How To Read Number Tabs

Kalimba players have their own special system of music notation called number tab notation, or "kalimba number tabs" for short. Using number tabs, a kalimba player can play a wide variety of music without ever having to learn how to read standard sheet music. Though number tabs aren't a perfect way of describing music, they've allowed newer generations of kalimba players to quickly and easily share information about how to play songs across the globe via the internet. Every kalimba player should have at least a basic understanding of how to read number tab notation - it's the de facto shorthand for much of the kalimba music you'll find written out online.

Numbered notation uses a numbering system instead of the notes or letters for each tine and is read from left to right.

The tines are labeled with different numbers or letters indicating each key. There will be numbers repeated on different tines and these repeated numbers or letters can be differentiated by dots °. For example:

There will be more dots on higher keys and less dots on the lower keys.

Here’s “Happy Birthday” written in the numbered notation format.

5 5 6 5 1° 7

Hap-py Birth-day To You

5 5 6 5 2° 1°

Hap-py Birth-day To You

Numbered notation can be useful as it allows the notes to be lined up with the lyrics of a song as shown above. For some people this can be a more convenient way of learning a new song.

Chords are usually shown in one of three ways when reading numbered notation.

It is common to see all the notes of a chord shown in brackets, for example, the C Major chord would be shown as

(1 3 5)

Whenever you see dots inside a bracket, this means that they are to be played at the same time. Note that they won’t always be played side by side, sometimes you need to play notes at opposite sides of the kalimba.

Alternatively, you may also see a chord written using dashes rather than brackets. In this case, the C Major chord would look like

1-3-5

The final way is to have all the notes stacked on top of each other, like so:

1

3

5

It’s completely down to personal preference which way you want to read chords in the numbered notation format.

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