My hand joints are getting better finally and I wanna learn an instrument. The thing is, I’m dumb and have struggled really badly with reading music in the past.
Clapping your hands
Guitar and ukelele are relatively easy to learn and don’t require reading music. Ukelele would probably be a bit easier on your joints though.
The bass is a great instrument as it’s easy to pick up and be able to use decently but it also has a super high skill ceiling.
I’m a woodwind person. I have the most fun with flute, but the sax is more accessible in my experience. You could also have fun with a penny whistle, there’s a lot of rep for it and you can play bagpipe repertoire on one too.
The biggest thing is to practice and respect the instrument. There’s a lifetime of mastery ahead of you, and approach it with patience and hard work.
Also, have fun!
Speaking as a guitarist, I have to say guitar is the easiest instrument to pick up and almost immediately make a cool sound with. Also, you can use guitar tab to play songs you’re familiar with. Tabs don’t really show rhythm, unlike sheet music, but are simple to read.
Triangle. In all honesty piano/keyboard is great. It has basic music theory built in.
Recorder.
As others have stated: you don’t necessarily need to read music for it to be fun. And there are different ways of notation. Chords, for example, are a great way to learn music without having to read on a per note basis.
Acoustic guitar is fairly easy to pick up. It will take a few days of pain to get your fingers accustomed to pressing the strings though. Takes quite some pressure from your fingers. But after those first few days, you’re golden. It’s also easier to change in which “key” you play a song(oversimplified: how high or low the whole song is).
Piano is another pretty easy instrument to learn chords on. The upside of piano is that you won’t have pain in the fingers for your first few days. You press and you’ll have a sound. It is harder to play in different “keys” though.
Keyboard is an interesting one too: You’ll learn chords like with the piano, but you’ll have acces to more sounds, backing tracks etc in your keyboard if you’d go that route.
Flutes and such are quite easy to get into, but can be a bit less interesting if you only play on your own.
But in the end, most instruments takes practice and time. Just set your own goals on what you find important.
It will take a few days of pain to get your fingers accustomed to pressing the strings
starting with Classical (nylon) strings is easier on the fingers. Or get a ukulele: fewer strings to press.
The Triangle. There’s that joke about the guy going to practice each week, he shows up, plays “ding!”, teacher goes “great work, you’re getting so much better! See you next week!”, and then he leaves.
I barely read music. I think guitar or ukulele are the easiest to sound decent on. Strummed instruments just require a lot less technique to get a good sound from. Learn E, A, and Bm7 on a guitar and you can play the blues.
Trombone, full stop. If you have hand issues, the trombone is definitely the instrument to start with. There are other instruments of course, but for your particular predicament that’s what I would recommend.
Ocarina
Here’s everything I have learned to play because it was easy as shit:
- Flute (hardest thing is getting the mouth placement down. Once you have that you’re on easy street; and I think this is probably true of all woodwinds and brass instruments)
- Mouth harp (boingy boingy boingy)
- Ocarina
- Harmonica
- Theramin (pretend you’re a wizard!)
- Tambourine
- Taiko drums
- Bongos
- Xylophone
- Cymbals
- Cannon
The only instrument I have learned that was difficult and took years to get even semi okay at was piano. And I mostly attribute that to my small hands, because I can play so much better on a MicroKORG than a full size keyboard.
Not enough music features cannons.
1812 overture… Any others? Seems like something GWAR might have included somewhere.
Hmm, I’d say the Theramin is easy to have fun with, but to actually learn to play songs it is up there in difficulty with the violin. It is one of, if not THE most precise instrument there is.
Singing, your throat becomes the instrument
practice. Nothing is easy without it. With it even the hardest is possible. So he question is how willing you are to dedicate practice time. Half an hour per day, every day for a few years.
