Make Your Own DIY Capacitive-Touch Arduino Keyboard Piano

I saw this today, and even though it’s from May 2013 (oh, the good old days ;) I thought of you. This project with video shows how easy and fun it can be to make your own musical interface. Best of all it won’t take your entire day to make.

Here’s how the creator, Tyler Crumpton, describes this keyboard piano project:

“Using only an Arduino, a few resistors, a buzzer, and some bits of aluminum foil, you can create your own touch-sensor piano keyboard in just a few minutes! View the Instructable for more information on how to build your own!“

Still not convinced you want to spend time on this? Here’s a 30 second video to convince you otherwise:

Here’s what you’ll need… (but for the rest of the instructions visit the link to Instructables below).

• An Arduino (or Arduino-compatible) microcontroller board.

    • Any Arduino board should work: Uno, Leonardo, Mega, Pro Mini, etc.

• Eight 2.2 Megaohm (2.2 MΩ) resistors

    • Anywhere between 1 MΩ and 4.7 MΩ should work

    • You need one resistor per piano key

    • A 2.2 MΩ resistor has a color code of Red-Red-Green or Red-Red-Black-Yellow

• A piezo buzzer

• Some spare wires or jumper cables

• Aluminum foil

    • A foot or two should do

• Tape

• A surface to tape your keys to

    • We used a scrap piece of cardboard, but it can be anything you like, even the tabletop itself! 

Equipment that you may need: 

• Soldering iron and solder

    • You can probably get by without an iron by wrapping wires together instead of soldering, but the connection will not be as reliable

• Scissors to cut aluminum foil and tape