where your soul can be renewed as you surround your mind and heart with mystical beauty. That’s what playing this instrument feels like! To complement the very high quality of the Sansula instruments, I felt the need to create very fine instructional materials, and these books are among the best that Kalimba Magic has to offer – beautiful books with beautiful music, music that befits the Sansulas. Playing the Sansula Book Pure magic, the New Age Sansula is a delight to play. Perhaps the most beautiful sounding kalimba, and with nine notes it is not so complex…the challenge here is to get sonic diversity through alternative tunings, and we have lots of great tunings for the Sansula. But if your home is located in a region of the world with a dry climate, and your Deluxe Sansula develops the nasty beating of the A and the A# (A# is the same as Bb), there is a simple solution: add moisture to the goatskin membrane.

The Hitzazkiar tuning is a Persian scale similar to the Middle Eastern tuning. Look at the right side – C E G B – these are the same notes as the standard tuning, but the notes on the left side are all one half-step above the notes on the right side. Questions? Most 8-Note Kalimbas have a standard tuning of the C major scale (the Goshen Box 8-Note Kalimba has the same basic note layout but is tuned to D major instead). The books assume you have this tuning. While this tuning is totally logical, there are actually a lot of other tunings that you can do wonderful things with. D MajorIf you compare this tuning chart to the C major tuning, you will notice that the letters are all the same, except that B has turned into Bb (B flat) – that is, you pull it out slightly to make it a bit longer and lower. This action will change it from being the7th of the scale and make it be the 4th… counting down, F is now the root, and the low note (and the top note) on this kalimba, C, is now the 5th. Hokema – the maker of the Sansulas – actually recommends that you first tighten the goatskin membrane, apply moisture, and then loosen the membrane. Your Deluxe Sansula comes with a hex wrench that fits on the six bolts accessible from the underside of the frame. I tried this technique, and found that it was relatively easy to tighten about half a turn (that seems to be the “rule of thumb” for kalimbas in general). If you have a Deluxe Sansula in a dry climate that is acting up on its low notes, do try this technique.