Easy Christmas Music for Alto Kalimba

All your holiday favorites, arranged for the 15-note Alto in G

This collection of Christmas favorites has been arranged specifically for the Hugh Tracey Alto Kalimba in G. We started with a set of generic arrangements, but refined several of them so all the songs are comfortable and easy to play on the 15-Note Alto.

I myself have been playing Christmas Carols on the kalimba for 20 years. Playing carols is a fine way to learn your kalimba, working on songs you already know. It is also a great way to learn about classical harmony. Playing carols is a fantastic way to cultivate feelings of joy and gratitude during the leadup to the holiday season. It is also a great way to share joy with other people in your life.

This 59-page PDF download with clickable links to MP3 files has tablature for 32 different versions of 28 different carols. This book has enough easy songs to have you playing carols right away, and it has enough complex songs to keep you learning carols each holiday season for years!

I invite you to take a look at the Table of Contents from the Alto Easy Christmas Carols download. I have to admit that, most days, my old Alto kalimba is my kalimba of choice, and I really enjoy the lower pitches the Alto plays.

By the way, almost anyone should be able to sit down with this download and play the Level 1 songs on their Alto kalimba today. The Level 2 songs should be within reach of most players after a few days of playing. The Level 1 and Level 2 songs are quite simple, and they help you build the skills you will need to take on the Level 3 songs, which have both melody and full chords and should be your goal after a few weeks of playing. The few Level 4 songs have counterpoint – meaning two different melodies at once, which is complicated, and you may get to that point after weeks or months of playing.

Here is the tablature for page one of “O Come All Ye Faithful.” This song is typical of “Level 2” songs in that it has both melody and in places, a single harmony note. If you had the actual PDF of, you could click on that sound icon in the upper left corner, and your web browser would be driven to play the MP3 file that spells out exactly how this tablature should sound.

 By the way, we have just come out with four very similar books of Christmas Carols for: the 10-Note Kalimba in C, the 17-Note Kalimba in C, the Hugh Tracey Alto Kalimba (ie, this book), and the Hugh Tracey Treble kalimba. Each of these kalimbas will have somewhat different arrangements for several of these carols, and each download comes with instructional recordings on the appropriate kalimba.

In other words, for the first time ever, the four most popular kalimba types in the world each have their own beautiful and highly capable collection of Christmas music.