Get to Know Your Tongue Drum. 62 Simple Songs for Absolute Beginners

Playing traditional music notes is difficult for people who have no musical knowledge. You need to know the rhythmic value of each note, its place on the staff, note duration, and its combination with other notes. To be aware of all this simultaneously demands music experience and advanced skills. Nevertheless, even if you have never studied music, you can begin to play complicated melodies, and also experiment with your tongue drum in a meditative way.

All songs in this e-book have been written without using the classic music score system because it is for absolute beginners who cannot read sheet music. I collected very simple and well-known songs and melodies with easy rhythms. You can begin to play just now using circles that contain either a number, without having to consider note duration, key, or time signatures. These numbers correspond to those on the keys of your tongue drum. So you just need to follow the numbers.

I use circles with numbers because most modern tongue drums have numbers engraved or painted on their keys. I do not show the note duration - I just group the circles closer to each other to show the rhythms. You can experiment with a duration on your own. Because most tongue drums include and are tuned to involve the notes of the main octave, all songs from this e-book are possible to play in one octave. This e-book includes very simple, popular children’s and folk songs, but even well-known children’s songs played on the drum will create an unusual magical sound.

Attention: Songs have been transposed for a DIATONIC range. Some melodies might be changed and simplified.

Contents

Alphabet Song
A Hunting We Will Go
A Sailor Went to Sea
Acka Backa
Are You Sleeping?
Baa Baa Black Sheep
Baby Bumble Bee
Bell Horses
Bim Bum Biddy
Bobby Shafto
Brahms Lullaby
Chumbara
Cobbler, Mend My Shoe
Cock-a-Doodle Doo
Ding Dong DiggiDiggiDong
Do You Know the Muffin Man?
Doggie Doggie
Fiddle-Dee-Dee
Five Little Ducks
Five Little Monkeys
Frog in the Meadow
Happy Birthday
Hot Cross Buns
Humpty Dumpty
I Like to Eat Apples and Bananas
I Love Little Kitty
It’s Raining
Itsy Bitsy Spider
Jack and Jill
Jingle Bells
Jolly Old Saint Nicholas
Kookaburra
La Cucaracha
Little Jack Horner
London Bridge
Mary Had a Little Lamb
Miss Mary Mack
My Hat
Ninety-Nine Bottles
Ode to Joy
Oh Susannah
Oh We Can Play on the Big Bass Drum
Old Bald Eagle
Old Blue
Old McDonald
Old Mother Hubbard
One, Two, Three, Four
Rain, Rain, Go Away
Ring Around the Rosie
Row Row Your Boat
Rub-a-Dub-Dub
See-Saw Margery Daw
Ten in the Bed
The Bee and the Pup
The Big Sheep
The Mulberry Bush
The Wheels on the Bus
This Old Man
Tinga Layo
To Market, To Market
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
We Wish You a Merry Christmas