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5All songs / When Johnny Comes Marching Home
Number tabs for the steel tongue drum
When Johnny Comes Marching Home
Free number tabs for When Johnny Comes Marching Home on the steel tongue drum. 33 notes, C Major Pentatonic scale, Intermediate level — play it instantly in the free Tongue Drum Online player.
The tab
6
56
5•1
6•1
6•2
7•2
7•2
7•1
6•2
7•3
8•1
66
5•1
6•1
6•1
6•3
8•5
9•3
8•1
6•2
7•2
7•2
7•3
8•2
7•1
66
5•1
65
46
55
43
36
51–7 scale note• above = higher octave• below = lower octaveabc = key in the app
▶ Play it in Tongue Drum Online
Open the free player on the C Major Pentatonic scale, then tap the petals or press these keyboard keys in order, following the tab above:
5678943
When Johnny Comes Marching Home is Patrick Gilmore's iconic 1863 march-song, its minor-key swagger and syncopated phrasing giving it an energy unlike any other Civil War melody. On the steel tongue drum the driving dotted rhythms and wide leaping intervals create a thrilling forward momentum at 112 BPM, requiring confident mallet placement across the full range of the instrument. A showstopping intermediate piece with genuine historical weight.
How to play When Johnny Comes Marching Home on a tongue drum
The numbers above are the standard tongue-drum number notation. Each digit is a note of the C Major Pentatonic scale, counting up from the lowest tongue. A dot above a number raises it one octave; a dot below lowers it. The small teal letters show the matching key in the Tongue Drum Online player.
Start slowly, one phrase at a time. Let each note ring out fully before striking the next — the long decay is the whole character of the instrument. This is a intermediate arrangement and a simplified, single-instrument version of When Johnny Comes Marching Home.
About this melody
Patrick Gilmore, 1863, US Civil War.