The Vegan Music Project

Music is without doubt one of the most beautiful things discovered by man. There is definitely something soul-stirring and spiritual about music—it is for a profound reason that music has been an integral part of human life from the past several thousands of years! During the early days of man-made music, animal products were heavily used in the process of constructing instruments. The oldest known musical artifacts are some bone flutes that are around 37,000 years old though it is generally believed that man had started making musical instruments long before that. The earliest instruments were made from animal bones, skins, wood, and other easily available natural materials. It is believed that initially instruments were used for ritualistic and religious ceremonies and with time instrumental music spread to other spheres of social life as well. As societies and cultures developed with the passage of time, musical instruments too evolved in accordance with changing cultural applications. But one thing remained constant throughout the millennia–the use of animal products in the creation of different types of musical instruments.

Up until several years ago, there was widespread usage of animal by-products like hide glue, bow hair, gut strings, tanned hide, abalone shell, and ivory in the manufacturing of instruments like drums, guitar, piano, violin, and others. More recently, some of these animal products have come to be replaced with alternatives made of metals and synthetic materials owing to practical reasons and legal requirements. However, certain animal products continue to be used even today in the making of specific kinds of instruments, mainly due to perceived aesthetic reasons. This puts vegan musicians in a quandary: how to make beautiful music without contributing to animal cruelty? The Vegan Music Project is all about addressing this dilemma and coming up with innovative and practical solutions for creating cruelty-free music!

This project aims to create a reference list of instruments which are vegan, instruments which are not vegan but can be vegan, instruments which are not vegan and cannot be vegan. We are looking for interested persons to volunteer in researching and contributing towards the creation of the reference list. If you are interested,please connect with us on theveganmusicproject@gmail.com