Finding yourself with some extra downtime lately? Fill it with music! From Strumsticks to synthesizers, we’ve rounded up a grab bag of our favorite pick-up-and-play instruments.
With many aspects of everyday life temporarily on hold, you may find yourself with a surplus you never expected—spare time. As we all adjust to this unfamiliar pace of life and focus on taking care of ourselves and others, music can play an important role in maintaining sanity. So, if you’ve recently found yourself with some extra downtime, consider filling it with music!
You don’t have to start taking lessons online or devote a chunk of your time to running scales every day—we’ve rounded up some instruments you can just pick up and play. From classic campfire companions to new-fangled gadgets, these toys are perfect for bringing some good vibrations to your newfound spare time.
Bite-Sized Acoustic Instruments
Sometimes the best instrument is the one closest to you. Whether your primary instrument is the guitar, keyboard or percussion, consider one of these miniature alternatives for strumming around the house, backyard “campfire” jams or home music lessons with the kids.
Tired of the ubiquitous ukulele? Try the Strumstick, a uniquely-shaped instrument that combines the folkish simplicity of a dulcimer with the form factor of a traditional guitar. With just three strings tuned to two notes, and frets that form a predetermined scale, it’s almost impossible to play a wrong note on a Strumstick.
If you’re primarily a piano player, the melodica offers those familiar black and white keys with a completely different sound. Blowing into a tube at one end of the instrument sends air through tuned reeds when a key is pressed, producing an accordion-like sound with the expressiveness of a woodwind or brass instrument (just don’t forget about the spit valve).
The kalimba is a western adaptation of the African mbira, a wooden thumb piano with metal tines that produce a plucky, percussive sound. The kalimba is held in both hands, while the thumbs do the plucking (much like texting). While the tines can be a bit tricky to get in tune, the kalimba’s unique playing style is well suited to percussionists.
Mobile Music Apps
If you’re on a budget or just want to mess around without too much of a commitment, the easiest way to get an instrument in your hands is to hit the app store and explore one of the countless mobile music-making tools out there. Here are a few of our favorites.
Reason Compact is a stripped-down mobile version of Reason, a popular music production software. With several great-sounding and easily playable synths, plus recording and editing capabilities, Reason Compact is packed with functionality. Best of all, you can load your creations in the full version of Reason for more flexibility.
Legendary synth company Moog offers a mobile recreation of their classic Minimoog Model D synthesizer for iOS, and they’ve recently made it available for free. The user interface is identical to the hardware synth, so there may be a bit of a learning curve for non-synth-heads, but with 160 presets, anyone can dive in and start making sounds.
iMPC is a sampler and sequencer app that recreates the classic AKAI MPC used on countless hip-hop and electronic records since 1988. iMPC comes with 1,200 samples to build your beats, but the real fun begins when you use your iPad’s built-in mic or line input to record your own samples. You can even sample songs from your music library with the turntable interface (just be sure to officially clear those samples if you publish your work).
Desktop Mini-Synths
The past few years have seen an explosion of small-format synthesizers from boutique and mainstream brands alike. As collectable as they are fun, these portable sound libraries are the equivalent of guitar pedals in their potential for addictiveness. Whether you’re into lush futuristic sounds, lo-fi chiptune or sampling things around the house, there’s something for you on our synth shortlist.
Korg has been a titan of the synthesizer game since the early 1970s, and their bite-sized Volca series synths are no joke. The Volca Keys, Volca Bass, Volca Beats, Volca Kick, Volca Modular and Volca Nubass each specialize in a making a particular kind of sound and are designed to be interconnected, so the fun grows exponentially when you mix and match.
Swedish synth-makers Teenage Engineering have only been on the scene since 2005, but their flagship OP-1 synthesizer and sampler has gained a loyal following and won multiple awards. Recently, Teenage Engineering introduced the more affordable OP-Z, a stripped-down cousin to the OP-1 with its own unique design and feature set.
Critter & Guitari is another boutique company making a splash in the synth world with their flagship Organelle Music Computer. You wouldn’t know it from the clean design and wooden buttons for keys, but the Organelle houses a powerful synth and processing engine capable of conjuring a mind-blowing range of sounds. A variety of inputs and outputs (including an onboard speaker and microphone), make the Organelle an extremely flexible little box.
MIDI Controllers and Workstations
If making music with a computer is more your style, a good MIDI controller can unlock the creative potential of virtual instruments. Short for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, MIDI is a universal language that allows you to play computer-based instruments with physical controllers like keyboards and drum pads. Most recording programs, like GarageBand and Pro Tools, come with a suite of great-sounding free instrument plugins to play with.
The Seaboard Block is a scaled-down version of the revolutionary Seaboard by Roli, designed to connect with their modular Blocks peripherals. While it retains the standard key layout of a piano, that’s where the similarities end. Seaboards offer an extremely tactile experience, responding to the pressure and movement of each finger to manipulate various parameters of the sound.
INSTRUMENT 1 by Artiphon is a rather unique MIDI controller designed to be played in a variety of ways that you just aren’t possible with a standard keyboard. Six buttons, one knob and a fretboard-like layout allow you to strum it like a guitar, slide and bow notes like a violin or tap out rhythms like a drum pad. Coming soon from Artiphon is the ORBA, an all-in-one handheld synth, looper and controller.
If making beats is your thing, look no further than Maschine Mikro by Native Instruments. Like its bigger cousins in the Maschine family, Maschine Mikro is more than a MIDI controller—it interfaces directly with Native Instruments Komplete software to put any instrument, sample or effect in your library at your fingertips.
Odds and Ends
If none of the above strike your fancy and you’re looking for something a little more novel, get weird with some of these utterly unique instruments. With strange form factors that encourage unusual playing techniques, these devices are sure to get you thinking (and playing) outside the box.
Introduced in 1981, the retro-futuristic Omnichord was Suzuki’s attempt to create an easy-to-learn casual instrument for non-musicians—not knowing it would gain a cult following and become a prized thrift shop find decades later. Similar to an electronic autoharp, the user holds down one of the predetermined chord buttons, then “strums” or taps the built-in ribbon controller to create chiming tones and ethereal washes of sound that are always in key.
Shaped like a musical note with a face, the Otamatone is a Japanese novelty instrument that combines a simple synthesizer with an expressive ribbon controller and a unique method of controlling the tone. Sound comes out of a speaker in the face-shaped bulb on the bottom, and squeezing the bulb opens the Otamatone’s “mouth,” modulating the sound to achieve a variety of quasi-human vocal tones (yeah, it’s a little creepy).
The Stereo Field Capacitive Touch Synthesizer by Landscape is another highly tactile instrument—in fact, it passes signal through the user’s own body. Touching the array of capacitive sensors physically bridges the circuits inside, triggering the synthesizer as well as effects like distortion, filtering and noise (all in stereo). Input and output jacks let you patch different circuits together, process external sounds or even control another synthesizer.
Here’s the Point…
Whatever your level of musical skill or technical geekery, the perfect instrument is waiting for you. Find something to strum, pluck, tap or program, and start bringing more music (and sanity) to your daily life. You’ll be glad you did.
