44 Play Songs

17-Note Kalimba
Children’s, Christmas, Spirituals, Americana, Patriotic, Classical, &Exercises

GEM Vendor All rights reserved

Responsible for unauthorized reproduction will be prosecuted.
 Your Kalimba’s Tuning
The main way to keep your kalimba sounding good is to make sure it is in tune.

3
7 5 3 4 6 1
2 E
1 7
B G 6 4
2 3 5 A C
1 F
E C
A F G B D
D C E

Your kalimba should be tuned to these notes.

Your kalimba should come to you perfectly tuned to the C

major scale. If it doesn’t sound correct to you, you can tune it
yourself!
Learn about kalimba tuning at:
Check the tuning about once a month, or whenever the
kalimba doesn’t sound right.
There are many other tunings for the 17-Note kalimba.
Some of those tunings will be com- patible with the material
in this book, and some will not. The most important thing is
that your kalimba be tuned with the “1” note on the longest,
central tine.
 Kalimba Tablature
The instructions for exactly which tines to play,
and exactly when to play them, are precisely
conveyed by kalimba tablature.

The tablature is a stretched-out map of the

kalimba, with one column for each tine on the
Start reading kalimba. It uses standard musical note symbols,
tablature placed in these columns, to instruct you on
at the bottom which tines to play.
and read UP!
Kalimba tablature reads from the bottom up.

Chords, or multiple notes played at the same

time, are represented by two or more notes on
the same horizontal line.

Scales will zig-zag back and forth, right to left.

If you have difficulty with the tablature:

Kalimba tablature maps to the kalimba tines.

Notice These Things in theTablature

*The tablature starts from the bottom - you

can tell from the measure numbers to the right
of the tablature.
*The note each tine is tuned to is indicated at
the bottom.
* The fraction “3/4” in the lower left indicates
“3/4 time” or that there are a total of three beats
in each measure and quarter notes get one beat.
*In this case “The First Noel” has less than
three beats in measure 1. Why? You can do
this at the very start of the music - it is called
a “pickup,” and here it is the first word of the
song.
*If no fraction is present, it is 4/4 time.
*The different sorts of notes - eighth notes,
a dotted quarter note, and then a half note in
measure 3 - have the same lengths as in stan-
dard music notation.
 Using the Glissando to PlayChords
The glissando is a technique by which you play several tines at once to make a
chord.
I grow my thumb nails to about 1/8 inch to facilitate the glissando playing. Touch
the lowest (that is, longest, and centermost) tine of the chord and slide your thumb
nail over the adjacent shorter tines, stopping after the last one you are to play.
This kalimba is set up to play chords nicely and eas- ily. Any three adjacent tines
will play a wonderful triad
chord - that is, a chord that plays 1 - 3 - 5. Furthermore, a chord produced by a
glissando will ring for several seconds, which will enable you to then play a melody
on the other tines, and produce some gentle harmony. This makes beautiful music,
simply.
Playing chords and melodies together is common in Level 3 songs.
Mary Had A Little Lamb - in ThreeOctaves
Level 1

Low Mid
Mary Had A Little Lamb (cont.)
Level 1

Octaves On YourKalimba
While your kalimba has 17 tines, if you look at the
footer of the tablature, you will see there are only7
different note names: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. There are
multiple tines with the same note names, but they
are different versions of the same notes.

There are three different C tines. They sound the

same in some way - and so have the same note
name. They are, however, in different octaves. Each
octave is 8 tones higher or lower than the the next.

Your 17-Note kalimba has two entire octaves of

the C major scale, plus two more notes that begin a
third octave higher up.

The first column of tablature on page 8, or measures

1-8, show “Mary Had a Little Lamb” in the lowest
octave.

The second column of tab, measures 9-16, has the

exact same melody, but one octave higher. Note
that the arrangement of these notes is like a mirror
image of the lower octave melody. That is, the first
column starts out “right-left-right-left-right-right-
right.” The second column starts out “left-right-left-
right-left-left-left.”

Learning to play both versions will help give you a

balanced approach to the kalimba. You will stimu-
late your brain in a symmetric way and this is excel-
lent discipline for kalimba playing.

The tablature in the third column of this song,

measure 17-24 on this page, show the melody yet
another octave higher. The melody is simplified and
cannot go any higher at measure 20, because we
don’t have any higher tines.

This third octave version is arranged in thesame

“handedness” as the first version.

High
Amazing Grace
Level 1
O When the Saints Go MarchingIn
Level 1
Notes Alternate Sides As You Play the Scale
Level 1
Learn the Different Note Types
Level 1
Ba Ba Black Sheep
Level 1
Ba Ba Black Sheep, Up an Octave
Level 1
Row, Row, Row, Your Boat
Level 1

About Time Signatures

Every song up to this one (except for “Amazing
Grace”) has been in 4/4 time, also called“common
time.” When there is no fraction in the lower left
corner of the tablature, that means you are in 4/4
time.

4/4 time means there are 4 beats in each measure.

A measure is the space between two neighboring
numbered horizontal lines in the tablature.

3/4 time, like in “Amazing Grace,” means thereare 3

beats in each measure.

In both cases, the “4” in the bottom of the fraction

means the quarter note gets onebeat.

6/8 time is a bit busier. The “8” means the eighth

note gets a beat, and that there are 6 beats in each
measure.

However, most of the time you don’t count it in 6.

For example, “Row, Row, Row, Your Boat” I would
count only two beats in each measure(“Row, Row”
= “1, 2”), but each of those beats has three little
pulses, making a total of six pulses ineach measure.

The reason I have written this song in 6/8 is to

make the song shuffle on the “gently down the
stream” part. That is, the notes go “long short long
short.”

This is a common enough song that you will totally

get these notes and this rhythm even if you don’t
quite understand this 6/8 business. In this way, it is
a good introductory song for the 6/8 time signature.

This collection has no other songs in 6/8 - the oth-

ers are all in 4/4 or 3/4 time. However, 6/8 is a very
important time signature in African music, and for
the kalimba for many reasons.

We will have lots of songs in 6/8 and 12/8 in the “33

Intermediate Songs” download.
Hush Little Baby
Level 1
Shenandoah
Level 1
Michael Row Your Boat Ashore
Level 1 (left) and Level 3 (right)
Chords for “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore”
Level 3

Adding Chords
Here is a chance to practice thechords
that you find in the second column of
“Michael Row Your Boat Ashore” on
C page 20.

Each of the chords here is a lower-octave

G triad (three adjacent tines, strummed
with a glissando), plus a melody note in
C the upper octave, on the opposite side of
the kalimba.

Upon close examination, you will see

that the lone upper-octave melodynote
will always be one of the notes that isin
Dm the chord.

Not all music works that way, but a lot

of it does, and the kalimba is set up to
easily do things just like this! Howcool
Em is that?

Take your time learning how to play

these chords. I find my most common
error is not stopping the glissando in the
C right place by playing too many or too
few notes. Apply yourself here, because
learning to slide over exactly three tines
is a skill that is well worth learning.

F Once you can play these chords relative-

ly smoothly, go back to page 20 and add
them to the melody.

Or - if you find the chords + melody

C technique to be too challenging atthis
time, proceed to the next song, and
come back here later on when you’re a
bit more familiar with your kalimba.

C
Beautiful Dreamer
Level 1
Jamaica Farewell
Level 2
Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring
Level 1
Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (cont.)
Kum Ba Ya, Low
Level 1
Kum Ba Ya, High
Level 1
Mary, Don’t You Weep
Level 1
Ode to Joy
Level 1
You Are My Sunshine
Level 1
This Little Light of Mine
Level 2 (because it is syncopated)
She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain When SheComes
Level 1
She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain When SheComes
Level 3
She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain When SheComes
Level 17
Daniel in the Lion’sDen
Level 2
Children, Go Where I SendThee
Level 2
Do Lord
Level 2
God BlessAmerica
Level 2
Go Tell It On TheMountain
Level 2
New World Symphony
Level 2
New World Symphony (cont.)
Level 2
This Land Is Your Land
Level 2
This Land Is Your Land
Red River Valley
Level 2
Away in a Manger
Level 3
Brahms’Lullaby
Level 3
Brahms’ Lullaby, (cont.)
Blowin’ in the Wind
Level 3
Blowin’ in the Wind (cont.)
Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream
Level 3
Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream(cont.)
Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream(cont.)
Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella
Level 3
Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen (Melody)
Level 1
Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen (Advanced)
Level 3
Old Joe Clark
Level 3
One Love
Level 3
‘Tis Me O Lord
Level 3
My Country ‘Tis of Thee
Level 4