Learn Amazing Grace on the Kalimba

A thumb piano: seventeen steel tines on a hollow wooden board. Tap a tine or sweep across them, and read songs in real kalimba number tabs.

The lowest note is in the middle; the scale climbs outward — left, right, left.Keys 1–7, Q–U, A S DTurn your phone sideways for wider tines.

Pick a song to practise, or just pluck the tines. Songs with sharps or flats need a chromatic kalimba.

Choose a song

Pick a song

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Ready
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Songs

Settings

100 BPM
Tine labels
ringingplay this nextDots mark higher octaves

Space listen or stop · Esc stop

How to play Amazing Grace on the kalimba

A lilting hymn in three that climbs to a long, ringing D5. Hymn tune "New Britain", 1829.

Key
G major
Time
3/4
Tempo
72 BPM
Notes
34
Level
Medium
  1. Listen. Press Listen above to hear it at 72 BPM. You can slow it down in Settings.
  2. Play along. Press Play along and the tine to pluck lights up. Play it and the next one lights. A wrong note is named, so you know what to change.
  3. Play it from the notes. Once it feels familiar, play it from the sheet below without the lights.

Tabs number the notes of the scale: 1 is C, 2 is D, up to 7 for B. A dot above a number means the octave above. The lowest tine is in the middle and notes alternate left and right.

The notes

Written as kalimba number tabs, with letter names underneath. A dot (·) is a rest.

  1. 2D4A-5G4ma-7B4zing5G4 7B4grace6A4how5G4sweet3E4the2D4sound
  2. 2D4that5G4saved7B4a5G4 7B4wretch6A4like2̇D5me2̇D5I7B4once
  3. 5G4was7B4 6A4lost5G4but3E4now2D4am2D4found2D4was5G4blind
  4. 7B4but5G4 7B4now6A4I5G4see2D4 5G4