Silent Night kalimba tabs
For a 17-key kalimba tuned to C major. 46 notes on 11 tines, from C4 up to F5.
Play along on the online kalimba Play it on a kalimba in G
newellabs.com/play/kalimba/tabs/silent/
Number tab
The number tab read aloud, group by group. “High” stands for one dot above the number and “very high” for two.
- 5, 6, 5, 3.
- 5, 6, 5, 3.
- high 2, high 2, 7.
- high 1, high 1, 5.
- 6, 6, high 1, 7, 6.
- 5, 6, 5, 3.
- 6, 6, high 1, 7, 6.
- 5, 6, 5, 3.
- high 2, high 2, high 4, high 2, 7.
- high 1, high 3.
- high 1, 5, 3, 5, 4, 2.
- 1.
Letter notes
Tines you need
The long tine in the middle is 1 (C4). Notes climb outward, alternating left and right, so neighbours on the same side are two steps apart.
How to read this tab
Numbers are steps of the C scale, 1 (C) to 7 (B), and each dot above a number means one octave higher; the tab shows which tine to play, not how long to hold it. Each numbered group is one bar of music, or more than one where a note lasts across a bar line.
About the song
Composed by Franz Xaver Gruber to words by Joseph Mohr, and first sung in 1818 in Oberndorf, Austria. The melody is in the public domain.
Playing tips
- Groups 1, 2, 6 and 8 are the same notes, G4 A4 G4 E4 (5 6 5 3), on tines to the right, left, right and right of the middle. Learn that group first: it is 16 of the song’s 46 notes.
- Group 9, D5 D5 F5 D5 B4 (2̇ 2̇ 4̇ 2̇ 7), stays on the right: the right thumb plays all of it on three neighbouring tines, up to F5 (4̇), the highest note of the song.
Piano letter notes
On a piano this tab uses the 11 white keys from C4 (middle C) to F5 and no black keys; in the piano letters below, C4 to B4 have no dot and C5 to F5 have a dot above, one octave higher.
The piano letter notes are the letter notes above, with octave dots in place of octave numbers.
On 8 colour bells
This tune uses all 8 bells, numbered from C up to high C: 1 C red, 2 D orange, 3 E yellow, 4 F green, 5 G light blue, 6 A dark blue, 7 B purple and 8 high C pink (colours differ between sets, so play by the number and the letter). Seven notes, in groups 3, 9 and 10, are higher than high C, so they are played an octave lower, marked ↓.
The bell numbers read aloud, group by group.
- 5, 6, 5, 3.
- 5, 6, 5, 3.
- 2 moved down, 2 moved down, 7.
- 8, 8, 5.
- 6, 6, 8, 7, 6.
- 5, 6, 5, 3.
- 6, 6, 8, 7, 6.
- 5, 6, 5, 3.
- 2 moved down, 2 moved down, 4 moved down, 2 moved down, 7.
- 8, 3 moved down.
- 8, 5, 3, 5, 4, 2.
- 1.
History of the song
Joseph Mohr wrote the words as a poem in 1816, while he was assistant priest at Mariapfarr in the Lungau; a manuscript in his own hand, found in 1995, dates the text to 1816 and credits the melody to Franz Xaver Gruber.[1][2] On Christmas Eve 1818 Mohr, by then assistant priest of the new parish of St Nicholas in Oberndorf, asked Gruber, the schoolteacher of Arnsdorf and organist of the church, for a melody for two solo voices, choir and guitar; Gruber brought it the same evening, as he recalled in an account of 30 December 1854.[1][2] It was sung at the Christmas mass in Oberndorf that night: Mohr sang tenor and played the guitar, and Gruber sang bass.[1] The usual English words are John Freeman Young’s, first published in New York in 1859.[2]
Sources
- Stille Nacht Gesellschaft (Silent Night Association), “History of the Song”, stillenacht.at.
- Chris Fenner, “Stille Nacht / Silent Night”, Hymnology Archive, 17 November 2023.
Also in our two kalimba songbooks, with every note’s length marked.