There are plenty of unconventional methods to make music, like Shawn Wasabi’s MIDI controller, which is fashioned with 64 arcade buttons, or the cute, squawking Otamatone, which YouTubers have mastered to cover a wide range of beloved tunes. Now, novelty Chinese calculators might be the latest instrument of choice for burgeoning bedroom musicians, particularly the delightful Japanese YouTuber who goes by It’s a Small World. Watch as the mysterious musician absolutely nails the Super Mario theme song on a symphony of four calculators.
Though they look like the average calculator that your dad has stashed away in the “everything” drawer, they’re so much more. The musical calculators used here are the AR-7778 and AR-8001, available on Amazon Japan for about $22, or Chinese retailer Taobaofor about $5. They’re made by a Chinese calculator manufacturer called Jia Ling Tong, which makes a few other musical models. Here’s another YouTuber, A Yuu, playing the vocaloid Hatsune Miku’s hit single “Senbonzakura” on the AR-3058.
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