Tablature

Most of the music that people read is on a five-line staff, treble cleff or bass cleff, or both. The advantage of this standard musical notation is that anybody who knows all the rules can read any piece of music and know how it goes.

Confession time: I don't read music! Reading music is a complex symbolic process. You see the note on the page, you realize, "Oh, that note is a 'C'", you figure out where "C" is on your instrument, and you play it (OK, if you're good, this is all automatic, but doesn't it seem like a big hurdle to get over?)

I'd like to introduce you to another way of looking at music. When I play, I think of geometrical patterns dancing on the kalimba tines. So I invented a tablature that represents these geometrical patterns as if they were notes dancing on the kalimba tines. This kalimba tablature is much more connected to what your thumbs need to do to make music.

Check out the tablature for Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star for the Alto kalimba. Read from bottom to the top, like you would read a traffic warning written on the road.

Graphic concept by Tim & Mark Holdaway

OK, so far so good, but isn't this overkill for a simple little instrument like the thumb piano?

Well, the kalimba is a very capable instrument, and if we are going to be able to capture its beauty and magic, we DO need something like this. For example, check out the tablature for Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

Listen to this music while you follow the tablature. Start from the bottom left and go up the page.

This tablature is expressive enough to permit the kalimba's complexity to be transmitted to YOU, yet is simple enough that even I can read it (someone has to play the kalimba on the CDs that come with each book).

You can purchase kalimba instructional books that use this unique kalimba tablature at the Kalimba Shop.

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