Phases of the Moon: Moon-10 Alternative Tunings

Each tuning a different flavor, capable of its own music.

The Moon-10 Kalimba is a fantastic platform for creating music. It has a clear piercing tone, great special effects, and is not difficult to get your head around… it tilts the odds toward success.

The standard C Major Pentatonic tuning is fun, but realistically, it only scratches the surface of this instrument’s possibilities. To span this instrument’s potential, we need to sample some of the different possible tunings. Here are six alternative tunings you can put on your Moon-10 kalimba yourself.



Explore the breadth of Moono-10 Tunings with me!

When you order a Moon-10 kalimba from Kalimba Magic, we give you the option of selecting one of our six alternative tunings. Or, you could accomplish the retuning yourself. Whether you are sampling the tunings to see which one you want us to make for you, or you are exploring what tuning you want to try next on your own Moon-10, this page shows you what you need. Each tuning is spelled out with a tuning chart, example sound clips, and links to any instructional materials are included.

Each tuning is named after a different type of moon. The six alternative moon tunings will take the next half year to fill out. I will update this page to reflect those new ebooks as they are available.




“New Moon” – Standard C Pentatonic Tuning

The standard C Pentatonic tuning is how this kalimba was designed to play. This is the tuning that comes out of the box when these are shipped to us from China. While the C Pentatonic kalimba is strong and wild and free, there aren’t too many songs you know that you will be able to play. But you will be able to play along with a lot of music.

Instructional Resources





“Silver Moon” – C Diatonic Tuning

The “Silver Moon” tuning is a powerful tuning with a 40 page instructional download. It can do a lot a different songs and is fairly intuitive to play. A real workhorse.

Instructional Resources





“Blue Moon” – C minor Pentatonic Tuning

This one is spiritually similar to the standard C Major Pentatonic tuning. It is pretty simple to go back and forth between them.

Instructional Resources





“Golden Moon” – F Diatonic Tuning

This one is essentially similar to the C diatonic tuning… but the Bb shifts it to be in the key of F major. It can play in the C mixolydian mode, but when played in F, it turns out there are more known songs this Moon-10 kalimba tuning can play than can be played in any other tuning.

Instructional Resources





“Silk Moon” – A Ake Bono Tuning

If you have a Sansula in standard A minor tuning, you will find that this tuning plays brilliantly with it. It has the same mystical and enchanting sound, and can take you on a trip to the orient.





“Snow Moon” – G Pentatonic Tuning

If you own any kalimbas in G, this is a good instrument to play with your other G major kalimbas. It has the same freedom as the “New Moon”, or the standard C pentatonic tuning.





“Blood Moon” – G Mixolydian/Pentatonic Tuning

This one has a wildness, a feeling of Africa. It is modeled after a Francis Bebe tuning which he used in the 1970s and 1980s.






“Desert Moon” – A Middle Eastern Tuning, A Morocco Tuning

This is a Middle Eastern tuning with 6 notes per octave, which means the octaves are on the same side. The right side notes, A, C#, E, and upper row notes A and C#, forms the A major chord. The left side notes, Bb, D, G, Bb, D, form the G minor major chord. Swimming among these two chords sounds like Lawrence of Arabia.



Moon10 piano 0

The Moon-10 Kalimba – real music, really simple.

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