There is a little book of several songs that can be played on this tongue drum. I learned to play Twinkle Twinkle little star very easily. I do have some music experience. I grew up playing the violin. The book helps to make it easy by using a number code on the key to be played. Once you know where the keys are, you can then easily play the songs directly from the book. If you spend just a little time thinking through the scale of this instrument, you should be able to play songs from other books. When I bought my tongue drum there weren't any books out there for songs that I recognized and few books at all. There are a couple out there now. I love the sound of this meditation drum. You can play this with your bare hands, with rubber finger mallets, or regular rubber mallets on sticks. The color of the drum that I purchased is turquoise and I find it to be a pleasant color while playing and I like leaving it out when I'm not playing it.