The Easiest Instruments to Learn

More than half of American households have someone in them, who can play at least one instrument, and if you want to join their number, we’ve got some good news for you. 

Learning an instrument doesn’t have to be hard.

In fact, if you were to learn an instrument from our list, within 3 months you could say, truthfully, “I can play an instrument.” 

So, why not get started, today?

The Recorder

There’s a good reason that many school music lessons begin with the recorder. It’s a low cost instrument, it’s fun to play and it doesn’t take a lot of heavy breath work to make it sound good. 

In short, it’s physically undemanding, financially undemanding and the simple number of notes you can make with a recorder make it mentally undemanding to learn too.

One really nice thing about learning to play a recorder is that once you’ve mastered one, you can play them all and there are several different types of recorder for each different pitch.

Percussion Instruments

There’s something almost primal about hitting a drum or banging on a bongo and if you don’t feel ready to tackle a tuned instrument then you can keep things simple and start with percussion.

You can’t play a wrong note on these instruments, you’ve just got to learn to keep time with them.

One great way to learn is to join a drum circle, which will save you from paying for lessons, and introduce you to a bunch of new and supportive friends who will help you learn. 

A Full Drum Kit

Once you’ve had a practice with the percussion instruments going solo, you can always shell out for a full drum kit and either some Zidjian or Sabian cymbals.

However, you need to make sure you have a space, far enough away from others to practice in, otherwise you may find you start to annoy people.

It’s an easy thing to learn though and you can always hammer your drum kit to the music of your favorite band which makes you feel like you’re making progress without too much effort!

Nylon String Guitar

No need to run before you can walk. While all guitars are relatively easy to learn to play once you’ve learned to play one, the nylon string guitar is the easiest to begin with. 

Why? Well, because steel strings are tougher on your fingers and you can find that they hurt until you’re used to the flow of the strings. 

It’s a little harder to learn than the recorder or the drums but if you use an online guitar school you can get all the help you need to “git gud” from the privacy of your own home. 

Ukulele

The traveler’s favorite instrument, at least at the moment, is the ukulele because it’s small and easy to fit in an overhead compartment on a flight and one more thing…

It’s very easy to learn to play, which means you can spend a few months practicing and then fly off to a desert island to impress the local nightlife’s patrons with your song playing talents. 

The ukulele’s a great place to start as there are plenty of resources to help you learn and because it’s a lot of fun.

You could even pretend you were George Formby. 

The Keyboard

OK, this one’s probably the “hardest” instrument to learn on our list because there’s a bit more to learn about a keyboard than there is a drum or a guitar.

However, if you’re prepared to put the effort in, it doesn’t have to be a huge uphill battle to learn to play the keyboard, either.

The trick is to learn to play simple songs first, ones which require simple hand movements (such as the classic hymn, “Oh, when the saints come marching in!”) and to build up to more complex things over time.

One advantage of a keyboard over a piano is that it can provide automated percussion to help you keep a beat while you work out how to play a song. 

You are never too old or too late to learn an instrument and these instruments are super easy to get you started and help you gain confidence.

Once you’ve mastered one instrument, you’ll quickly find that you can master another and another and then the sky’s the limit. 

If you do master an instrument and then start writing your own music, you can lay down the tracks at home using one of these extremely affordable digital audio workstations. 

Dream big!