Review on Otamatone Unicorn Regular [English Edition] Japanese Electronic Musical Instrument By Cube/Maywa Denki (Unicorn) by Christopher Kanter

I got this on a whim because, well, because they're watching! Of course, I didn't expect anything from it, except novelty. But then I took it out of the box, turned it on and started playing around with it. It's damn cool. I'm just a campfire guitarist now, so maybe my opinion doesn't have the sincerity of someone who's been into music and instruments. But you don't have to spend time at Berklee College of Music to see that the otamatone does what the piano, violin, oboe, and harp do: play sounds in recognizable tones. And, even better, it's intuitive and easy. It has three pitch settings (low, mid, high) that translate to octave scales (although not really), giving you a decent range, and like any stringed instrument, going up the fretboard provides higher tone and neck down. make it lower. You can play the neck as a slide or as if it were tied. When played as a slide, it sounds a bit like a theremin. Even cooler if you squeeze your mouth together you get a wah-wah effect. like Zappa going crazy with the guitar. But I find myself playing this thing at the weirdest moments. And for good reason, its value is reasonable enough to make it a really cool gift for anyone with even the slightest interest in music. A bonus is the look on my dogs faces when I pitch up and move all the way up the fretboard. It's like playing a killer solo on stage. Nearly.