A couple of weeks back I stumbled upon this little video of Bobby McFerrin bringing the audience to sing the pentatonic scale while he is improvising on top of it.
World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.
His last sentence is the eye opener: No matter where in the world I do that, they all get it as in they all can do it. — We all can do it. Music is the universal language of the world.
The downside of having developed devices that give us musical perfection at our fingertips is, that we know how music pieces sound when the best are playing it. The knowledge of perfection makes it endlessly hard for us to pick up an instrument or even just sing beyond the four walls of our bathroom. You have to put some effort in, before you even can play a little tune and it sounds horrible and you know it.
My favorite quote by They Might be Giants: Music self played is happiness self made. It is wonderfully true for me and as this example shows I think for everybody. You play an instrument or sing and your whole body resonates, relaxes and makes you happy. Try it.
My father learned how to play the Accordion when he was 65 without any prior music teaching. I so wish I had a recording of it. When he did I picked it up too and one of the greatest moments was, playing together with him.
Bonus link: 10 Geeky Instruments