It seems that few fields are more daunting to those outside them than music. No matter our chosen profession or creative field, we all speak a language, so writing words in that language is not a far stretch. Many of us have drawn or used crayons extensively in our school careers. Some of us even danced at our weddings.
But music ... to those who don't already make music or speak the language of music, doing anything with music can seem scary, or at least a lot of work. Many of us took music lessons as children, and many others watched our friends take music lessons. Both groups know how much time it takes to become proficient on an instrument, and so if we don't already make music, we shy away.
And the way it's written! Dots and lines and smaller dots and squiggles -- it's like learning a foreign language in high school all over again!
And yet there are many ways to make music that are easy, simple, fun ... and don't require you to get out in front of an audience or join a large organization. One of the easiest to do is ...
Drumming
I got in trouble for this one a lot in school. I've always had a musical streak, so when my mind or body would have some downtime, I'd frequently be found beating a rhythm on my desktop. It drove teachers to distraction (and as a teacher myself, I can see why it did, though at the time I thought nothing of it).
You don't need any fancy equipment, though if you want to, there are plenty of drums out there to invest in. At a bare minimum, you need your two hands and something to tap them on. You can also use spoons on pots and pans, pencils (the eraser end works best) on desktops, or feet on floors. Anything that will make a noise is perfect for this (and if you've ever seen a production of Stomp, you know just how many things there are in this world that will make a sound).
So how do you start? If you're uncomfortable with it, just take one hand, and start tapping out a steady rhythm -- imagine watching a video of someone walking at a comfortable pace down the street, and you're providing the sound effects of his footfalls. Once you're comfortable with that, add in the second hand beating in time with the first.
Once that's comfortable, keep the first hand steady, but have the second hand tap in the space between the first hand's beats. Congratulations -- you now have the most basic pattern mastered. Much of the rest of drumming is just changing the speed or frequency of these hits. Try it -- make both hands go a little faster, or slow them up and put more space between hits.
Then there's the accent -- one hand hits extra hard every so often. (This is where playing on a soft surface like your lap is better than a hard surface -- less pain from accents.)
Try dropping some hits -- instead of left-right-left-right, play left-right-(silence)-right. Then change where the silence falls.
Hit different surfaces at different times -- your kitchen table top makes a different sound than the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Experiment with how the different sounds interact.
Hit surfaces with different things -- when I'm drumming, sometimes I'll curve my left hand so my palm and fingertips hit, but other times I'll straighten the fingers so my wedding ring hits. Very different sounds, all from the same basic technique.
Once you've done this, experiment more -- more surfaces, more rhythms, more things to hit with. Empty (or full) cans and boxes and containers, silverware, screwdrivers and wrenches, cement floors, coat zippers, pockets full of change ... you can create a rhythm with anything, and once you start doing it, you'll find it becomes addictive. Drumming like this forces you to think in new and varied ways, to look at the physical makeup of things around you, to plan ahead for how you're going to hit a surface and when you're going to hit a surface to make the sound you want.
And now that you've mastered drumming, come back next week for some more music, this time using actual notes to make a song.
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