6 Great Instruments to Try Later in Life

3. Play the piano​ ​

Great for hand-eye coordination, the piano is the instrument people most commonly tell Baker they’ve always wanted to learn but haven’t gotten around to doing so.​ ​

“You can start out very simply, with just one hand, then you can gradually increase the complexity to both hands — with each one doing a different thing,” Baker says. ​ ​

The piano’s 88 keys may look overwhelming, but there are only 12 keys that get repeated over and over again.​ ​

“Once you learn those 12 keys, then you’ve learned the whole keyboard,” Baker says. “You can get comfortable pretty quickly.”​ ​

Joy Underhill, 66, a retired business writer from Farmington, New York, began piano lessons at 62. She has embraced the step-by-step structure of learning triads and inversions on the 70-year-old piano she inherited from her aunt — and the patience required in doing so.​ ​

“I’m not playing at lightning speed and I likely never will, and that’s OK,” she says. “The piano gives me a goal that’s never reached. It’s great for the brain because it requires playing with 10 fingers, reading music, interpreting the music … there’s a lot going on there. But when you do it well, it’s like a little switch turns on. I love when that happens,” Underhill says.​ ​

4. Blow on the harmonica​ ​

Unlike most instruments, the harmonica is designed to play in one key.​ ​

“Someone playing a standard instrument has landmines of wrong notes all around them, whereas the harmonica has only the ‘right notes,’ ” says Grammy-nominated blues harmonica player David Barrett, founder of School of the Blues in San Jose, California.​ ​

It takes very little breath to inhale and exhale softly over the instrument’s holes — a technique called the tongue block embouchure. As Barrett describes it, your mouth surrounds four holes while you block the three holes to the left with your tongue, leaving a single note on the right to play one note. Achieving a clean, single note is a key element in many styles of music played on the harmonica.​ ​

The next step is exploring taking your tongue on and off for chordal effect.​ ​

“Resist the urge to just pucker up and blow on the harmonica, like blowing out a candle with pursed lips,” says Barrett, who teaches, judges and performs at harmonica events around the world.​ ​

By using the tongue block embouchure from the beginning, “you’re setting yourself up with a good foundation for interesting effects down the road.”​ ​

5. Hit some percussion​ ​

You don’t really need any experience to play a hand drum or tambourine, says Baker. ​ ​

“If you have a natural sense of rhythm, then either would be a good fit,” she says. “You might even see yourself as a more creative person as you start to express yourself through music.”​ ​

For drums, she suggests trying the bongos, a conga or the djembe — a West African, rope-tuned goblet drum.​ ​

6. Use your voice​ ​

Research out of Northwestern University published in a 2015 issue of the journal Music Perception found that the ability to sing on key may have more in common with the kind of practice that goes into playing an instrument than people realize.​ ​

“As humans, we really were born to sing, but sadly many adults grew up with the belief that they couldn’t sing or that they were tone-deaf,” says Webb. “I’ve never run into anyone at any age who doesn’t learn to match pitch and improve their tone if they stick with it long enough.”​ ​

Deciding on your voice as an instrument is a good investment for other reasons as well.​ ​

“There’s no cost to purchase, and you can get started with it right away,” says Baker. “It’s always with you wherever you go, and there are a lot of different ways it can be used.”​​​