Each mbira is made in a particular tuning. It is difficult and time-consuming enough to change an instrument's tuning that musicians acquire a different mbira for each tuning they play.

Gandanga or 'rebel' tuning is in a minor key. Many mbira songs played in Gandanga tuning sound more melancholy than when played in other tunings. Gandanga mbira often have an "extra" key, second from the bottom on the lower left rank, lacking in most mbira of other tunings.

Dambatsoko is the tuning of the Mujuru clan in Zimbabwe to which the mbira maker Fradreck Mujuru and the late mbira master Ephata Mujuru belong.

G Tuning is a Western tuning, aligned with the piano scale and corresponding to the range common to Zimbabwean marimbas.