How to Make Music Without Instruments (8 moves)
You can make music without instruments. It’s creative play and an epic way to boost your musical chops and artistic expression. And all you technically need is a laptop (or even just your phone).
Plus, it’s pretty normal — especially for modern songwriting.
So these are my favorite ways to make music without the traditional stuff.
Let’s do this.
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What Is An Instrument?
An instrument is any resource or tool used or manipulated to make music with.
Everything from your voice to a train screeching by could be made into a song. Put another way, anything can be an instrument.
Cars, city noises, coffee makers and layered vocal harmonies are all examples of instruments.
How you use them is up to you.
Not Using Instruments (some benefits)
Sound different and stand out
Become a more flexible songwriter
Write music anywhere
Discover new sounds and styles
Challenge yourself
Become more creative and innovative
Become a more versatile musician
How to Make Music Without Instruments (8 moves)
1. Use Your Phone
Your phone is an instrument waiting to be unleashed. Apps make this possible, of which two come to mind:
BandLab is awesome for organizing ideas. But it also has a music production interface with a digital drum pad, sound libraries and tools for recording straight into your phone.
They even have an AI tool (SongStarter) to generate royalty-free ideas.
Plus, you can share your stuff publicly with BandLab, earn royalties and build a following through the app — it’s sort of social.
As for Demo, this is a new app I recently stumbled across. It looks like a solid place to quickly jot down ideas and to put together the shell of a song (without touching any instruments or MIDI).
But new apps are always popping up, so I’ll keep this list updated as I discover new ones worth sharing.
2. Use Virtual Instruments
Virtual instruments, or virtual studio technology (VSTs), are plugins and digital synthesizers for making music in a DAW.
A DAW (digital audio workspace) is a software for making music. It’s like a digital music studio that lives in your computer.
I use a MacBook and Logic Pro for my DAW of choice. But there are plenty more options:
GarageBand (basic version of Logic)
Reaper
Cubase
Ableton
Pro Tools
Cakewalk by BandLab
Most DAWs will have built-in virtual instruments and plugins, so you shouldn’t need to buy anything. But you will need to spend some time learning how to use them.
Aka, you need to learn how to produce music.
Most of the tips below require at least some music production knowledge. So if you’re serious about making music (with or without instruments), invest some time into learning music production.
3. Use Samples, Software + Libraries
Why start from scratch when you can use prerecorded or prebuilt instruments and templates? For example, you can use:
Samples. Borrow, manipulate and reuse parts of songs. This is common for DJs.
Sound libraries. These are collections of sounds and instruments — with everything you can imagine.
Chord software or packs. These are prerecorded progressions or software tools you can use to write songs with.
By the way, this isn’t cheating. It’s modern music-making and (most) everyone uses these tools in some way or another.
Choosing the right sounds and manipulating them in clever ways is the creative part. So play around, have some fun and see what happens.
Here are some tools I like:
Arcade by Output
The “ultimate sampler and instrument plugin”
AI mastering, plugins, distribution, samples, courses and more
A huge library of sounds, loops, instruments and tools
Caption Chords by Mixed In Key
Write epic chord progressions like a pro
Lots of presets, plugins and sample packs to choose from
A collection of tasty samples and loops
A vast library of free samples and loops
4. Use AI
“Things always change and AI is here to stay. So I say learn it and use it.”
Love it or hate it, AI is here to stay. Luckily, it’s an awesome way to make music without instruments.
You can use prompts, samples and more to create any sound you want. It can also help with the less creative parts of songwriting (like LANDR’s mastering AI). So of course I’m stoked on it.
Here are a few more examples of AI tools for songwriting that are on my radar:
Output’s Pack Generator
MusicLM by Google
I would spend time researching and testing the different tools out there. Things are always changing and it’s better to learn these new tools than to ignore them.
5. Use Your Voice
Ask any singer, your voice is an instrument. So let’s use it to make music.
For example:
Use vocal harmonies
Turn your voice into instruments with plugins (like a bitcrusher)
Make drum beats with your voice
Use software like Vochlea (more on this below)
If you’re stuck on how to use your voice for music-making, it helps to find some inspiration. Jon Bellion is one example. He’s super creative with beat boxing and unique production techniques.
But just remember your voice alone is a powerful instrument.
And coupled with some tools and intention (like plugins, creativity and a DAW), it’s unstoppable.
6. Try These Apps
There are two apps for making music without instruments I’m currently stoked on:
Vochlea’s Dubler converts your voice into drums or instruments. This is super intuitive and super exciting.
And Life by XLN Audio takes any sound or audio clip and chops it up into a unique beat, which you can then sample or further finesse in your DAW.
You get tons of customization options and the app connects directly from your phone into your DAW.
Suffice to say, I’m stoked on these apps. They take songwriting creativity and efficiency to the next level.
7. Use Sounds From the Environment
Music is all around us. Everything is a potential melody or sound clip.
Cars driving by, birds chirping, a busy bar, leaves rustling in the wind — it’s all music. Turning your world into music is an epic creative project that’s just waiting to be made.
For example, I sometimes use sounds from my travels in my music. Trains, people talking, general city life, planes taking off — these are all fair game for songwriting.
So go out and explore your environment. Pay attention to the sounds and look for ones that pop out to you.
Capture it, make some notes and hop into your computer later to adjust the pitch or add effects to it.
The world is your studio.
Tip: Delete background noise with a noise gate plugin (but the cleaner the source sound, the better).
8. Use Everyday Items
Everything around you is a potential instrument. Any sound can be manipulated or tweaked into doing your musical bidding.
For example:
Rub any two things together
Use pots and pans for drums
Shake a match box
Scratch a couch
Crush a can
Record the water from your faucet
The list goes on forever.
Once you capture a sound, you can edit it by adding effects and other production techniques.
The only limit here is your imagination. So get weird and have fun with it.
Later ✌️
Learning to make music without instruments is fun, creative and normal.
But it’s also a new skill, so don’t expect immediate magic. But as long as you don’t quit, success is inevitable.
So keep at it, test things out and get weird with it.
