Written by Ambre Montespan - Updated on May 8, 2026
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Do you especially love the song Kiss The Rain by South Korean composer and pianist Yiruma? Want to learn how to play this beautiful piece on your 17-tine thumb piano? Perfect—by using either the sheet music or the tablature you’ll find in this blog post, you’ll be able to recreate this melody on your kalimba.
Let’s jump right in and explore the sheet music for this classical piece.
Check your instrument before playing Kiss The Rain
To play the melody of Kiss The Rain correctly, you’ll need to make sure your kalimba is perfectly in tune. For a number of reasons, the tines can shift slightly over time, which changes the pitch and the tone. That’s why it’s important to check your tuning regularly. Take a look at this article, which will show you how to tune your kalimba. Once you’ve confirmed everything is tuned to C major, you’ll be able to play Yiruma’s piece with confidence.
If you need a refresher, feel free to check out our tutorial on reading sheet music and tablature for kalimba. In the Kiss The Rain sheet music, you’ll come across triplets and ties. If you’re not sure (or don’t remember) what those are, reviewing that guide is essential if you want clean, accurate results.
See what you can do by following the kalimba sheet music for Yiruma's song
For an extra boost of motivation as you work through Yiruma's sheet music, watch the video just below. This is the kind of result you can achieve by carefully following what’s written in the free music sheets we provide. It can also be a great help while you’re learning.
If you’re not familiar with Yiruma yet (it’s true he’s not especially well-known in Europe), here’s the original video for his song Kiss The Rain.
Learn Kiss The Rain with this thumb piano sheet music
Ideal for beginners who don’t really want to invest time in learning music theory, the simplified sheet music with numbers tells you which tines to play, but it doesn’t provide information about tempo or note length.
Choose the alternative sheet music with letters for mbira
Almost identical to the previous sheet music, the only difference here is the notation system, which uses letters. Other than that, it comes with the same pros and cons as the numbered version. As a result, you’ll find the lettered sheet music for Kiss The Rain for kalimba just below:
Become a maestro with this tablature of Kiss The Rain for kalimba
As we mentioned earlier, simplified sheet music has the downside of not including enough information. That’s where tablature comes in: it’s definitely more detailed, but it gives you everything you need to faithfully reproduce the music of Kiss The Rain on your kalimba.
Print the Kiss The Rain sheet music using a PDF file
Do you generally find it easier to learn from paper than from digital formats? If so, download our PDF file containing the sheet music and tablature for Kiss The Rain on the kalimba. You’ll then be able to print everything you found in this article or share it with your friends. This file is, of course, completely free.
Who is Yiruma, the composer of Kiss The Rain?
Yiruma, whose real name is Lee Ru-ma, is a composer and pianist born on 15 February 1978, in Seoul, South Korea. He began studying piano around age 5 in his home country before moving with his entire family five years later, in 1988. After finishing his studies, Yiruma was recognised for his talent as a composer and released his first studio album, Love Scene, in 2001. The track River Flows in You, from that album, became a huge success, surpassing 150 million views on YouTube. The track Kiss The Rain appears on his third album, From the Yellow Room, released in 2003, and became one of the artist’s signature pieces.
He gained major recognition from 2006, when he composed the music for the South Korean TV series Spring Waltz. Yiruma went on to release several other albums that reached an international audience, and beginning in 2008, the pianist toured regularly, performing at prestigious venues such as the Sydney Opera House and the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. That said, Yiruma seems to have been less active in recent years, with his last album released in 2013.
Choose a high-quality kalimba to play Kiss The Rain
Beloved in the piano world, it’s only natural to find dozens of kalimba players performing the melody of Kiss The Rain, since the kalimba and the piano share so much in common. Thanks to the sheet music and tablature you’ve just found above, you can play it too. All that’s left is to spend a bit of time working through these music sheets.
That said, the instrument you use will inevitably influence your final sound. Since Kiss The Rain is such a gentle piece, a plexiglass kalimba (also called acrylic glass) will often suit it better than a wooden model, which tends to shine on more rhythmic tunes. That’s why Instruments du Monde recommends this 17-tine plexiglass kalimba, perfect for this style of music.
Discover this kalimba now by clicking on the link below:
Did you enjoy the Twilight film saga following the adventures of Bella, Edward, and Jacob? If so, you’ll love learning the song A Thousand Years with our kalimba sheet music. You can add a touch of sweetness to your musical repertoire, which is sure to grow with the many 17-tine kalimba sheet music pieces we offer for free.
