#retuning

This is musical judo at its best! 

How The Middle Eastern Kalimba Came to Be

It was September 11, 2001. I was dropping my son Taylor at Miles School in Tucson AZ, and I was doing my best fighting back tears. As recently as just last Sunday, listening to an NPR story on "This American Life," about a visit to the WTC Memorial by a man who had lost his 28 year old sister in the towers, 

I had to turn the radio off as I burst into tears. I had to be as normal as I could be, for the benefit of my 6 year old son. For me, being normal meant: walking down the sidewalk playing kalimba, and making a joyful noise. 

But something shifted. In the hours and days that followed, as anti-middle eastern sentiment arose in my country - a somewhat understandable but totally misguided response to the pain of 9/11 - I made this minor retuning of my kalimba. It started sounding like middle eastern music. It was mysterious, beautiful, and unexpectedly wonderful. 

My response to 9/11 - and my response to the hate and fear that engulfed a large fraction of my county's population - was to embrace something from the Middle East that was beautiful, something that I could hold in my hands, something that sang to my heart, and something that I could share with others, that could brighten and uplift other hearts: the Middle Eastern kalimba tuning.

 And there lies the essence of the transformational possibilities of music: to take pain, and to transform that pain into beauty, thereby bringing the possibility of moments of peace and joy in this chaotic, tragic world.

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This minor retuning can breathe new life and emotion into your alto kalimba.