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0 ¢ · L1 = 261.6 Hz

Mbira have no standard pitch — slide this until it matches the one in your hands.

SongsLinstead Market
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3 more songs need notes this instrument does not have. Changing the tuning brings some of them into reach.

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Jamaican traditional; as printed by Walter Jekyll in “Jamaican Song and Story”, 1907, No. 121. Public domain.

22 keys · C3–B5 as notated · Approximates Ionian, the plain major scale. The seventh is the note that separates it from Nyamaropa.

Tap a key, or drag along a manual to run through it. On a keyboard the letters on the keys are the ones to press — they run left to right across the board. The manuals are lettered on the keys — L for the upper left manual, B for the bass manual, R for the right manual — and each is numbered outward from the middle of the board, which is how mbira players and every mbira score name them.

MbiraFree · printable · plays in your browser

Linstead Market — Mbira Tabs

Linstead Market, written out for the mbira as the key to press for every note and set up above on the Dambatsoko. Press Play to hear it, Practice to learn it one note at a time — the mbira waits for you — or Play along to keep time with it.

  • Notes58, 7 pitches
  • RangeB3–A4
  • Key hereC major
  • Tempo190 bpm · about 30 s
  • LevelIntermediate

Can a mbira play Linstead Market?

1 of the 4 here do. The check is made note by note against what each one can actually sound. Where the tune does not fit as the library writes it, another key or octave is tried, and the table says which; where nothing fits, it names the notes that are missing.

  • Nyamaropa✕ Cannot play itNeeds B3, which it does not have
  • Dambatsoko✓ Plays as writtenIn C major, B3–A4 · loaded above
  • Katsanzaira✕ Cannot play itNeeds B3, E4, which it does not have
  • Mavembe✕ Cannot play itNeeds B3, D4, E4, A4, which it does not have

Linstead Market: mbira tabs

The large line is the key to press, by manual and position; the small line under it is the scale degree it sounds. A dash holds the note another beat, an underline is half a beat, and a dot beside a note makes it half as long again. Each line is one phrase.

▶ Play it above

Linstead Market — mbira tabs (Dambatsoko) · tonalics.com

The 7 notes it uses

Lowest to highest, with how many times each is played. Learn these 7 and you can play the whole tune.

  • B67×2
  • L11×6
  • B72×9
  • R13×15
  • L34×8
  • L25×14
  • L46×4

What to expect on a mbira

  • It runs from B3 to A4, a minor seventh, using 7 different notes. That leaves 11 semitones unused below and 14 above.
  • 88% of its moves are a step or a repeated note. The widest is a major third, C4 to E4, at note 29.
  • It uses 7 keys across 3 manuals (R, L and B).

About the tune

A Jamaican folk song about a market woman who carries her ackee to Linstead on a Saturday night and sells none of it. The tab follows the earliest printed version, No. 121 in Walter Jekyll’s Jamaican Song and Story of 1907.

Jamaican traditional; as printed by Walter Jekyll in “Jamaican Song and Story”, 1907, No. 121. Public domain. More about Linstead Market →

Linstead Market on other instruments

The same melody, in each instrument’s own notation. It is not offered for the guzheng or handpan, which do not have the notes.

More songs for the mbira

All 34 mbira songs · Christmas songs for mbira · The online mbira on its own