How to read kalimba tab

Kalimba music is written as numbers, not on a stave. This is not a simplification for beginners. It is the sensible notation for an instrument whose notes are not laid out left to right.

Why not normal notation

A stave tells you a pitch and leaves it to you to find it. That works on a piano because higher means further right, always. On a kalimba it does not, because the board is arranged outward from the middle.

The lowest tine sits in the centre. The next note up is just left of it, the one after that just right, and the scale climbs outward in alternating steps until the highest notes are at the two edges.

Here is the actual board, in the order your thumbs meet it:

• 2
• 7
• 5
• 3
• 1
• 6
• 4
• 2
• 1
• 3
• 5
• 7
• 2
• 4
• 6
• 1
• 3

Try playing 1, then 2, then 3 in order. Your thumbs alternate. That alternation is the point of the design: it lets you play a scale without either hand having to travel, and it is why a kalimba is comfortable in a way its size does not explain.

The numbers are scale degrees

1 is the tonic, 2 is the note above it, up to 7, and then it starts again at 1 an octave higher. On a standard C board, 1 is C, 2 is D, 3 is E, and so on.

Note what this means: the numbers do not name pitches, they name positions. If your kalimba is tuned to G rather than C, the same tab plays the same tune in G, and you do not have to do anything. Tab is transposition-proof by construction, which is a genuine advantage over a stave.

The dots

Because the numbers only run 1 to 7, something has to say which octave. Dots do.

A plain number is the middle octave. A dot above the number puts it one octave up. Two dots, two octaves up. A dot below puts it an octave down, which only exists on boards with low tines, like a 21.

Some tab writers use a line under the number instead of a dot below, and some print the whole thing as 1' and 1'' with apostrophes because it is easier to type. All three conventions mean the same thing.

Reading a tune

Numbers left to right are notes in order. Numbers stacked vertically are played together, which is how chords are written.

Rhythm is the weak point. Most kalimba tab does not notate it at all, and relies on you already knowing the tune. Better tab groups numbers with spaces or brackets to show phrasing, and the best of it puts the lyrics underneath so you can line the words up.

That is a real limitation, not a quirk. If you do not already know how a song goes, tab will not teach it to you. It is a reminder of where the fingers go, for a tune already in your head.

Where the letters come in

Many kalimbas have the letter names stamped on the tines rather than the numbers, and a lot of tab is written in letters too. Both are common and neither is wrong.

Letters are easier if you already read music or play piano. Numbers are easier if you do not, and they survive retuning. Our browser kalimba shows both, and the app lets you switch between them.

A caution about tab you find online

Most kalimba tab on the internet is somebody's transcription of a copyrighted song, posted without permission. That is between them and the rights holders, but it is worth knowing that the accuracy varies wildly, and that a tab which sounds wrong may simply be wrong.

Our song catalogue is public domain only, and every melody says where it was transcribed from. Boring, but checkable.