Kalimba Sheet Music: Never Gonna Give You Up (Rick Astley)

Want to learn how to play a song from the 1980s on your kalimba, specifically Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up? Start by warming up your thumbs, then follow the sheet music and tablature provided in this article. With these, you’ll be able to play this melody on a 17-note thumb piano.

Let’s dive into studying this kalimba sheet music together.

First, take some time to prepare with your kalimba

Learning any sheet music takes time and effort. To avoid getting discouraged, it’s a good idea to prepare before you start. First, we invite you to read our guide to learning how to read kalimba sheet music. This is an essential step if you have any doubts about the symbols you might see on the page.

Second, it’s strongly recommended that you check the tuning of your kalimba regularly. Since the tines aren’t fixed in place, they can sometimes slide up or down, which changes the notes they’re supposed to produce. Take a look at this tutorial on tuning the kalimba. You’ll avoid sour notes that can be pretty unpleasant to hear.

Listen to the melody of Never Gonna Give You Up on the kalimba

It can be frustrating to find sheet music for sanza online without being able to preview the final result. Here, you can watch a video that shows you exactly what you’ll get if you follow the sheet music and tablature below. Plus, it can also serve as a helpful tutorial.

Rick Astley’s song is pretty old now, so you might not be familiar with it. To fix that, watch the official music video below:

The numbered sheet music for mbira of Rick Astley’s hit song

Easy to pick up, numbered sheet music is a great way to start learning melodies on the kalimba. Simply follow the sequence of numbers showing the order in which the notes should be played.

Sheet music with letters

You may have noticed that the tines of your kalimba are sometimes engraved with letters as well as numbers. It’s simply another form of musical notation. You can choose whichever one feels easiest for you to play the sheet music for Never Gonna Give You Up.

A sanza tablature dedicated to Never Gonna Give You Up

If you already have some music theory basics or you want to improve your playing, it’s highly recommended to use tablature. You’ll get a clear visual of exactly which tine to play.

Learn Rick Astley’s hit song with a free PDF file

Like all the sheet music you’ll find on Instruments du Monde, the musical documents for Never Gonna Give You Up for kalimba are available as a PDF file. Personally, I find it more effective to practice from a paper copy you can take anywhere than from a computer or phone screen. So if you’re interested, download this PDF file. It’s completely free.

What is Rick Astley up to now?

After his international success with Never Gonna Give You Up in 1987, Rick Astley rode that momentum and released four albums through 1993. He then decided to pause his music career at age 27 to focus on family life, especially raising his daughter Emily, born in 1992.

It wasn’t until 2001 that the singer appeared on a new album called Keep It Turned. Keeping that momentum going, he went on a world tour in 2004 and released another album in 2005. Since his comeback, he’s continued to put out new tracks regularly and remains active in the music world. For example, he was a DJ on a British radio station in the summer of 2010, and his world tours are still ongoing. In 2021, Rick Astley released several singles and collaborated with various bands. In short, he’s still very active on the music scene, especially in England, his native country.

Why is Never Gonna Give You Up a meme?

The song Never Gonna Give You Up is closely tied to an internet meme called "Rickrolling." It was inspired by the "duckroll," where the idea is to trick someone into clicking a link to find what they’re looking for, but they end up on a page with a picture of a duck on wheels. With "rickrolling," the goal is still to prank someone, but by sending them to the music video for Never Gonna Give You Up. The meme started in 2007 and really took off in 2008. And if you’re wondering, there’s no real payoff for the pranksters beyond having a laugh at someone else’s expense.

That said, "rickrolling" played a huge role in boosting Rick Astley’s career and popularity again—he’d likely be far less famous if the meme had never existed. Astley himself has said he finds the prank "hilarious."

Progress faster with a brand-name kalimba

Never Gonna Give You Up is a wildly recognizable melody, especially since the meme took off in 2008, and it’s a fun way to add a tune most people know to your repertoire. Using the sheet music and tablature you’ve discovered in this article, you’ll undoubtedly be able to play Rick Astley’s hit song on your kalimba.

However, not all instruments are created equal, and it’s harder to improve on a low-end thumb piano that doesn’t have the finesse to really bring out your potential. That’s why Instruments du Monde recommends a Gecko-brand kalimba, known worldwide for the quality of its musical instruments.

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Change your musical style completely and learn a song by the heavy metal band Metallica with our kalimba sheet music for Nothing Else Matters. This is the hit that made the band famous around the world and showcased the superb voice of its singer, James Hetfield. Or discover other famous melodies in our selection of specialized tablature for 17-tine kalimbas.