One of Japan's best-selling musical toys - now in a mini kids version that teaches rhythm and metre with several fun, built-in tunes! Press the buttons on the "flag" of the otamatone's music note shape to select a song, then press the stem at the correct intervals to play along! This adorable little toy is perfect for teaching very young children the basics of timing and rhythm, plus they'll love making it "sing" with the mouth on the notehead Otamatone Melody Comes with an optional keychain attachment so you can bring it wherever you go Runs on CR2032 button battery (x1) The Otamatone is an electronic musical synthesizer. It was developed in Japan in 1998 by the CUBE toy company and the Maywa Denki design firm. The Otamatone is a singing toy whose body is shaped like an eighth note (it also somewhat resembles a tadpole, "otamajakushi" being Japanese for "tadpole"), with sound emerging from a "mouth" on the notehead. It requires two hands to play: while one hand holds and squeezes the "head", the other hand controls the pitch of the tune by placing the finger on a ribbon controller on the stem; a higher position on the stem creates a lower sound. The ribbon controller is deliberately delinearized to resemble a guitar, so there is a shorter distance between higher notes than between lower ones. Varying the pressure on the head (thereby opening and closing the "mouth" of the Otamatone) creates a wah-wah effect, and shaking the neck (and thereby slightly changing pressure on the head) creates a vibrato effect. Switches on the back of the head allow users to change octave, turn it off or on, or change the volume. The sound made by this toy can be compared to the sound of a theremin, synthesizer, or jinghu.