What with the current fascination with sea shanties and sea songs, I figured that some folks might be interested in trying out the musical instruments of Western sailors of the 1800s and early 1900s. While a classic shanty tended to be sung just with vocals, sailors played a variety of musical instruments popular in their eras, and in the Folk Revivals of the mid 1900s, lots of musicians did fine work adding instrumentation to the old tunes.
Maybe you’re an experienced musician looking to try a new sound after discovering sea songs, or maybe you’ve never played a note and hearing these great old tunes has inspired you to learn. In whatever case, in this little write-up I’m going to lay out some of the traditional instruments of the era which were favored by sailors, and explain for each how affordable and easy to learn they can be, and link you in some examples to listen to and places to learn more about each instrument.
I’m not a PhD musicologist, but I do have a lot of research background, been playing traditional music for over 30 years, and have a general handle on the scene and the era. And I have for over a decade done little projects online to encourage people to push their boundaries and break away from the mainstream by trying musical instruments beyond the most common ones. Being entranced by a new genre of music is a fine time to further expand your horizons by taking up an instrument and making music yourself.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
WINDS *
Tinwhistle *
Flute (and piccolo and fife) *
Trumpet STRINGS *
Guitar *
Banjo (and banjo ukulele) *
Fiddle *
Mandolin *
Ukulele FREE REEDS *
Harmonica *
Concertina *
Melodeon/Button Accordion *
(Toy Accordion/Melodeon) PERCUSSION *
Drums *
(Bodhrán) NOT TRADITIONAL SAILOR INSTRUMENTS, BUT WOULD SOUND AWESOME WITH SHANTIES *
Appalachian/Mountain dulcimer *
Udu or Ibo drum *
Bagpipe *
Electronic Instruments I will note before we begin, especially in the budget category, there are some real bargains but plenty of junk, so please use this article as a starting point, but read up a little on best buys. Don’t just say “oh, I dig Irish flute, and I see a new one on eBay for $50, sounds like a bargain!” and buy it without doing a little research, or you’ll get stuck wasting time and money on unplayable junk. All the more so for used instruments, which can offer great savings, but you really want to buy from a reputable dealer or a musician, or have an ironclad strategy for DIY repair, lest you get something too out of whack to learn on and too pricey to repair. Plenty of bargains, just don’t get impulsive, do just a little research before each purchase and you’ll be glad you did. There are online communities full of geeks like me for each of these instruments, who'd be happy to chat with you about choosing a good one for your money, and how you can best learn to play.
We’re looking largely at the instruments of seafaring European (and diaspora) folk of the 1800s and early 1900s, which you can note largely resembled the instruments of the working class on land, farmers and city laborers, just with an eye towards durability and portability at sea. Fortunately, many of these instruments are relatively affordable, intuitive to learn (they had to be, to catch on with a largely illiterate population that just wanted to get to playing music without fuss), and often rugged and compact for travel. I realized after I finished this article that all these instruments can be learned by ear and video without formal written study, and (with the exception of fiddle) beginner tutorials for them are written in “tablature” (numbers that say where your fingers go) rather than sheet music, making them even easier to learn for total novices.
WINDS Wind instruments had the huge advantage of being relatively compact, simple, and affordable, and some of them had a dual purpose for signaling or for military music, or just being heard above the noise of work and waves to keep a rhythm for work or dancing.
Tinwhistle A tinwhistle is a small metal pipe with six finger-holes, and a whistle-like mouthpiece that directs the breath onto a sharp edge that produces the note. Like a referee’s whistle but with control of the notes.
The great thing about tinwhistle is you can get a totally serviceable instrument for literally $9 or so; they’re just that cheap to make. There are professional Irish musicians who spend decades playing $9 whistles (often doing a little fine-tuning on their own to smooth them out), so they’re by no means just toys. Even if you aren’t in a hurry to learn, honestly at that price you might as well pick one up next time you’re shopping online, and give it a whirl. An instrument you could own for life for the price of a decent 6-pack. The subreddit
tinwhistle can provide advice and resources, and off-Reddit there’s the specialized
Chiff and Fipple Forum.
If you buy a tinwhistle as a beginner, absolutely get one in the Key of D (the most common key), because 99% of teaching materials are for D, the common key for Irish music. (You'll notice an Irish crossover trend in much of this advice). There are some tutorials for shanties online, but honestly best bet would be to use some of the tutorials for Irish tunes just to learn the basics, and then you’ll swiftly be able to transition to learning other genres by ear.
"Drunken Sailor" tinwhistle duet with concertina Flute (including piccolo and fife) The flute is of course a tube where you blow across a hole to make a note. Most of us have seen the classical flute in videos, silver with all those fancy mechanical keys, but the flutes of the 1800s were largely wooden and had few or no keys, just open finger-holes like the tinwhistle. In the modern day, such “simple flutes” are largely associated with folk music, especially Irish, so there are plenty on the market, including affordable ones made of synthetic materials or metals. Just don't be seduced by import "rosewood" cheapies, they're junk, one made of PVC pipe by an actual musician would be a better buy than those wall-hangers.
I made a post on Chiff and Fipple
asking about affordable flutes and fifes, and got some good options under $50 for some really simple plastic tube instruments of decent make, and some finer Irish flutes turned from synthetics around $250. Flutes come in a variety of sizes, but like tinwhistles the easiest way to learn is using Irish music tutorials and then adding nautical repertoire once you have the basics down, so again probably get Key of D.
You can get a Low D flute about 2 feet long, or a High D flute (known as a fife or piccolo, or band flute) an octave above, the same rough size and pitch as a tinwhistle, just different method of blowing. The Low D instruments are pretty similar to each other, but for High D ("fife/piccolo/band flute") note some are "true fifes" made to play best at very high pitches for fife and drum music, others are meant to play smoothly at their lowest register, identical in range to a tinwhistle. So mind that distinction and ask the experts if you aren't sure which model suits your vision.
Dixon Irish flute duet with cittern (large mandolin cousin) Modern high-quality Irish keyless piccolo Trumpet In my poring over old engravings and photographs, I was struck by how many showed sailors playing various trumpet-type instruments in the late 1800s, which kind of makes sense given the cultural crossover with military Naval traditions, and the volume of a trumpet which helps cut through wind and noise for signaling or dance music. I’m sure there are a zillion good write-ups on buying a basic trumpet (from $100-300), so I’ll leave you go google those or visit
Trumpet.
But personally reading up for this article got even me thinking about trying my hand at a little brass. I'm honestly torn between getting one of the novel plastic "brass" instruments made for learners like pTrumpet or jHorn (around $100) because I like innovative design, or carefully buying an okay-quality used brass instrument (after consulting experts) for similar price. But I bet a whaler would've loved a plastic one if they'd been available in 1863.
"Wellerman" on trumpet STRINGS Guitar In my survey of period imagery, I did indeed find some images of men at sea playing guitar, but do bear in mind that guitar in the 1800s and early 1900s was nowhere near as omnipresent as it is today, and in different forms. Plenty of other instruments were far more popular, up until the mid-1900s where guitar really became a go-to choice in the West. Note too that steel strings on guitars, as well as larger body sizes, didn’t show up much until the early 1900s, so for much of this period those who played guitar played smaller body instruments, with gut strings (nowadays nylon strings sound almost like gut but are massively more durable and affordable).
That said, tons of musicians in the Folk Revivals of the 1900s played a modern large guitar with steel strings and sounded great, so it really depends what tradition and sound you want to imitate. Again there are thousands of write-ups on taking up guitar, and plethora of new and used models, steel strings or nylon, all sizes, so I’ll leave that to you to Google or hit up
LearnGuitar.
But I would encourage you to keep an open mind to guitar types to get a little more unusual flair in your musical stylings, break away from the crowd a bit. If you’re an experienced strings player, if you want to get that droning and modal sound you hear in shanties, try tuning your current guitar to the Drop D or DADGAD tunings (see
DADGAD), also popular in Irish music, and I think you’ll like your results.
And if you’re a novice considering starting on guitar, I’m one of those people who believes that 2 months on a $50 ukulele and then four months on a guitar gets you further ahead than 6 months on a guitar alone, because uke is just so much more accessible for the total beginner. (Plus you’ll end up having a spare uke to carry where your guitar is inconvenient and left at home.) So if you’re considering guitar, check
ukulele and ponder whether a uke of some sort could be an affordable and easy initial stage to launch your studies.
Irish jig on guitar in DADGAD tuning "Drunken Sailor" on nylon-strung guitar Banjo The banjo is an instrument developed by American enslaved people, inspired by related instruments they’d known in Africa. By the mid 1800s, the banjo had crossed demographic lines and become hugely popular with European-Americans and spread to other countries, far more popular than the guitar was at the time. It was the go-to plucked string instrument for much of the 1800s.
If you’re looking to take up banjo, know that the banjos of this period had a different sound and playing style than the modern bluegrass instrument, so set aside your stereotypes and listen to some recordings of “Old Time” banjo rather than the bluegrass and country licks you’re used to hearing in soundtracks. These banjos were less piercing, mellower, and a more languid style. And much like on guitars, steel strings were less common, gut being typical and having a much softer sound (today we have nylon options). So when you go reading up “how to choose a banjo” articles or visiting
Banjo (or
BanjoHangout.com), look for an “open back” banjo rather than one with the heavy metal ring around the head (“resonator”) which makes it louder and sharper for bluegrass.
If you want to get really traditional, and sound softer and be easier on your fingers, spend $9 to get nylon (imitating gut) strings for a much less cliché and smoother sound. (Just note nylon strings stretch like crazy for a few days until they break in and stabilize, be patient.) Speaking of sound, absolutely don’t fall into trying to learn the modern “three-finger” or “Scruggs” style of play, which is a post-WWII styling, but read up on the old “clawhammer” or “frailing” style of play, which sounds entirely different and may pleasantly surprise you if you thought you don’t like banjo.
"Wellerman" on 5-string banjo, played clawhammer style Nylon strings on a fretless banjo, just to show a very different sound I will briefly mention some banjo variants other than the 5-string type we’re mostly familiar with. There is also the “tenor banjo” which has four strings, lacking that shortened fifth string off to the side on the currently popular banjos. A tenor banjo is tuned differently: depending on what strings you’re using (and you can swap the strings out for about $10) it’s tuned either like a violin/mandolin, or like a guitaukulele, so those skills cross over well, and is slightly shorter than the common 5-string.
Three Irish reels on a tenor banjo And if you want a banjo that to one degree isn’t as historically associated with sailors, but to the other is actually surprisingly similar to the smaller and mellower banjos of the early 1800s, there’s the “banjo ukulele” hybrid which is quite affordable and easy to learn.
Frankly, if this is your first instrument and you want banjo, I’d get a banjo ukulele first rather than a 5-string, because they’re just so affordable (decent ones start around $100 new) and handy and easy to learn, and very mellow, not like the cliché sound you’d expect. And though they lack the fifth string, in the last decade or so a ton of YouTube uke experts have been developing the “clawhammer ukulele” style of play. It works impressively well on ukulele or banjo ukulele (which are played the exact same way, same online tutorials apply, they just have a different body and thus sound).
"Leave Her Johnny, Leave Her" on banjo ukulele, clawhammer style Fiddle The “fiddle” is physically basically the same as a violin, just played in a folk rather than classical style. There are probably millions of violins bouncing around the world, including plenty of used deals, but you really want to read up on how to find a good deal on a new or used one, because violins are a little finicky. I would also say that unless you’re extremely motivated or getting a Zoom teacher, I wouldn’t advise fiddle as your very first instrument. Because they lack frets and learning to use a bow is its own distinct skill, they have a bit of a steep initial learning curve. So you maybe want to learn a little ukulele or mandolin (which has the same fingering as fiddle) before jumping in. But that said, if you just love fiddle and are ambitious, or already have a little strings background, by all means dive on in. Learn it in standard tuning, but once you get the basics down, try "open tunings" for shanties and the like. Hit up
Fiddle for advice.
The fiddle was a hugely popular instrument from the 1700s up to the mid-1900s before falling off sharply heading into the rock ‘n’ roll era. With fiddle you can cover a huge variety of historical musical traditions.
"Blow Boys Blow" on fiddle, while singing (something you don’t see classical violinists do) Mandolin This originally Italian instrument took on a wider popularity in the Western world around the late 1800s and early 1900s, again being more popular than guitar in many areas during that period. A mandolin has the chording ability of the guitar but the melodic dexterity of a fiddle, is nice and compact especially compared to a large modern guitar, and can be bought in a passable starter model as low as ~$99. Though if you can stretch to a budget of more like $300, you’ll really appreciate the improvement.
Plenty of used ones floating around, though buy those from a musician or reputable dealer, not from randos on eBay with something they pulled out of a closet from ages ago. Mandolins are under very high tension, and older ones that are low quality or mistreated can be warped or cracked in ways a novice can’t easily notice, but that make them unsuitable to be played. Don't jump on the first "bargain" you see, mando is common enough that you'll see bargains every other day, don't get impulsive, get advice from mandolin players online.
I will note that although mandolin had a narrower time and place of popularity than banjo or especially fiddle, it closely resembles even earlier instruments like the “English guitar”, “cittern” and “Portuguese guitar” that were more widespread, so can serve as a partial stand-in for a number of centuries and locales. Plenty of good information at
mandolin awaits you if you want to take up mando.
Beginner mandolins are pretty affordable, and it's not too hard to learn, but it will take time for your hands to adjust and toughen up your finger pads. If you want to try mandolin tuning on an even more affordable instrument and with less string tension, you can get a basic starter ukulele and get Aquila's "Fifths" strings for ukulele (make sure to get the size that corresponds to the size of your uke) for $5-10 and string it in GDAE or CGDA, and then the fingerings would cross directly over to mandolin or mandola.
"Salt Water Shanty" tune on the mandolin An example of the related "Portuguese guitar", shared between England and Portugal by the sea trade, played on the docks of Lisbon for "fado" music "Bach 1st Cello Suite" on a ukulele re-strung to CGDA Ukulele The ukulele is based on traditional Portuguese small guitar-like instruments, and was introduced to the Hawaiian Islands in 1879 when the SS Ravenscrag brought over Portuguese immigrants in 1879. The instrument caught the imaginations of the local Hawaiians, and some Portuguse woodworkers who'd just arrived capitalized on that trend and began producing a local version. So certainly sailors coming and going from Hawaiian ports had a chance to become familiar with the instrument.
The ukulele is one of the easiest string instruments to play, and the skills cross directly over to guitar and other instruments. If you're new to strings I would highly suggest getting a $50-99 ukulele first to get used to strings, and then decide your best move. As noted above, a uke can be an excellent stand-in for guitar, banjo, or mandolin (especially if restrung in fifths).
"Wellerman" on a regular $40 ukulele, conventional strumming and sounding awesome "5 Sea Shanties on Ukulele", a really great and crystal-clear tutorial for noobs by Destiny Guerra Ukulele has a shanty contest recently, might want to check out the submissions by other Redditors of shanties on ukulele FREE REEDS The name “free reeds” might sound confusing, but it basically just means things like the accordion and harmonica (which despite looking so different, are close cousins). On common reed instruments like saxophone or oboe, the air tube has one reed (a flexible tongue that produces a note as it vibrates when air flows over it) that makes the core pitch, and by opening holes to change the functional length of the tube you change the note. In contrast, with free reeds, you have an array of individual reeds that always make the same note, and you choose which note(s) to play by directing air over them with a button (accordion) or by moving it against your mouth (harmonica)
Harmonica I think most folks are familiar with the basic concept of a harmonica, so I’ll just note there are a harmonicas at every price range, all kinds of keys (and ones in minor scales and such), and a lot of harmonica players own a whole stack of them to have a variety. While there are playable ones for like $10, aim for about $25-35 or more for your first one, if able, rather than going totally cheap, just so you aren’t held back as you’re trying to learn. There are a ton of free harmonica tutorials online, and books you can buy, and
harmonica to advise, so you can’t go too wrong.
The modern harmonica was invented in the 1800s (based in concept on centuries-old instruments of Southeast Asia encountered by travelers). Hohner started mass-producing barge-fulls of them in Germany shortly after the American Civil War, and exporting them to the US. While maybe we don’t think of harmonicas as a sailor thing, they were an omnipresent affordable and pocket-sized instruments, surely familiar to sailors of the period.
"Drunken Sailor" on a less-common minor-key harmonica "Wellerman" tutorial on standard harmonica Concertina The association between sailors and concertina is so strong as to be almost cliché, due in large part to Hollywood portrayal, like sea shanty concertinist Alf Edwards cameoing in 1965’s “Moby Dick". The concertina is basically like a small hexagonal accordion, but a simpler and less raucous sound due to (usually) only one reed per note, and every button is an individual note rather than some buttons being chords.
Concertina is pretty intuitive to play, and there are some good free tutorials online. For a novice interested in sea shanties you probably want the “Anglo” style (different notes on push and pull, like a harmonica or melodeon). Commonly people buy the 30-button Anglo, because most concertina buyers play Irish music and you want 30 for that. But for shanties and other simple folk, you can do well with a 20-button (which can also play most Irish), which tend to be a little cheaper. I would really give a pass to the $150-200 China-made ones on Amazon and eBay, and go for at least $299 or so for a new 20b or used 30b. (Or hit up Cnet's sales subforum to ask if anyone has a bargain 20b for a noob).
While Anglo is hands-down the traditional choice of sailors, in the Folk Revivals, for whatever reason (lots of them cheap in pawnshops?) a lot of folk musicians took up the English-system concertina. The English externally looks similar but has the same note on push and pull of the bellows, so totally different playing style. Some of the most famous shanty players of the 1960s-1970s (like the fantastic Alf Edwards mentioned above) played English, which in the actual sailing days was the instrument of the wealthy, not laborers.
But y’all are in luck, because I’m a mod at
Concertina and have written a pretty comprehensive
Concertina FAQ and Buying Guide for novices, the sub itself can help advise with any questions, and for serious experts or to shop an active buy/sell forum for bargains, visit
Concertina.net Forums.
Note for both concertina and melodeon (button accordion), “Appcordions” produces free or cheap apps for your phone or tablet which emulate concertina (Anglo, English, or Duet fingering systems) or button accordion. The apps take a little getting used to, but are fun to try out the concept before committing. Read the instructions or watch a tutorial for each to understand how to emulate bellows direction changes on an app, and they're better on tablet than phone, but passable on phone.
Modern shanty "Grogg Mayles" played on Anglo concertina (note the constant back-forth to change notes)
A. L. Lloyd singing “Off to Sea Once More” backed up by Alf Edwards on English concertina (Lloyd is my favorite shantyman of all time, and Edwards so gorgeous on English that I forgive him the heresy of passing up Anglo)
Melodeon (Button Accordion) When modern people think “accordion” they tend to think the huge ones with a piano keyboard, such as played by Weird Al. But for much of the 1800s and early 1900s, the dominant accordion was the “melodeon” (Americans tend to call them a “button accordion”) which is generally smaller, and has one, two, or three rows of buttons instead of a piano keyboard. Like the Anglo concertina or the harmonica, a given melodeon button produces a different note when you change air direction, which means that notes that make a chord line up together, making it very intuitive to play.
There are hordes of melodeons on the used market, but ones hauled out of a closet after 40 years of no play can need hundreds of dollars of refurbishment by a skilled technician. So again don’t go buying from randos on eBay, but buy from an actual player, or reputable dealer (many of whom buy the tore-up rando ones cheap on eBay, fix them up and flip them at reasonable prices). Figuring out the good deals can be daunting to a novice, so I went to Melodeon.net and got a detailed discussion going resulting in
somewhat of a novice buyer’s guide for sea shanties that you might find easier to digest.
With some hunting around the various reputable dealers, and Melodeon.net’s sales section, you can find a decent melodeon as low as $250-350 (easier still in the UK or EU where melodeon is more common). Also check out the small sub
Melodeon (we may add a sticky or wicki to link dealers of affordable refurbished button accordions). Fortunately shanty players are less picky about specific keys and models, so can get some good deals on less-fashionable variants other musicians are slow to buy.
High Barbary on 2.5-row melodeon, voice and fiddle "Bully in the Alley" tutorial on 2-row D/G melodeon Addendum: “Toy” Accordions (Melodeons) I will address one kind of intriguing and highly affordable option for learning the basics on melodeon. There’s a little 7-button job called a “toy accordion” made in China (the button kind, not piano kind), sold on all the major online retailers. It isn’t so much really a "toy" as it is a small functional instrument but of kinda middling materials and iffy quality control, but it is a genuine musical instrument. Funnily enough, a small and shoddy mass-produced melodeon was exactly what laborers and sailors of the mid to late 1800s played, churned out of factories in Germany at prices so low they were practically disposable. Ironically the “toy” is arguably the historically authentic option, in spirit.
I don’t want to sound like I’m shilling for Amazon, I don’t even have affiliate links to them on my YouTube channel (maybe someday), but I’m telling you now that Amazon or equivalent is a good place to get a toy accordion. That way you can buy a model and from a seller with the best reviews, and (this is vital) one with “free returns”. The QC on these is iffy, so if you get a lemon it’s great to be able to put it right back in the box, click “return” on the app, and it gets picked up off your porch or you drop it off at a local business that processes Amazon returns. And if you like you can even just re-order it with your refund until they get it right.
These “toys” run about $20-40 (I just bought an EastaMugig, and it seems pretty decent and ready to tweak), so just pick one with good reviews,
ensure it has free returns, and give it a whirl. Or if you really want to cut to the chase, there are accordion “fettlers” (repairers) who will just gut a toy for you and put quality reeds in it. Currently
Smythe’s Accordions is the main shop I know of doing this in the US, and will put in quality reeds in the key of your choice, into a Russian toy accordion (better quality), if you want to spend $200.
Now, if you get one into your paws that plays okay and you want to keep it, I suggest immediately opening it up and making some minor tweaks. This is one of those things all the melodeon folks casually mention and afaik nobody has bothered to make a proper tutorial on (I hope to shortly for my YouTube channel), but you can make these substantially better with very little skill. Basically put, you got seven buttons, with two notes per button, and two reeds per note to give it a tremolo/echo effect. The issue is those doubled reeds use up a lot of air, and your bellows are small, and one reed will always be more in-tune than the other. So you get some really basic tools and masking tape, pour a beer or soda, carefully open it (they’re pretty sturdy if you get a good one) and identify the two reeds for each note, lay down masking tape along one to silence it. While you’re in there, if you can identify any reeds that aren’t sounding properly, they’re probably clogged with dust, and you can google up how to carefully slide something thin like a dollar bill under the tongue to knock the dust loose and allow it to sound. Tape off one of each pair, assemble it and try it, and if a given note (now one reed per note) sounds off, make a note of which, disassemble and switch the tape from the other reed and see if the other one sounds better.
It’ll take some futzing, but no major skill and no permanent changes (do it carefully so you can still return it if it just won’t shape up). If you get it right, now it’ll be using half as much air so way easier to play, and if you like there are many other little tweaks to adjust button play, fix bellows leaks, and all that, all pretty low-skill. But fundamentally for $20-40 you can have a kinda shoddy yet effective little melodeon, much like the sailors of old, on which you can accompany sea songs.
Drunken Sailor on a decent yet stock toy accordion Irish polkas on a toy accordion that’s been fitted with quality reeds PERCUSSION Looking at old sailor imagery, you generally see small snare drums and bass drums, and there seems to be a large crossover between those on civilian ships and similar ones played in the British and American navies of the era. If you’re a real stickler you can get “rope-tuned” old-school wooden snare and small bass drums (sold for fife and drum reenactors), or make do with modern used marching-band instruments.
I do want to note there is one kind of drum that’s relatively recent in tradition and wouldn’t really have been played by shanty-era sailors, but sounds absolutely amazing with shanties if you aren’t a stickler: the Irish bodhrán. It’s a relatively shallow circular shell with one drum head, held in one hand and the other hands holds a double-headed stick (like a little kayak paddle) and virtuosically skips it off the drum head in rhythmic patterns. It's pretty cool, but if you get one, learn it proper because eager noobs not bothering to learn skill and just whacking on it are a cliche in the Irish trad scene.
Bodhran is tiny but has some good links, and you can always ask and see who answers.
Daniel Payne of Newfoundland sings “Wind Through the Window” while backing himself on bodhrán NOT TRADITIONAL SAILOR INSTRUMENTS, BUT WOULD SOUND AWESOME WITH SHANTIES I want to briefly discuss one instrument from each category that aren’t strictly historical to seafarers, but really fit in with the spirit of shanties. These would be great retcons, and one very modern wildcard at the end.
Appalachian/Mountain dulcimer The dulcimer was likely a French or German instrument acquired by the rural folks in the Appalachian mountains of the US, and worked into the local tradition due to its simplicity. It’s a long wooden box played in the lap, tuned to open tunings, with only partial fretting, which makes it ridiculously easy to learn and accompany yourself on. I like to joke that it's the "Celtic sitar."
I taught quite a few workshops on the dulcimer for groups, and it’s about one of the easiest fretted string instruments to learn. They’re pretty affordable (you can get cardboard-bodied [seriously, they work] ones around $50, basic wooden ones around $100, ask around at
dulcimer) and they have that droning and dark sound that would go great with shanties.
"Skye Boat Song" on dulcimer Udu or Ibo drum This percussion instrument, originating in West Africa, is a clay pot (some modern makers use synthetics) that is drummed upon, and capable of some really cool percussive sounds. Can produce a surprising number of tonal effects, I think of it as the "African tabla." Runs about $100+ for the basic synthetic models by Meinl, which are lighter and more durable than ceramic. LP makes durable ceramic ones from about $75. See the very tiny sub
Udu for more info, or ask the larger community at
drums.
Udu/Ibo drum solo Bagpipe Check your stereotypes, the Great Highland bagpipe associated with marching around in kilts (which is awesome in its own way) is only one of about 100 kinds of bagpipes, from Ireland to India and Sweden down to Libya. The Highland Pipe is loud and piercing, so not really great vocal accompaniment, but among the many other pipes are several which play at an indoor volume and lower pitch.
Among the ones I’d most recommend to someone starting pipes, in terms of affordability (roughly around $400-$500 for basic ones of these three, some bargains come in lower), availability, volume, compactness, versatility, etc. would be the Scottish Smallpipes (quieter and a full octave deeper in pitch than Highland), the Swedish bagpipes, and the German hümmelchen.
More than any other instrument on this list, for bagpipes I urge you to beware "too good to be true" deals. The reason is there is one specific outfit in Pakistan that has been turning out virtually unplayable bagpipes for export for decades, and they're all over Amazon and eBay for $100-200. They are not "well, I'll try a cheapie first and see if I want to get a nice one", they are total garbage, and the company is run by jerks because they could make a serviceable pipe in Pakistan by paying their workers 10% more and instead opt to turn hopeful noobies off piping forever with a "maybe it's a good starter" that's just trash. There are definitely good deals in piping (mainly some innovators working in synthetics, and some craftsmen in Eastern Europe with low costs of living), but the specific Pakistan pipes exported by a certain cynical company are omnipresent and a total waste. But the good news is with the slightest research you can avoid them and get some good starter pipes at reasonable price.
Give those three types of bagpipes (or others too) a listen, see what jumps out at you, drop by
Bagpipes to discuss.
"Mingulay Boat Song" on Scottish smallpipes (bellows blown so the piper has breath to sing) "Polska efter Nedergårds Lars" on Swedish bagpipes "A Cascarexa" (Galician waltz) on hümmelchen Electronic Instruments (maybe on your tablet or even phone to be cheap) I’m sure many of you have seen techno remixes of "Wellerman" and whatnot, so though clearly in history those far post-date the shanty era, they do sound awfully cool (in some cases). So don’t be too shy to lay down some drum and bass lines and sing over them. There are various electronic boxes and knobs you can buy to do so, but these days a lot of what used to be $500 of fancy electronics are now emulated on your phone or tablet. Go mess with the free music apps, or read reviews and pay $10 for a good one, and get some beats going.
If you want to try out a free iOS app that's pretty intuitive for making beats, as a total novice in electronic music I've enjoyed the free phone app
Figure.
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