Got a New Kalimba? Start Here

Step 1 Tune your kalimba

Tap a chip under the dial to hear a target note, or start the microphone and play each one until it turns green. Audio is analysed on your device and never leaves it.

One touch-up, not a rebuild

A new kalimba often needs one early retune as its tines settle into the clamp, and a few may have moved in the post. Pluck every tine with your thumbnail while the tuner listens and note which ones sit clearly off-centre before touching anything. A tine is tuned by sliding it through the clamp: a longer free end plays lower, a shorter one higher. Use small taps with the tuning hammer that came in the box and pluck again after each one. How far a tap moves a tine, and every size’s note chart, are on the kalimba tuner page.

A tine that buzzes

The commonest complaint about a new kalimba is a tine that reads perfectly on the dial and sounds like a bee in a tin. That is a buzz, not a tuning problem — usually grit under the tine at the bridge, a tine nudged sideways against its neighbour, or a rattling decoration — and tapping the tine only moves a correct note somewhere else. The buzz diagnostic finds the cause in four questions.

The middle tine reads F, or the whole thing reads B

If the longest tine in the middle reads F3, you have a 21-key: its four extra tines are added at the bottom, below the C. If every tine reads the same distance from where the chart says — all a semitone low, say — the kalimba was shipped in another key, which is a choice and not a fault. You can keep it, or retune it to C; that article prices every key change in tines moved.

Step 2 Learn the layout

The thing that confuses everyone at first: the scale does not run left to right. The longest tine, in the middle, is the lowest note — C on a 17-key — and the notes alternate outward from it: the next one up is just left of centre, the one after just right, and so on, so the two highest notes are at the far edges. Each thumb plays every other note, which is what makes fast tunes possible on such a small instrument.

The numbers stamped on the tines are the same numbers every kalimba tab is written in: scale degrees, 1 for the tonic, with a dot abovefor the octave higher and two dots for the octave above that. The instrument above shows each tine’s number with its letter under it. Play 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and the dotted 1 on it and watch your thumbs alternate: left, right, left.

The full instrument, with every size and key, is on the online kalimba page.

Step 3 Your first five songs

Easiest first: the library marks each tune easy or harder, and within that the songs covering the fewest notes come first — on a kalimba, range decides more about how hard a tune is than speed does. Every one is a public-domain melody.

Every kalimba song · Christmas songs for kalimba

Step 4 A seven-day plan

Ten minutes a day is enough, and the same ten minutes every day does more than an hour on Sunday. Tick each task as you go; this page remembers where you got to.

Sizes and types of kalimba

Every common size is the same C major scale; they differ in how much of it they cover. Count your tines:

17-key vs 21-key explains what the four extra bass tines actually give you, and the kalimba songbook sorts every song by the smallest size that plays it — useful if yours is an 8- or 10-key. Kalimbas also ship in keys other than C; retuning a kalimba covers what changing key costs.