Free online tool

Xylophone Notes

Xylophone notes for any song: pick a tune or type notes to get big colour-coded letters for a xylophone, glockenspiel or kalimba. Play along, then print.

Instrument Song Key Show on each note Layout Tempo: 90 beats per minute Colour the notes

The instrument

About the Xylophone Notes

This page is a free xylophone notes tool. It shows the notes of a song laid out for an 8-bar xylophone, a 25-note chromatic glockenspiel or a 17-key kalimba, so you can see which bar or tine to strike. It runs in your web browser with no sign-up, and nothing you enter is uploaded.

Each note appears as a coloured tile with its letter. You can add numbers or solfege (Do Re Mi), switch to a tab grid for the kalimba, or print a song sheet or a note chart. You can use the built-in songs, such as Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Jingle Bells and Happy Birthday, or type your own notes.

How to use the xylophone notes tool

Choose an instrument: “8-bar xylophone or glockenspiel (C to C)”, “25-note chromatic glockenspiel (G5 to G7)” or “17-key kalimba in C (C4 to E6)”.
Pick a song from “Easy tunes”, “Medium tunes” or “Harder tunes”, or choose “Type your own notes”.
Leave Key on “Best fit for this instrument”, or pick “Original key” or a fixed move from “Down 6 semitones” to “Up 6 semitones”.
Choose what appears on each note under “Show on each note”: Letter, Letter and solfege, Letter and number, or Letter, number and solfege.
Choose the layout: “Notes in rows” or “Tab: one line per note”. With the kalimba chosen, the tab layout is kalimba tablature: one column per tine, in the order the tines sit on the instrument.
Set the tempo with the slider, from 30 to 200 beats per minute.
Press “Play along” to hear the tune. Press “Stop” to end it.

The “Colour the notes” checkbox is on by default. Turn it off for white tiles and black letters, which suits black-and-white printing. Use “Print song sheet” for a page with no controls, or “Print note chart” for the instrument picture and a bar table. “Copy link” saves your whole setup in the page address, so you can share it.

What are the notes on an 8-bar xylophone?#

The 8-bar xylophone plays C D E F G A B and then the C above, one octave from C to C. The longest, lowest bar is on the left, and the notes go up the scale from there.

Those eight letters are the only notes it has, so it has no sharps or flats. A song fits when every note is one of these letters and the whole tune stays between the low C and the high C. The tool’s octave labels (C5 to C6) are only labels, since toy instruments vary, but the letters do not change with the octave. In number notation, 1 to 7 stand for C to B, and the high C is 1 with a dot above.

How do I read kalimba tabs (numbers and dots)?#

A kalimba tab gives each tine a number: 1 is C, 2 is D, 3 is E, 4 is F, 5 is G, 6 is A and 7 is B. A dot above the number raises the note by one octave. No dot means C4 to B4, one dot means C5 to B5, and two dots mean C6 and up.

The 17-key kalimba in C runs from C4 to E6 with no sharps or flats. Its tines are not in alphabetical order. The longest tine, C4, is in the middle, and the notes alternate outward: D4 sits just left of centre, E4 just right, and F4 next on the left. The highest notes, D6 and E6, sit at the outer edges. From left to right, the numbers are 2 7 5 3 1 6 4 2 1 3 5 7 2 4 6 1 3.

Kalimba tablature, often called kalimba tabs, is written this way so you can play a tune without reading a staff. The tool’s tab uses this same physical order, with one column per tine. Sources do not all agree on the dot convention, so check the engraving on your own instrument.

Frequently asked questions

How do I play a song on a xylophone with letter notes?

Choose the song and keep “Show on each note” on Letter. Read the tiles from left to right: each letter tells you which bar to strike, and a wider tile means a longer note. Lower the tempo slider if you want to practise slowly.

How do I type my own notes?

Choose “Type your own notes” from the song list and edit the “Your notes” box. Type letters C to B in either case, separated by spaces, commas or line breaks. Add # or b after a letter for a sharp or flat, a digit for the octave (C4 is middle C), a colon and a number for length (G:2 is two beats), R for a rest and | for a bar line. Anything the tool does not understand is left out and listed for you.

Why are some notes marked as not playable on my instrument?

A note with a red outline, a cross and a struck-through letter cannot be played on that instrument. The message says whether it is “not a bar on this instrument” (a sharp or flat on the xylophone or kalimba), “too low” or “too high”. With “Best fit” on, the tool changes key only if that leaves fewer unplayable notes. Unplayable notes still sound when you press Play, so the tune keeps its shape.

Is it free and does it need an account?

Yes. The tool is free, runs in your browser, and needs no sign-up. Nothing you enter is uploaded. It remembers your last instrument, your “Show on each note” choice and your colour setting in your browser’s storage.

Can I use it on a phone?

Yes. The page works in a phone browser: the controls stack, the note tiles wrap onto new lines, and nothing needs to be installed. Browsers block sound until you tap a button once, so tap Play along to start the sound.

Which instrument fits the most songs?

The 25-note chromatic glockenspiel plays every song in the list with no unplayable notes. The 17-key kalimba fits most of them but not all, and the 8-bar xylophone fits only the simpler tunes completely. If a song is marked with unplayable notes on your instrument, try the glockenspiel view to compare.