Tune the drum
Choose a scale for the drum.
Choose a scale for the drum.
You may want to turn on Do Not Disturb, so notifications stay away.
The drum has more room with the phone upright.
A number is one beat. ' after a number is the upper octave, - holds one more beat, _ after a number halves it, . after a number makes it one and a half beats, and | is an optional bar line.
The drum plays on its own. Gentle tones, at an even strength, starting quietly.
The drum’s current scale, played softly and blended.
On the lowest tongue.
Plays until you press Stop.
Capped, so it can’t get loud.
The screen can dim; the sound keeps playing while the computer is awake.
Preparing the sound…
Finished. The last notes have rung out.
Tunes every tongue. 432 Hz is the default.
Capped at a gentle maximum, however high this is set. Listen keeps its own volume.
Dark is near-black, for bedside. It has no ripples.
Reduce replaces ripples with a still glow.
Your songs and settings live in this browser, which can clear them (Safari especially). A backup file keeps them safe.
Removes your songs, recordings and settings from this browser. Save a backup file first.
Each tongue has two keys, one above the other: a key on the number row and the letter key below it. 1 and Q strike tongue 1, 2 and W strike tongue 2, and so on. Either key strikes the tongue, so you can alternate fingers, as you would alternate hands on a real drum. You can also click a tongue.
The numbers on the tongues are the notes, in numbered notation, not key numbers. A dot above a number means the higher octave.
You don’t need to read music or know any notes. Start with Major pentatonic, the scale the drum begins in: every tongue sounds good with every other, so there are no wrong notes. Just play.
Pentatonic scales leave out notes 4 and 7 on purpose; those are the ones that can sound tense together. So on a pentatonic drum the tongues read 1 2 3 5 6. The keys count the tongues, while the labels name the notes: the 4 key strikes the fourth tongue, which plays a 5.
When you’re ready, try another scale or key in Tune the drum. The key and the 432 or 440 Hz setting matter mostly when playing with other instruments.
Hold Space to soften, like resting a palm on the drum. Ringing notes fade, and notes struck while you hold it are short and muffled. Let go to let the drum ring freely again.
The line at the bottom says “Listening for keys” when the drum is ready. If you’ve clicked somewhere else, click the drum once and play.
Press Record at the top of the drum. Recording starts with your first strike, so there’s no silence at the start, and ends when your last note has rung out. Holding Space is recorded too. When you stop, you can give it a title, play it back, save it to your songbook, or discard it; Undo brings a discarded recording back for a few seconds.
To make a loop, press Enter while recording, at the moment the loop should start again. It plays over and over at once, with the notes ringing across each restart, and you can play along. Your strikes over the loop are heard, not added to it. Esc stops the loop.
The Songbook holds your songs and a few bundled ones. Choose a song to play it, loop it, or see it written in numbered notation; each note lights up as it sounds. You can make your own copy of a bundled song to change it.
To change one of your songs, click a note (it sounds), then click another tongue or press a drum key to change it; Delete removes it. The two Trim sliders cut notes from the start or end. Deleting and trimming both have Undo.
New song → Type notation lets you write a song: a number is one beat, ' after a number is the upper octave, - holds one more beat, _ halves a note, . makes it one and a half beats, and | is an optional bar line. For example: 1 1 5 5 | 6 6 5 -, or 3. 2_ 1 2 for a lilting start.
Play along lets you play a real tune without reading music or knowing the keys: the drum shows which tongue comes next. Wait for me is for learning the notes; Keep time is for the rhythm.
Choose Play along for any song in the Songbook. The next tongue to strike gets a steady outline, and its keys brighten. With Wait for me, the song moves on when you strike that tongue; take all the time you like, and any other strike simply sounds. With Keep time, the outline moves on by itself, at Slow, Steady or Song speed, and Hear the tune plays the song quietly underneath, so you can follow it by ear as well as by eye. Esc or Stop returns to free play.
Choose Share for one of your songs in the Songbook. A link carries the whole song inside itself; the other person opens it and KamalDrum offers to add the song to their songbook. A file does the same when it’s dragged onto KamalDrum. Notation text can be pasted into any message, or back into Type notation, though timing nuance is lost. KamalDrum sends nothing anywhere: you choose how the link, file or text travels.
Tune the drum by choosing a scale and a key. With a pentatonic scale (5 notes, 10 tongues), any tongues you strike sound good together. Major and Natural minor have 7 notes and 11 tongues: more melodies, and some pairs sound tense together.
The scale and key are shown at the top of the drum; click them to retune. The reference pitch, 432 or 440 Hz, is in Settings.
Day, Dim and Dark change the colours. Dark is near-black, for bedside, and has no ripples. Choose one with the theme button at the top of the drum, or in Settings.
Focus shows only the drum, full screen. Press Esc, or move the pointer to the top edge, to bring the controls back.
Headphones or an external speaker bring out the low tones that laptop speakers lose. Wireless headphones add a delay; wired ones or the computer’s speakers respond faster. The volume is capped, so it can’t get loud.
Listen lets the drum play on its own, for bedside or meditation: one of your songs on repeat, Gentle notes that wander slowly over the scale and never repeat, a Wash, or a Session. Everything plays at an even strength and starts quietly. The sleep timer lets the last notes ring out before stopping, and can soften and slow things over its last five minutes. While it plays, the screen is full and stays near-black; move the mouse or press a key to see the controls. Space pauses, Esc stops. If the music ends while the screen is dark, it stays dark; the first key or mouse move shows the end.
A wash is many soft notes that blend into one flowing sound. Airy scatters them over all the tongues, Warm drifts over the lower ones, and Deep rolls over the lowest in slow waves. Each starts from its own setting; Adjust changes whether it swells in waves and how many notes it plays, and remembers it. Choosing a sound plays nothing; press Start, then pick another sound while it plays to hear it blend in. With the sleep timer off, a wash plays until you press Stop.
A session is a timed sit. After a few quiet seconds, the lowest tongue sounds once (or three times); then silence, a song, Gentle notes or a wash; and at the end the lowest tongue sounds again. Nothing new starts in the last few seconds, so the closing strike sounds into quiet. Stopping after the opening strike still ends with the closing strike; stopping before it ends quietly. Set the length with − and +, or type any number of minutes from 5 to 60. The time left stays hidden unless you choose Show time.
Your songs and settings are kept in this browser on this computer, nowhere else. Browsers can clear what websites keep (Safari especially, for sites not visited lately), so Settings → Save everything to a file makes a backup. Restore from a file, or dragging the backup onto KamalDrum, adds its songs back; nothing you already have is replaced.
You can install KamalDrum to open it like an app: on an iPhone or iPad, tap Share in Safari, then Add to Home Screen; on Android, choose Install in the browser’s menu. On an iPhone, only the installed app can fill the whole screen, and it keeps your songs for longer.
Safari may clear what a website keeps after 7 days without a visit, so keep a backup (Settings → Save everything to a file).
Listen can keep the screen on while it plays. Locking the phone stops the sound.
On an iPhone, the silent switch on the side can mute KamalDrum. If you hear nothing, check the switch.
After your first visit, KamalDrum works without an internet connection. In Chrome or Edge you can also install it, with the install button in the address bar, and open it like an app.
A steel tongue drum in your browser. Free.
Play it on your computer keyboard and let the notes ring and blend. Every tongue belongs to the chosen scale; on a tongue drum there are no wrong notes.
A keyboard can’t replace striking a real drum: there’s no feel of the tongue under your hand, and every key strikes at about the same strength. Laptop speakers lose the low tones. Wireless headphones add a delay; wired ones or the computer’s speakers respond faster. The tongues are arranged in keyboard order, not in the alternating order of a real drum. It can’t play sound in browsers that don’t support web audio, such as very old ones.
The app is delivered by mocaedu.com. Your recordings and songbook never leave your device unless you share them.
No accounts, no ads, no tracking. After the first visit it works offline, and contacts mocaedu.com only to check for new versions.
KamalDrum was conceived and directed by Aswath Rao.
Tools used in development:
Contact:
Licences: code MIT, bundled songbook CC0. Fonts: Nunito and Fraunces, under the SIL Open Font License.
The name KamalDrum is reserved; everything else is free to use.
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