Jamlings

No lessons · No wrong notes · Nothing to install

Put a piece on the table.
Now you're in a band.

Six little characters. Move them around and the music changes with them. A four-year-old and a producer can play the same table. It's running right here — just tap it.

Drag a character onto the square. Every square sounds different. Open it full screen ↗

No spam — just build updates. Unsubscribe anytime.

How it works

Three moves. That's the whole instrument.

01

Put one on

Drag a character onto the square and it starts playing. Drag it off and it stops. That's the only rule you have to learn.

02

Move it

The square is an 8×8 grid. Left to right changes the rhythm it plays. Up and down changes how high. Closer to the fire in the middle means louder and busier. Every square is a different sound.

03

Turn it over

Double-tap and a character flips to its other side — a different instrument and a different way of playing. Put two of them close together and they start listening to each other.

Why it works for people who can't play

You cannot play a wrong note.

Every note is in key

The table picks the scale and the chords underneath you. Wherever you put a character, what comes out belongs. There is no wrong square.

Everyone plays at once

Six characters means six pairs of hands. Nobody waits for a turn, and nobody has to count anyone in.

It never sits still

The table breathes in eight-bar sections — build, open up, peak, settle. Leave a character alone too long and it gets sleepy and drifts. It's a thing you tend, not a thing you finish.

Meet the band

Six characters, not six instruments.

Six pieces, one knob each, and no menus anywhere. What a piece is for is written on it, and what it is like you find out by moving it.

And one more thing you can do right now

Open the drawer and record yourself. Say boom, ka, tss into your microphone for two bars and Drumling will play the beat in your own voice. Sing one bar and Loopling hands it back in time, in key, on the grid. Your kid's voice becomes an instrument the rest of the band plays along with.

Try it in the browser ↗

The thing we want to build

The same band, on a real table.

The browser version is real, free, and it is staying free. But a screen makes you point at music through glass. We want the version you put in the middle of the room: a lit board you set real pieces on, that your hands find without looking and a toddler understands in four seconds.

A surface that lights up

Light under the glass. Every piece stands in its own coloured ring, and when two of them get close a trail runs between them, so you can see the band listening to itself before you hear it.

Pieces you can hold

Weighted metal, milled to be turned. Set one down and it plays. Twist it and it changes. Move it and the music moves with it. No pairing, no app, no account.

A concept render of the Jamlings table: a wooden coffee table with a dark glass top, six metal pieces standing on it, each ringed in its own colour with light trails running between them
A concept render, not a photograph. The table does not exist yet.
Honest note: that picture above is a drawing of what we want to make. There is no prototype photo on this page because there is no prototype to photograph. We are measuring whether enough people want this before we spend a dollar on tooling. That is what the deposit below is for.

More Jamlings later

The plan is that you can add to the band over time — new characters with new rules, artist characters, and blank ones you record your own sound into. Here is the promise that goes with it: everything the free browser version does today stays in the box. We are not going to ship a table that sounds thin until you buy more pieces.

From the founder

I never had music lessons. I had a shaker.

I loved music as a kid. My family didn't have the money for lessons, so I never took any.

What I had was the kindergarten band. I played the shaker. There was a hierarchy to it that I took very seriously: you started on the jingle bells, and if you were good they moved you up to the shaker. I was certain the shaker was the most sophisticated instrument in the room.

Nobody taught us theory. None of us could read a note. But every instrument in that room had a color and a personality to me, and I gave them all names. I never lost that. It is the reason the things on this table are characters with faces instead of tracks in a mixer.

In middle school I got my ear pierced and started a band with friends. I played guitar. I never found the time to really put into it, and it stayed what it was: something I meant to become.

Then I had a son. He goes straight for anything that makes a sound. I didn't want to sign him up for lessons and settle what music is supposed to be before he ever got to find out for himself. I wanted something we could play together, where you can see the music instead of only hearing it.

So I built it, and then I kept going: loops, a way to record your own voice into the band, beats you can build up and drop. Enough that he asks to play it again.

I'm an engineer. I worked on robotics at Rutgers CAIT. Building a lit board that knows which piece is sitting on it is the part I'm least worried about.

What I don't know is whether anyone else wants one. That is the only question this page asks. Tell me you need this, or tell me it is just a toy in my garage. I would rather find out now than after the tooling is paid for.

— Francisco Wang, founder

Founder access

Become a founder.

We're validating real demand before we make a single unit. Leave your email and we'll tell you what we find out. Then, only if you want to, hold a place in the first 500.

No spam, just build updates. Unsubscribe anytime.

Straight talk

What we won't claim.

That this teaches your kid music

It doesn't teach notation, technique, or theory. It gives a beginner the feeling of making something good, which is a different thing and, we'd argue, the thing that comes first.

That the table is nearly ready

The picture of the table is an illustration and we label it as one. There is no prototype photo because there is no prototype. When that changes we'll show you the real one, warts and all.

That the free version is a demo

It's the real instrument and it stays free. If the table never gets made, you still have it.

That we'll paywall the fun

Everything the browser version does today ships in the box. Extra characters add new characters — they don't unlock what you already had.

Questions

Can I buy the table today?

No. We're measuring demand first. The $10 holds your place in the first run and comes straight back if you change your mind.

Do I need to know anything about music?

No, and that's the whole design. There is no text on the playing surface and nothing to set up. You move things and it sounds good.

How young is too young?

If they can slide a checker around a board, they can play. The reason there are faces and no words is so that reading isn't a requirement.

Is the browser version the same thing?

It's the same music engine, played with a mouse or a fingertip instead of real pieces. That's genuinely less fun, which is exactly why we want to build the table.

Does it need the internet or an account?

The browser version needs neither an account nor a signup. The table is meant to work with nothing connected to it at all.

What happens to my $10 if you never ship?

You get it back. It sits untouched in a separate account and is not spent on the build. Email us and we send it back the same day; if you paid by bank rather than card, your bank may take a few days to show it.

Can I record my own sounds?

Yes, today, in the browser. Beatbox two bars and the drummer plays your mouth; sing one bar and it loops in time and in key. It's stored on your own device and never goes into a shared link.