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About the Book

You have never played music before or you cannot read sheet music, but you want to play famous

and inspiring hymns and spirituals. Don’t worry! You will begin to play right away. We made our

pictured sheet music as simple as possible. You’ll play by number-coded circles. No musical staff or

notes. The easy-to-play songs and melodies were adapted especially for beginners.

The melodies have been transposed to one octave and simplified. Also, the number-coded notations

have been added and complex notes and symbols have been reduced. Such simplification

makes it possible for people to play melodies, especially those who can’t read music or who have

never played music before.

The steel tongue drum and the handpan are percussion musical instruments designed to help you focus on your feelings, sensations, and body.

You don't need classical music training or knowledge of music theory to play them. The primary purpose is relaxation, meditation, and traveling through your inner world.

No previous training or skills are necessary to enjoy these fascinating instruments.

For tongue drums that have numbered musical notation, numbers 1 to 7 represent the keys of the diatonic major scale. For example, a C Major scale would be:

1 =C (do), 2 =D (re), 3 = E (mi), 4= F (fa), 5 = G (sol), 6 = A (la), 7 =B (ti / si), 8 (i) = C (do)

Your drum can be numbered from 1 to 8, where 8 is note C of the next octave. We use the number 1 with a dot above the digit for this note because the most popular models of tongue drums use this enumeration.

All songs in this book have been written with numbers because most modern tongue drums have numbers engraved or painted on their keys.

This book is aimed at those new to music and musical instruments, whether child or adult. It allows for simple and easy learning that requires no previous knowledge of reading music.

Because most tongue drums include and are tuned to involve the notes of the main octave, all songs from this book are possible to play in one octave.

You may need to skip some songs if you have less than one octave of keys on your drum. Each tongue drum is very different and it is impossible to accommodate songs for all kinds of tongue drums in one book.

About the Author

Helen Winter

I'm an early child development therapist and an early development kids center owner. Additionally, I have authored a comprehensive program that utilizes music, activities, and games to promote early childhood development. I develop teaching materials for early solfeggio designed for various musical instruments, with a specific focus on children or beginner adults. Furthermore, I am keenly interested in exploring folk and ethnic music.