Show Idea: 14 Strange Musical Insruments

I have thought of a show idea that I think is pretty great.  I hope everyone else likes the idea, and hopefully R&L will too.  Even if not, it was fun to put it together and share it here, so it was worth the effort.

All over the web, and especially on Youtube, you can find all kinds of unusual and bizarre musical instruments.   As long as people have been banging rocks or sticks together to make sounds, there have been people thinking up new ways to make musical sounds, and the process continues to this day.  Of the thousands of examples out there, there are a few that have a stronger oddity factor than the rest.  Below I’ve listed 14 that I think have the greatest oddness factor going for them.  14 might be a bit too many to jam into one 15 minute program, so the list could be whittled down a bit.  I just couldn’t bring myself to cut any of them.

We’ve already encountered one such oddity in the RhettAndLink-iverse when our hosts joined up with the Blue Man group and had the opportunity to play the PVC pipe percussion thingy:

But there are others:

1. Synthaxe Drumitar:

Invented by eccentric musical genius Roy “Futureman” Wooten, this is a guitar-shaped drum machine based on a souped-up Synthaxe.  He retrofitted a normal Synthaxe with his own electronics and buttons and wired it to a group of midi-controlled drum sample players.

“Futereman” (or “Futch” as his fans call him) was the drummer for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and is quite an interesting guy even apart from his crazy creation.

Here is a write-up on the Flecktone’s web site about the instrument:

http://flecktones.com/page/Futuremans-Synthaxe-Drumitar

Reading about it is all well and good, but you have to see the instrument (and Futch, for that matter) in action in order to fully appreciate (stick with the first video: they zoom up on Futch at about the 30-second mark, and, yes that is an electric banjo Bela has in his hands on the far left):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlO1P_h4y3g

Here’s a couple more vids:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BPpy1lLvys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VI3Xe...

(for a real treat, unrelated to the Drumitar, look on YT for Futch giving a TED talk).

2. Six-neck guitar:

We’ve all seen those double- and tripple-neck electric guitars played by rock bands.  

But, two or three necks is not really good enough. Oh no.  How about, not three, not four, not five, but SIX necks on a guitar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAZdiJGWdfI

(warning: some profanity starting at about the 2:30 minute mark; but you only need to see about the first 30 seconds of this to get the idea)

3. Theremin:

First conceived in 1928 by Russian inventor Leon Theremin, this instrument uses radio waves to produces an eerie-sounding “woooo” sound that sounds somewhat like a woman singing vocalise.  The instrument is played without touching it as the player waves his or her hands between two antennas.  This instrument was frequently used in the 1940’s through the 1960’s to produce eerie soundtrack music and sound effects in science fiction and monster movies.

One of the early theremin virtuosos was Clara Rockmore.  Here she is playing Saint-Seans’ “The Swan” from Carnival of the Animals:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSzTPGlNa5U

Here is a more contemporary example, a guy named Randy George playing Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” on a theremin made by Moog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW0B1sipLBI

And here is Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame playing around with one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kujH0ScAi0

But, if the Theremin isn’t strange enough, then how about a miniature Theremin shaped like a Matryoshka doll:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgI-Lr6Pbcs

And if that isn’t enough, how about an entire choir of them playing at once, trying to make the Guinness Book of World Records?  (and the fact that the conductor uses a light saber for a baton makes it extra special)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnlsfeRNw1I

Only in Japan!

4. Otamatone

While we’re in Japan, we might as well talk about the Otamatone.  I saw someone on the Internet describe this instrument as “part-muppet”.  Other than that I don’t quite know what to say about this instrument.  It truly has to be seen to be believed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_1WvxYBGTk

This guy gets bonus points for his glasses and hair-do!  (remind you of anyone?)

5. NOSE FLUTE:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj6G0vSrv8c

6. The Omstrument:

Why play a six-neck guitar, when you can play several completely different string instruments at once:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rwdif7cjYqc

(actually, this one is rather pleasant to listen to…)

Only in California!

7. Yaybahar

While we’re getting all New-Agey, lets talk about this thing, which is a….  um….. uh…. hm. I don’t really know what it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aY6TxC1ojA

8. The world’s largest Hurdy Gurdy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKoaw8CfZb0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7KovUJI5O8

9. Squared Eel Banjo

Now for some unusual variations on normal instruments.  Introducing the “Squared Eel Banjo”, invented by Milwaukee-area banjo player Mike Gregory.  It is made entirely of mailing tape and pieces of standard dimensional lumber:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97EfvhFgRBY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FxfZ9yZ0PY

10. The Dobroque

Venturing further into the Country/Bluegrass territory, let’s talk about the Dobroque:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpL1fqe-ZfE

11.  The Crapocaster

And let’s not forget the Crapocaster--an electric guitar made from a toilet seat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pvj6l8a0mo

12.  Orchestrions

The Crapocaster is a pretty tough act to follow. You really don’t want to be behind THAT! Nevertheless, we must push on, so without more adoo, let’s talk about the Orchestrion, or Nickelodeon, or whatever other name you want to give it.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw a great deal of innovation in robotic music making.  We have all seen player pianos (at least on TV or in movies, if not in person), but did you know that there were machines made to play every sort of instrument, including pipe organs, violins, drums, guitars, etc.?

Well, check out some of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQMhFJ14hik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm2uvxqbUEc

A more modern version (probably MIDI-controlled) is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeYKF9sb0WQ

Guitarist Pat Metheny thought that creating something like this might be good for contemporary music as well, so he set about creating his own MIDI-controlled Orchestrion-inspired one-man-band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeYKF9sb0WQ

13. Electronic Wind Instrument

Ever heard of an electric clarinet?  Well now you have:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOEF7f2HGoE

(I think the guy needs to lay off eating beans for a while, BTW)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYiwZYGokdQ

Now I know what those alien dudes were playing in the band in the Star Wars Cantina scene!

14.  Elody (electric recorder)

Last but not least, this one is for Link.  Yes, there is such a thing as an electric recorder!  The perfect instrument for the heavy metal band called “Chunk”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWkw0zy4lKg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_iKB4-1vCs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aryXm86byTk

That last video is entirely in German.  I can understand a small amount of German.  Enough to catch the female narrator say that this thing costs 2,000 Euro’s (about $2,300 USD).  Ouch!

One might be able to rig up something similar for less money by putting an acoustic guitar pickup inside of a normal wooden recorder and plugging it into a guitar amp with distortion effects.

There are a lot of others out there, but there had to be a stopping point to this.  This is not to mention glass harmonicas, the fluid piano, the subcontrabass saxaphone, double-bass banjo, Alpha Shpere, electronic instruments made out of Speak-n-Spells, a full-size, playable harpsichord made entirely of Lego bricks, the harp guitar, the Pikasso Guitar (another Pat Metheny instrument), stroh violin*, etc.  This could go on and on, but I had to cut it off somewhere.

*(You can see a stroh violin, by the way, in the video by Lindsey Stirling called “Roundtable Revival”--its the funky looking violin with metal horns sticking out of it.  They were used in the early days of phonograph recordings before the invention of electronic microphones.)