A 17-key kalimba in C major, in three dimensions. The hard part of the kalimba is not the sound, it is knowing which tine to pluck: the notes alternate outward from the middle, so a simple scale zigzags left and right. Load a song and the notes fall onto the exact tine, coloured by which thumb plays it.
Sound needs one touch to begin. Then play with your thumbs, mouse or keyboard.
Sixteen public domain melodies, all inside C major so every note lands on a tine. Pieces that dip below the kalimba's low C move up an octave automatically, and the card tells you when that happens.
The kalimba plays the song on its own. Watch which tines light up and how the notes cross from side to side before you try it yourself.
The note reaches its tine and waits. Nothing moves until you pluck the right one, so you can take as long as you need on each note. The target tine pulses.
The notes keep coming at tempo and your timing is scored. Drop the speed to 0.5x first, then work it back up to 1x.
The same mapping as the 2D kalimba: the inner tines sit on the home row, the short outer tines on the rows above. Amber keys are left thumb tines, green keys are right thumb tines.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| Space | Play or pause the loaded song |
| R | Restart the song from the count-in |
| 1 2 3 4 | Camera: Play, Stage, Read, Free. Press 2 again for the other side |
| Free | Spin all the way round to the wooden back, and tilt further up and down |
| 0 | Fullscreen |
| N | Cycle the tine labels |
| Drag | On a tine, plucks it. On empty space, looks around |
| Pinch | Zoom on touch. Scroll wheel zooms in fullscreen only |
Kalimba tab uses scale numbers, not letters. 1 is C, 2 is D, up to 7 for B. A dot above the number means the octave above, two dots mean two octaves up. That is what the falling notes and the tine labels show by default, so anything you learn here reads straight onto the tabs you find elsewhere.