My hand joints are getting better finally and I wanna learn an instrument. The thing is, I'm dumb and have struggled really badly with reading music in the past.
Absolutely. Guitar is quite a strain on many things in the hands, joints included. Piano is quite gentle on hands as well.
All things considered, any instrument can give you more pain than necessary if you develop bad habits. So consider having a teacher lesson perhaps once a month.
There are some very simple, affordable little drum machines out there that are a blast to just sit and bang around on. It's a good way to lightly start getting into rhythm and timing. It's also something that won't demand a lot of dexterity. It's an unconventional answer, but it's also something that can get you rolling on music without needing to read sheet.
Or if guitar seems up your alley but chording seems intimidating, bass guitar is a great intro to that world. You can learn all the fundamentals of guitar, and if it becomes natural for you, switching over to guitar is almost seamless.
As others have stated: you don't necessarily need to read music for it to be fun. And there are different ways of notation. Chords, for example, are a great way to learn music without having to read on a per note basis.
Acoustic guitar is fairly easy to pick up. It will take a few days of pain to get your fingers accustomed to pressing the strings though. Takes quite some pressure from your fingers. But after those first few days, you're golden. It's also easier to change in which "key" you play a song(oversimplified: how high or low the whole song is).
Piano is another pretty easy instrument to learn chords on. The upside of piano is that you won't have pain in the fingers for your first few days. You press and you'll have a sound. It is harder to play in different "keys" though.
Keyboard is an interesting one too: You'll learn chords like with the piano, but you'll have acces to more sounds, backing tracks etc in your keyboard if you'd go that route.
Flutes and such are quite easy to get into, but can be a bit less interesting if you only play on your own.
But in the end, most instruments takes practice and time. Just set your own goals on what you find important.
If your issue is mainly about reading sheet music maybe a Veeh Harp would be for you.
It is a string plugged instrument played from note stencils, which are pushed between the strings and the resonance body and enable playing from sight.
Trombone, full stop. If you have hand issues, the trombone is definitely the instrument to start with. There are other instruments of course, but for your particular predicament that's what I would recommend.
Here's everything I have learned to play because it was easy as shit:
Flute (hardest thing is getting the mouth placement down. Once you have that you're on easy street; and I think this is probably true of all woodwinds and brass instruments)
Mouth harp (boingy boingy boingy)
Ocarina
Harmonica
Theramin (pretend you're a wizard!)
Tambourine
Taiko drums
Bongos
Xylophone
Cymbals
Cannon
The only instrument I have learned that was difficult and took years to get even semi okay at was piano. And I mostly attribute that to my small hands, because I can play so much better on a MicroKORG than a full size keyboard.
Hmm, I'd say the Theramin is easy to have fun with, but to actually learn to play songs it is up there in difficulty with the violin. It is one of, if not THE most precise instrument there is.
A cheap, crappy theramin is harder to play than a really good one. It's pretty easy to play and learn regardless; you just hold your hand in the right spot... It's a lot less complicated than fingering a stringed instrument.
Just like a harmonica; I can play things on one off sheet music, but it's not like I'm capable of busting out Blues Traveler solos. Easy to pick up and learn; but it's not quite as easy to master.