Kantele "tabs"

[Vargalv]

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i'm on the lookout for some (traditional or not) kantele "tabs", but since i can't read notes that well, numbers for the strings would be nice. five-stringers' music vastly prefered.

if anyone could help me out, i'd greatly appreciate it.

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[atolonen]

I haven't come across any tabs per se for the kantele. There were some notation like stuff on a couple of kantele playing guides I read back when I was starting out, but they were indeed closer to notations than tabs, and the songs were simple jingles, just meant for learning basic techniques - and I didn't think any one of them were enjoyable to play or listen either.

Sometimes I look at guitar tabs to find out how a song goes, but I mostly just listen and play by ear. You can learn it with relatively small effort. Even I learned it

[Vargalv]

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ok, kiiti.

got some notations with string numbers off one of the links you gave me earlier this year. some tunes are quite ok, at least for finger placement practice. now, let's see how easy it is to try and play by copying from listening... kantele-noise-folk. ;D

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[atolonen]

You could always try learning how to play certain songs with a keyboard, and remember what notes are used to play the songs with it. After that you can tune the kantele to the scale that uses those notes (it's good to have a scale list handy for this) - although it's not wise to go too many semitones higher or lower than what the kantele is meant to be tuned to, but just listen to the sound of the strings and you should be able to tell when it's going too high (too tight) or too low (too loose). You can play any melody in any scale. It will sound higher or lower depending on which scale you use, but the overall melody will be the same. I do this all the time. Much of the traditional Finnish kantele music uses a D-minor scale, and that's what I have my kanteles tuned to.

[Vargalv]

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thanks, i've something akin figured out via notes/strings already. explaining musical theory/terminlogy to me is kinda like explaining glaciers to the !Xan. ;D

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