Which musical instrument should you choose? Unusual musical instruments that are easy to learn to play.

If I had been asked this question 5 years ago, I would have answered no. Having a teacher who sets the stage, corrects your skills, and corrects mistakes is a key part of any learning experience. But given the fact that the Internet is now available, even those teachers who previously taught at home or in schools are gradually coming to online teaching.

Let's get straight to the main question. Is it possible to learn to play musical instruments online? Yes. And I will try to describe all the ways of online learning. The main disadvantage of online learning is that you are on your own. For some, this may be an advantage, but the speed of such learning is much lower than learning with a live teacher.

The ideal option would be if you have already learned the basics of playing the instrument. Then it will be much easier to study from materials on the Internet. Here are some resources to help you get into the world of music or improve your skills.

YouTube

Perhaps the most best way learn to play online. There are many channels on YouTube that teach you how to play musical instruments. Mainly it's a guitar, but there are others. For example:

• Martyzsongs- a lot of video lessons that cover popular guitar riffs and songs. There are already more than 1000 videos on the channel. You'll have plenty to do!
• Andy Crowley— a channel for beginners who have just entered the world of guitar, drugs and rock and roll. This channel covers the basics of playing the guitar, various techniques and sound production techniques.
• Lypur— a channel that focuses on keyboard instruments and music theory. Despite the fact that the channel is no longer active (the last video was posted a little less than a year ago), the channel has collected huge amount material that will teach you the basics of music theory and piano playing.
• Drumeo is a channel dedicated to gaming percussion instruments. Suitable for both beginners and people who already know what rimshots and paradiddles are.
• Eric Arceneaux is a performing vocalist who runs his own Youtube channel, where he shares the basics of vocals, production, warming up and improving the voice.

Unfortunately, all the channels listed are in English. There are training videos on Youtube in Russian, but not only is their quality noticeably inferior to their foreign counterparts, almost all the materials are not combined and are published irregularly.

In addition, all of the above channels have websites where you can find various educational materials, tablature, sheet music, etc.

Forums

On the forums you can also find many useful information. Apart from forum trolls who consider their opinion to be the only correct and unshakable one, you can actually meet knowledgeable people and experts in their field who will be happy to share their experience. Here are the forums that I could find:

• GuitarPlayer.ru is the largest Russian-language guitar forum. Tens of thousands of topics and hundreds of thousands of messages on any topic related to playing the guitar. Equipment, guitar techniques, search for musicians, analysis of various compositions - all this can be found on GuitarPlayer.ru. Also in Russian!
• DrumSpeech is an educational site with lessons, articles and interesting materials for drummers. The design of the site and forum leaves much to be desired, but we didn’t come there to look at the design.
• PianoWorld is an American forum for pianists. Its scale is simply amazing, so if you want to learn how to play keyboards and own English, feel free to step there!

Mobile applications

The AppStore and Google Play have many applications that can teach you how to play musical instruments. I wrote about what music apps I use on my iPhone, take a look, some might be useful to you too.

Ultimate Guitar

Guitar website with apps of the same name for iOS and Android. It contains tens of thousands of guitar tabs and chords. There are also various auxiliary tools there. For example, a chord chart and a metronome.

Lick of the day

An application that contains many guitar riffs for improvisation. The app is free, but most riffs need to be purchased using in-app purchases.

Guitar Lessons Free

An Android application containing many lessons on playing the guitar. The developer translated the description of his application into Russian via Google Translate, but never got to the application itself. Therefore, only for those who understand English.

Google Helpouts

I have not tested this method, but judging by the reviews and ratings, it also deserves a place on the list. Google Helpouts is an online platform that contains live lessons in various fields. Next to each lesson is written the time when it is held and the price.

The price is quite high, but I cannot verify the quality of these lessons. However, the reviews that each teacher has can help with this.

Conclusion

I did not describe methods such as video conferencing on Skype or many groups with VKontakte materials. But there’s not much to talk about here. There are many ways to learn to play. You will have to devote at least an hour a day to this.

When you start learning without a teacher, the most important thing is to stick to specific schedule, and for this you must have real motivation. Don't expect that in a week you will be able to play and surprise everyone you know with your great skills. For this you will need much more time. But everything will depend on how much you want it and how much time you can devote.

When you achieve some success, you can start recording yourself and listening from the outside. You don't need powerful studio equipment for this. A voice recorder, smartphone or computer is enough. If you have an electric guitar or synthesizer, you can connect it to your computer and record the sound into the computer. For example, using Guitar Rig.

The most important! Do it for your own pleasure. Music should bring joy and positive emotions. If lessons become uninteresting and a burden, then you are doing something wrong. Learn, try to play something of your own, no matter how bad it sounds, and develop.

If I had been asked this question 5 years ago, I would have answered no. Having a teacher who sets the stage, corrects your skills, and corrects mistakes is a key part of any learning experience. But given the fact that the Internet is now available, even those teachers who previously taught at home or in schools are gradually coming to online teaching.

Let's get straight to the main question. Is it possible to learn to play musical instruments online? Yes. And I will try to describe all the ways of online learning. The main disadvantage of online learning is that you are on your own. For some, this may be an advantage, but the speed of such learning is much lower than learning with a live teacher.

The ideal option would be if you have already learned the basics of playing the instrument. Then it will be much easier to study from materials on the Internet. Here are some resources to help you get into the world of music or improve your skills.

YouTube

Perhaps the best way to learn to play online. There are many channels on YouTube that teach you how to play musical instruments. Mainly it's a guitar, but there are others. For example:

• Martyzsongs- a lot of video lessons that cover popular guitar riffs and songs. There are already more than 1000 videos on the channel. You'll have plenty to do!
• Andy Crowley— a channel for beginners who have just entered the world of guitar, drugs and rock and roll. This channel covers the basics of playing the guitar, various techniques and methods of sound production.
• Lypur— a channel that focuses on keyboard instruments and music theory. Despite the fact that the channel is no longer active (the last video was posted a little less than a year ago), the channel has collected a huge amount of material that will teach you the basics of music theory and piano playing.
• Drumeo is a channel dedicated to playing percussion instruments. Suitable for both beginners and people who already know what rimshots and paradiddles are.
• Eric Arceneaux is a performing vocalist who runs his own Youtube channel, where he shares the basics of vocals, production, warming up and improving the voice.

Unfortunately, all the channels listed are in English. There are training videos on Youtube in Russian, but not only is their quality noticeably inferior to their foreign counterparts, almost all the materials are not combined and are published irregularly.

In addition, all of the above channels have websites where you can find various educational materials, tablature, sheet music, etc.

Forums

You can also find a lot of useful information on the forums. Apart from forum trolls who consider their opinion to be the only correct and unshakable one, there you can meet really knowledgeable people and specialists in their field who will be happy to share their experience. Here are the forums that I could find:

• GuitarPlayer.ru is the largest Russian-language guitar forum. Tens of thousands of topics and hundreds of thousands of messages on any topic related to playing the guitar. Equipment, guitar techniques, search for musicians, analysis of various compositions - all this can be found on GuitarPlayer.ru. Also in Russian!
• DrumSpeech is an educational site with lessons, articles and interesting materials for drummers. The design of the site and forum leaves much to be desired, but we didn’t come there to look at the design.
• PianoWorld is an American forum for pianists. Its scale is simply amazing, so if you want to learn how to play keyboard instruments and speak English, feel free to go there!

Mobile applications

The AppStore and Google Play have many applications that can teach you how to play musical instruments. I wrote about what music apps I use on my iPhone, take a look, some might be useful to you too.

Ultimate Guitar

Guitar website with apps of the same name for iOS and Android. It contains tens of thousands of guitar tabs and chords. There are also various auxiliary tools there. For example, a chord chart and a metronome.

Lick of the day

An application that contains many guitar riffs for improvisation. The app is free, but most riffs need to be purchased using in-app purchases.

Guitar Lessons Free

An Android application containing many lessons on playing the guitar. The developer translated the description of his application into Russian via Google Translate, but never got to the application itself. Therefore, only for those who understand English.

Google Helpouts

I have not tested this method, but judging by the reviews and ratings, it also deserves a place on the list. Google Helpouts is an online platform that contains live lessons in various fields. Next to each lesson is written the time when it is held and the price.

The price is quite high, but I cannot verify the quality of these lessons. However, the reviews that each teacher has can help with this.

Conclusion

I did not describe methods such as video conferencing on Skype or many groups with VKontakte materials. But there’s not much to talk about here. There are many ways to learn to play. You will have to devote at least an hour a day to this.

When you start studying without a teacher, the most important thing is to stick to a certain schedule, and for this you must have real motivation. Don't expect that in a week you will be able to play and surprise everyone you know with your great skills. For this you will need much more time. But everything will depend on how much you want it and how much time you can devote.

When you achieve some success, you can start recording yourself and listening from the outside. You don't need powerful studio equipment for this. A voice recorder, smartphone or computer is enough. If you have an electric guitar or synthesizer, you can connect it to your computer and record the sound into the computer. For example, using Guitar Rig.

The most important! Do it for your own pleasure. Music should bring joy and positive emotions. If lessons become uninteresting and a burden, then you are doing something wrong. Learn, try to play something of your own, no matter how bad it sounds, and develop.

If you want to learn how to play a musical instrument, but have not yet decided which one, this article is for you. Which musical instrument easiest to learn? This question is often asked by people who have decided to study music, but have encountered some difficulties in mastering this multifaceted art.

To allow this problem, we need to consider all types of musical instruments and identify their main features.

Types of musical instruments.

Conventionally, all existing musical instruments can be divided into three categories:

• rhythmic,
• monophonic (single-voice)
• polyphonic (polyphonic)

It is in this sequence that the difficulty in mastering them increases.
By using rhythmic instruments, as their name suggests, the musician can create rhythm. A typical example such a tool may be various types drums

All sorts of musical complexities, such as pitch, chords, bass and solo lines, are out of the question here, so purely theoretically, learning to play such an instrument is much easier than learning to play a guitar or piano. In addition, the presence musical ear this is not at all necessary: ​​it is enough to have a good sense of rhythm, and if you don’t have one, you can always develop it in yourself.

Playing monophonic, or, more simply put, single-voice instruments, you can create a melody. It will sound as if we sang it “with one voice.” There are a great variety of monophonic musical instruments: wind instruments (trumpet, flute, saxophone), string instruments (violin, cello) and many, many others.

The ease or difficulty of mastering such instruments largely depends on the technique of sound extraction, since this is often not easy. For example, on a trumpet, the sound itself is produced using a special vibration of the musician’s lips, and the instrument itself only enhances and corrects this sound.

Learn to play polyphonic (multi-voice) instruments, perhaps the most difficult. In this case, in addition to the main melody, either a bass melody or an accompaniment is extracted - a sequence of chords that creates an emotional and rhythmic background for the entire musical work. The most popular instruments in this category are the button accordion, accordion, guitar and piano (or synthesizer).

The main difficulty in the game is that the two hands of the musician play different notes or chords, i.e. move independently. And if the player who plays such an instrument also sings, this is already aerobatics!
As can be seen from the above, than more complex tool, the more complete and beautiful musical works can be created using it. The above classification, of course, is not universal, because there are virtuoso drummers, whose performance not everyone will dare to repeat, and there are also guitarists who know only three chords.

In any case, if a person learns to play an instrument, the main factor will be his enthusiasm and love for music. And when these qualities are present, then you can easily and with great pleasure master any instrument, no matter how complex it may seem.

Also, listen to yourself! And you will find the answer inside your soul. This is the most correct answer!

For many people, the love for music comes already at a conscious age, when there is time to visit music schools It's just not there anymore. Below is a list of musical instruments that are easy to learn and play.

Guitar

Even teachers of classical music schools confirm that the guitar is the easiest instrument to learn among strings. The thing is that to develop an ear for music with its help, systematic hard training is enough, which requires no more than an hour a day.

You just need to learn a couple of chords and you can already play a simple melody. With each new chord and way of playing you learn, the variety of possible melodies increases many times over.

Drums

It’s very easy to play the drums - everything is driven by a sense of rhythm. To start, take 2-3 small classic drums. Gradually increase their number and add new instruments, such as cymbals. Over time, you will assemble a full-fledged installation of bass, snare, and floor drums.

By the way, good drummers are in great demand among many musical groups, so your talent may come in handy in the future.

One of the few downsides to these tools is that a large setup requires a lot of space, which is so often lacking at home. In addition, the drums are very noisy, and you can only practice on them until 8 pm.

Brass

Among the pipers and trumpeters, there are also instruments that are not at all difficult to learn to play.

This includes the zafun - a hybrid model, a mixture of a clarinet body and a saxophone whistle. Despite the fact that it resembles an ordinary pipe, the zafun produces interesting sounds, similar to a clarinet or oboe. The range of this wind instrument is not very wide, but it is quite interesting to play.

There is another option: the saxonet is an instrument similar to the zafun, mainly with wooden case. It is often used in junior music schools to teach children how to produce sound from reeds.

Synthesizer

Of course, an instrument such as a piano requires perseverance from a person who wants to learn how to play it. But there are simplified variations - for example, a synthesizer. Some of them initially have a self-instruction program.

An electronic keyboard with a reduced number of keys but expanded sound functionality will allow you to create original compositions with different sounds. You can even achieve the effect of playing multiple instruments at the same time.

If you want to perform with your synthesizer on the street or in concert halls, it is better to purchase additional speakers - they will significantly increase the volume and power of the sound output. Beginning musicians especially like small models that can be transported from place to place by simply putting them in a briefcase.

Harmonica

Surely you have seen lonely cowboys with this instrument in their hands in many films about the Wild West. In fact, learning to play it is not very difficult.

The peculiarity is that while playing the harmonica, the musician perceives the sound differently than his listeners, due to the touch of his lips and hands. To understand your sound, record it on a voice recorder.

Start your lessons by playing chords and individual sounds, gradually moving on to combining them and playing simple melodies. Review and listen to performances by professional harmonica players - harpers. Copying their style will be helpful for you at first.

Using a harmonica as an example, this video shows the process of choosing a musical instrument for beginners:

1. Xylophone.
The xylophone is a great instrument for learning music and is certainly one of the simplest. The bars of a xylophone are similar to the arrangement of notes on a piano, and they are struck with special hammers to produce sound. Plastic xylophones are one of the most common toys for children.

2. Autoharp.
If you have knowledge of chords and are willing to learn, the autoharp is for you. A big plus is that all strings except those involved in the chord are muted, so you won't be out of tune while playing.


3. Comb.
This musical instrument is not only easy to learn to play, it is also easy to make. All you need is a comb and tissue paper. Wrap the comb in paper and off you go.


4. Kazoo.
A kazoo is a small metal or plastic cylinder that tapers to a point. A metal plug with a tissue paper membrane is inserted into the middle of the cylinder on top. It is very easy to perform music on a kazoo - you just need to sing into it, and the paper membrane will change your voice beyond recognition.


5. Bongo.
Learning to play the bongo is very easy. A bongo is a combination of two drums that are connected together. To play it, it is held between the knees. The surface of the bongo is struck with the palms and fingertips.


6. Diamonds
Tambourines are small drums that are held in the hand. Some types of tambourines have metal bells attached to them, which begin to ring when the performer strikes the membrane of the tambourine, rubs it, or shakes the entire instrument. You can shake it, hit the surface of the tambourine with your fingers or knuckles, or use any other methods depending on what works best for you. This is a very simple musical instrument.


7. Drums
Although the drums seem very difficult, they are easy to learn to play if you have a sense of rhythm. You don't have to start with a full drum kit when you start learning. Just learn to play us bass drum or hi-hat. The most important thing in this case is the sense of rhythm.