Learn Frère Jacques (Are You Sleeping?) 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 Frère Jacques (Are You Sleeping?) on the kalimba

Every phrase plays twice, so you learn it in half the time. It works as a round, too. French nursery round, 18th century.

Key
C major
Time
4/4
Tempo
108 BPM
Notes
32
Level
Easy
  1. Listen. Press Listen above to hear it at 108 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. 1̇C5Are2̇D5you3̇E5sleep-1̇C5ing1̇C5are2̇D5you3̇E5sleep-1̇C5ing3̇E5Bro-4̇F5ther5̇G5John3̇E5Bro-4̇F5ther5̇G5John
  2. 5̇G5Morn-6̇A5ing5̇G5bells4̇F5are3̇E5ring-1̇C5ing5̇G5morn-6̇A5ing5̇G5bells4̇F5are3̇E5ring-1̇C5ing1̇C5Ding5G4dang1̇C5dong1̇C5ding5G4dang1̇C5dong