August 28, 2026 Joule L'Adara

A Fruit Bat Song for Kids on Sansula!

Throughout the year we host an interactive virtual playshop called KALIMBA CAMPFIRE featuring special guests from our intuitive instrument community. On July 2nd of 2025, our featured special guest was Lucas Miller - a children's educator who uses music to teach kids about science.

Lucas Miller a.k.a the Singing Zoologist, befriended us when he started using Sansulas in his children's educational video channel "Science Up!" on YouTube. In this edition of the Kalimba Campfire, Lucas played live Sansula while showing his animated children's video for kids about Fruit Bats and the process of Metamorphosis. (Warning: this video features paper puppets and is super adorable.)

Lucas also showed us how he altered his Sansula tuning and the chords he uses to play "Every Little Thing Gonna Be Alright" by Bob Marley. The Sansula is purposefully tuned with a limited number of notes, which is better for intuitive playing so there are less "wrong notes". However, for those who want to write melodies or accompany songs, it's sometimes better to have more notes so there are more chord possibilities. That's what Lucas needed to properly accompany himself singing this song.

Just for us, Lucas prepared a special chord chart sharing with us how he re-tuned a Sansula then taught us how to play the chords. Check out all his chords here with labeled tines (the crossed-out letters are the ones that got re-tuned):

Finally, Lucas also gave us a fun demonstration using his looping software to show how he layers Sansula with beats, guitar and and "Air Piano" (a fun instrument you have to blow into in order to play.

Our host Brandon Blake and Lucas Miller sure enjoyed each other's company as they both are passionate about educating kids (and celebrating the kid inside us all!)