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11-Note Tongue Drum

Overview

Sheet music in our 11-Note Tongue Drum series includes melodies, lyrics, and chord symbols with tongue drum tablature. The music is arranged for a standard 11-note tongue drum in C major.

What Is Included

Music in our 11-Note Tongue Drum series includes:

  • Melody in notation and tongue drum tablature
  • Lyrics if the original music includes words
  • Chord symbols above the music

Required Skills

  • Ability to read tongue drum tablature. There is a brief guide in each ebook covering how to read this tablature. You will also benefit from the ability to read notation to help with the rhythms.

Chords

Chord symbols are included above the music. The chords may be simplified slightly to make it easy for guitarists, pianists, or other musicians to accompany you.

Music Notation and Tablature

The music notation and chord symbols are for tongue drum in C major. Most 11-note tongue drums are in C major. However, you should check the specifications for your tongue drum to verify yours is in this key.

Tablature for tongue drum is included below the music. The tablature includes the following:

  • The numbers 1 to 7
  • Dots above or below the numbers - Some numbers will have no dots, while others may have one above or below the number.

The numbers correspond to the tongues on the tongue drum. The dots indicate a note in a higher octave. For example, a 1 on a standard 11-note tongue drum is the pitch C. A 1 with a dot above it is a C one octave higher.

You can play music using the tablature by playing the tongue that corresponds to the number or number with dots in the tablature. Your tongue drum likely included stickers on each tongue that indicates the number associated with that tongue.

Note that the tablature will work for tongue drums in keys other than C as long as they use the same layout. You will just be playing in a different key than what is notated.

Our tongue drum ebooks include a brief guide to reading tablature for tongue drum along with a chart of where the numbers are located on the tongue drum.

Keys and Pitches

Most music is in the key of C major (or A minor if the music is in a minor key.). A small number of titles are in other keys.

Lyrics

We generally include one verse of lyrics within the music. Other lyrics are included as text at the end of the music. Some lyrics may be omitted, but this is usually done only when there are too many verses to easily include (e.g., songs that include dozens of verses).

Lyrics may vary from the version you know. A small number of songs include many variations in lyrics, none of which are standardized. It isn't always possible to create a version of these lyrics that is familiar to everyone.

Tempo

Tempos are editorial suggestions in most cases. Feel free to choose your own tempo.

Instrument Size

All of the music in this series has been arranged for a 11-note tongue drum. The music may work on other sizes of tongue drums, but please note the following before purchasing music from this series if you aren't using a 11-note drum:

  • 8-note tongue drums - Most music won't work on this size. Many melodies exceed this range, so music in this series won't be playable with the exception of a small number of titles. Most titles that do work will be simple children's songs like Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
  • 13-note tongue drums - All of the tablature will work on a 13-note tongue drum.
  • 15-note tongue drums - All music will work on an instrument of this size. However, some music has been modified to allow it to fit on the 11-note drum. The same music may exist in an unaltered version for the 15-note instrument. View our 15-note tongue drum music to check.

Changes to the Music

Some titles have been altered slightly to allow them to fit on an 11-note tongue drum. This is only done if the result is close enough to the original melody to be satisfying. Otherwise, some well-known songs would have to be omitted due to the small range of the instrument and lack of chromatic notes. The alterations are limited to changes that mostly preserve the character of the original music.

Changes may include the following:

  • Transposing a note or passage up or down an octave.
  • Changing an out of range note to a different note.
  • Leaving a note out altogether

While some may find the changes disappointing, the only alternative is to not play that music on the 11-note tongue drum at all. We don't make alterations unless they can be done in a reasonably satisfying way. For example, we omitted Danny Boy from consideration because there was no reasonable way to alter the out of range notes. These notes are so important to the sound of this song they can't be changed to fit a 11-note tongue drum.

Changes are limited to a small percentage of songs. You can find which titles are altered by looking at the sheet music page on our site for that title. There will be a footnote in the sheet music explaining the change. The About the Music section on the page will mention that the music has been altered as well. Product pages for ebooks also include an asterisk next to any title that has been altered.