Unusaual musical instrument

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Does anyone play an unusual musical instrument? I like to play accordion and I also have a zither passsed to me by grandfather over 50 years old. I like sound of rock and rol but I like sometimes unusual sounds in a song-Beach Boys have harmoniums for example, I like Nico's euphonium sound. Its nice for simple folk sound. So, can I ask, what is our favourite "un-rock" record? I stilll want to discover new sounds.

― liliya, Saturday, 28 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Bandmate built a theremin, but i can't figure it out...

― Jason, Saturday, 28 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

At the next Strange Attractor thing at the Horse Hospital in London (August 7) there's a thing about 'forgotten musical technologies.'

They're showing a film about Leon Theremin the guy who by a lucky coincidence happened to invent the Theremin ("Theremin amazed America with his instrument until his kidnapping by Soviet agents in the mid- 30s. Upon his release from a labor camp, he worked on surveillance devices for the KGB.")

There's also a guy talking about theremins and the like. Apparantly he's going to turn himself into a "human theremin"

It should be ace, I went last time when Jon Ronson was talking about conspiracy theories. If there's one thing I like more than Jon Ronson talking about conspiracy theories, it's people turning themselves into human theremins. Now, if Jon Ronson were to turn himself into a human theremin, I would be very happy indeed.

― jamesmichaelward, Saturday, 28 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Human theramins? Wicked cool! Apparently that's suppose to be a great doco' on the inventor...

― Jason, Saturday, 28 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If that's the same theremin movie I saw about 7 years ago, I wanted to say it's really good, if anyone ever gets the chance to see it.

― maryann, Saturday, 28 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have an old Putney I've dubbed "Anton". Its not quite working. I dont know if its just me not knowing how to get the LFO to operate on the other osciallators or if its the parts going for age, I havent tested all the curcits. It wasnt moved for about 10-15 years by my guess, it probably was last used sometimes in the late 70s.

Turns out my university had a whole room with assorted early synths, but no one knows what happened to the items from the period that some of the music students graduated in the 70s to when they returned in the late 90s as professors. Presumbly the one I bought had probably been given to the physics department for repairs and ended up being stored backwards in the bottom row of a cabniet which itself was not accessable till you moved a large sin wave generating device infront of it. I wouldnt have known what it was except for a Spectrum album that has a variation in its cover art. They charged me 3 bucks for it, 15 for the oscillator I bought off them at the same time. I dont play it when other people are about cause it has a tendancy to emit a high pitched squeal or slowly degenerate into an airplane.

― zacko, Saturday, 28 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

In high school (just a few years ago), I was a member of the All- Virginia Band - on TUBA. I can still play, too. No lie. And euphoniums are cool, too, but you know... they're just baby tubas. I figured out most of _The Chronic_'s bass lines and taught them to my marching band, and we played them at football games... if only our director knew what the lyrics were to those songs we were playing ;-)

― Clarke B., Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was going to complain about the tuba not being unusual enough, but then you saved it. ;)

― Josh, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

As soon as I clicked on this thread, I thought, "Someone is going to half-play a theremin. Then, someone else will mention that they play an analogue synthesizer." Come on! The tuba is way cooler than a theremin these days, although if you can play a theremin well and not just use it to make atonal "wee-ee" noises, then you've got something going on, Clara.

Anyway, someone mentioned the Chapman Stick in another thread, which is more like it! I don't play one, but they're still really weird/neat, and ultimately really versatile.

Anyway, I don't play any standard, manufactured odd instruments, but I used to mess around at my old high school and create very Beefheartesque instruments like the 'flesh horn' (a bassoon bocal and reed jammed into a french horn--it makes really great sounds and can actually be tonally played). It was a lot of fun.

― matthew m., Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

He said "flesh horn", uh huh-huh, uh huh- huh

Sorry matthew: couldn't resist. Where are all those instruments built by Harry Partch stored? Does anyone know?

― mark s, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I love the odd wind instruments. The serpent, the sosuphone, the tuba, the pan pipes , the double flute . But the coolest thing is the Baritone Tuba because it is about 250 lbs. I know someone who composed their senior composone using tuba and picalo. Failed

― anthony, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't know if I have a favorite "un-rock" record, since that would be about half of my record collection, but...

There *are* two compilations of unusual instruments if you're interested in this sort of thing: Gravichords Whirlies & Pyrophones and Orbitones Spoon Harps & Bellowphones, both from Ellipsis Arts.

My favorite "unusual" instrument is the Optigan . Oh, for an Optigan!

― Kerry Keane, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Gravichords Whirlies & Pyrophones
Now I understand what that song "You're too Gurlie Whirly" is about.;-)

― nathalie, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Took six years of the "viola da gamba" (leg viola), a baroque-era instrument. Kind of a cross between a viola and a cello, with frets.

― Joe, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

mark: there was some business about that recently, but I can't remember what happened. The instruments had to be moved from some university storage space (in St. Louis?) and no one wanted to foot the bill. I do not know the end of the story.

I've got a friend who plays accordion and saw in a band called Gloria Deluxe - they are doing their thing in the Prospect Park bandshell Aug. 2nd.

― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Kerry, you took the praises right out of my mouth--those Ellipsis collections are dandy. And for those who haven't heard the Optigan, Optiganally Yours make it sound like a joy to play. I haven't visited that site recently, but I hope they have a list of artists who've used the Optigan; the list has been growing in the past few years.

I'm a total sucker for any unusual instrument or unusual way to play a unsual instrument--but, alas, no recordings exist of Thaddeus Cahill's Telharmonium, probably the largest instrument ever created (and first synthesizer/music-over- telephone-wires contraption--in 1906!).

― X. Y. Zedd, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

xyz: I don't think there was anything unsual abt HOW the telhaharmonium was played, tho: it had an organ keyboard (maybe more than one keyb: he built two or three versions altogether). It wasn't exactly a "synthesiser", either: more the same principle as the Hammond (rotating wheels and cogs producing an electronic whine), only much bigger and yes — since speaker technology only then existed for telephones, you had to hear it down the wires.

Music over the phone went back to the 1890s tho: somewhere slightly unlikely - like the Prague Opera House — offered a service whereby you cd call up and listen to the opera from the comfort of yr own home (if you were v.v.v.wealthy).

― mark s, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Excuse me, but you're ever so lightly treading on my toes! The Telharmonium was patented as a musical "synthesizer." (To be honest, I've lately been writing something partly about its inventor and his brothers.) Its multiple keyboard controls were tuned to equal temperament and necessitated two players and a lot of specialized training. This is unusual enough. It supposedly had an almost unlimited palette, though that was partly just bragaddocio; nevertheless, it appears to have been much more versatile than succeeding electronic organs (which did indeed borrow from its use of rotors but benefited from miniaturization). Mark Twain loved the thing.

Elisha Gray--the “other” father of the telephone invented a sort of telegraph-keyboard, around 1885, I think (I don’t have the facts at hand). There were also various other experiments with music gotten out of electricity and telegram or telephone wires, though I’m delighted to hear about the Prague Opera. Still, the Telharmonium cannot be discounted as a first (and perhaps last) of its kind, at least until the invention of the Internet. Besides all this, Thaddeus Cahill was from the great state of Iowa, where I'm from. Not to be nitpicky, mark--I do love the opportunity to discuss such things!

― X. Y. Zedd, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I made a batar once. The e string of the guitar replaced with bass string. Power chords = bass and guiter.

― Mike Hanley, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"The Telharmonium was patented as a musical "synthesizer"": Oh, sorry, I absolutely didn't know that. But it still wasn't a synthesiser in the 50s sense, was it? (ie a machine designed to synthesise ANY POSSIBLE SOUND: not that any of them have ever achieved that...). Kewl if it was.
"his brothers": were they in with him? There'a a section on him in my forthcoming [haha] book, but it's in the first very bit I wrote — cf The Wire website — which I haven't yet reread and revised (I'm just getting back to that section). All I can remember is the legend that an angry telephone user got fed up with phoneline interference and threw the whole lot into the Hudson River...a lie?
"almost unlimited palette": yeah, I don't think 1910s acoustics was advanced enough for that to be a (now) credible claim (w/o oscilloscopes to study soundwaves etc), tho it was clearly making noises unmakeable by anything prior to it, plus mimicking what there was. I know it was huge huge huge (it took up two floors of Telharmonic Hall, or something, is that right: how could that guy just throw it in the river!!) I'd love to see what you HAVE written.

I'm sure between 1877 and c.1920, there were LOADS of ideas and things built in the backyard: but almost no one besides Theremin got their head round neatly marketable design. There's a photo of [from memory] Jorg Mager with his spherophon [I didn't look this up, so may be wrong guy and wrong machine]: anyway it looks like something he's just dismantled, rather than something you'd want to play, let alone buy.

Gray's telegraph keyboard was primarily for use in telegraphy, I think: it was a way of sending multiple signals simultaneously; you coded them at (in effect) different pitches, and then they came on different keys to chime, and styluses to write. Obviously you could play tunes also. But I don't know if that was ever done, except in demos.

― mark s, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sorry to divert the discussion--the rest of you carry on, please...

Mark, I forgot you Brits spell “synthesiZer” funny. But I would still call the Telharmonium one, if only because in the context of the times it was revolutionary, the first instrument that didn’t have (in theory) a set timbre (pipe organs, no matter what stops are pulled, always sound like pipe organs to me). (Then again, I guess you could say that about Moogs.)

I’d much rather read your book than write my own, which is, I’m almost ashamed to say, fictional! There are one or two books just about the Telharmonium, but I’m afraid to even look at them now. I haven’t been able to confirm the river story, but it’s too good not to mention. But in my opinion it would have taken a mob. Thaddeus’s brothers Arthur and George helped with both conceptualization and development, or maybe that’s just me rhapsodizing.

I so wish there were recordings of all those early electronic instruments you conjecture; the “sperophon” sounds especially tantalizing. And I so hope Gray didn’t use his keyboard just for sending mundane telegrams about shipments being misplaced or locomotives running off their tracks--surely he must have been tempted to play a little Bach.

And now back to our previously interrupted thread... You were talking about Nico's sexy little euphonium?

― X. Y. Zedd, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mark: "Yeah, one time, at band camp, I played the skin flute..." Partch's instruments are kept at Montclair State University, in NY, where students are still encouraged to learn to play them. Just intonation is pretty cool, actually... several of his instruments have a lot of very practical application, even when playing music that's not written expressly for them.

Also, the Optigan--hell yeah! The coolest yet simultaneously most mechanically unsound idea ever for a second-synthesis instrument! Optigonally Yours are awesome... Pea Hicks has such a bizarrely innate grasp of the Optigan's various discs and voices that it would probably be fair to call him an Optigan virtuoso. I'm a big fan of their first release (Spotlight On Optiganally Yours), but not so much their second, on which they use the Optigan's cousin, the Talentmaker. It's similar but nowhere near as cool. As far as coolness measured in mechanical difficulty is concerned.

― matthew m., Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hey, Matthew - I like your address. I assume that you are a toy keyboard aficionado? I have a bunch.

I've got a couple of other favorite instruments: the jew's harp and the ocarina. Okay, so they're not as "unusual" as the pyrophone, but those two always bring a smile to my face. In fact, I think jew's harps should be stuck into every excessively earnest composition. Instant levity!

― Kerry, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mark - I think the telephone-as-radio service you mentioned was "Telefon Hirmondo" in Hungary, which broadcast opera, stock reports, news briefs, etc. over a telephone-like device. Yr right abt the listeners, they were exclusively upper-class. But cost is not what decided this - subscription was on the order of 1 penny a day. It's anybody's guess what DID determine Hirmondo's demographics, but I suspect that the inventors of the service simply had no idea what non-bourgeois listeners would want to hear. They broadcast both the fruits of high culture and the news that would presumably help sustain it, useful only to the well-off. End communication.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Kerry: Yeah, toy keyboards are pretty amazing little gizmos. If you told someone that millions of kids worldwide own basic samplers and sequencers--without using the word 'toy'--people would never believe it. If you don't mind, how about a quick rundown of what you've got?

I like your email address, as well, and I'm going to use it for a likely-unintended purpose--to plug a little band that never gets enough publicity, Dymaxion. Their brand of twisted rhythmic avant-rock is not only strikingly original, but also incredibly addictive. See if you can dredge up the song "I-Man Transport" on a random service.

― matthew m., Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, let's see. I put a rack on my wall to hang them on, but they're all over the place anyway. Most of my toy keyboards are no-name, but I do have an SK-1. Another favorite is the V-Tech "Super Sound", which has all sorts of animal noises as well as a whole section of everyday sounds like "stepping in a pile of squishy goo", rubberband, typewriters, telephones. No words, just pictures of what the thing is supposed to sound like. There are about thirty or forty of these sounds, and you can combine them. Also a couple of Radio Shacks and a white Fisher Price one with full-size keys that looks pretty old, and you can record up to forty notes on it. The rest, as I said, are no names - a couple of them are old and one or two don't function properly, which makes it even more fun.

― Kerry Keane, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mean Red Spiders used to carry a carpenters box with a small 2 octave or so Casio and about 12 guitar pedals. The setup has grown a bit with a new 'toy' keyboard so it now resides in what looks like a converted 6" riser from theater. Gives them a nice wall of wub in the background of their shows.

― zacko, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Kerry and matthew, you've allowed me to come out of the closet and admit that I, too, have a collection of toy electronic instruments. My favorite is the "Vocalizer," which you hum into and can make sound like a pretty convincing saxophone--or violin. Hooked into a computer's MIDI port, it can lead to all sorts of fun, even for a non-musical type such as myself.

― X. Y. Zedd, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

> Does anyone play an unusual musical instrument?

Well I don't just play, but wrote Gbloink! which is a pretty unusual musical instrument / sound toy / left-field composition device.

If you have PC and a soundcard, download it and have a play :-)

Weirdness guaranteed !

― phil, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What was the instrument on Del Shannon's "Runaway" and "Hats Off To Larry"? The clavioline, the Musitron? Whatever, that would be my favourite.

― Robin Carmody, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh yeah, that was the "Musitron" - invented by Max Crook, Shannon's keyboardist. Another favorite sound of mine. I did some digging, and I see that Crook had some solo 45s with the Musitron...I wonder what *those* sounded like.

― Kerry, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Wow.

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ditto wow. I'm one of the millions who was sure that was a clavioline or at least an ondes martenot. So, eager to learn more about the subject, I googled "Musitron" and came up with this from an AOL web page:

'A proficient keyboardist, Max Crook created the first synthesizer, dubbed a "Musitron," used on the 1961 #1 hit "Runaway" by Del Shannon... As "Maximilian," Crook established a name for himself in the midwest as an accomplished instrumentalist, scoring two Top 40 hits in Canada in 1962 with "The Twistin' Ghost" and "Greyhound," both self-penned numbers. Max Crook went on to explore new sounds with the Moog synthesizer and, in 1970, played Moog on Brian Hyland's "Gypsy Woman," a Top 5 record on Billboard that year. Brian Hyland was a 60's teen-idol best remembered for "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" and "Sealed With A Kiss." Max went on to record entire albums with both Del Shannon and Brian Hyland, and later did some synth work for Liberace.'

Now, we all know he didn't really invent the synthesizer, but imagine playing the moog with Liberace! Wow again.

― X. Y. Zedd, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My kingdom for a Mellotron!Those Ondes Martenot things are really somethin' too.

― Damian, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can't believe I forgot to acknowledge the SynthAxeDrumitar, as built and performed apon by Future Man, of the Flecktones. There's a custom instrument.

― matthew m., Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

German free guitarist Hans Reichel has built his own instrument, the Daxophone, a weird string instrument that makes a kind of groaning, moaning sound. There's a v. good 'homemade' instruments comp on ellipsis art - 'Gravikords, Whirlies and Pyrophones' - that includes a Reichel Daxophone piece.

― Andrew L, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yeah i've heard some of Reichel's daxophone music, i'd really like to see what the fuck the thing looks like. Does anyone know if there's a picture of it anywhere on the web?
Wow & it's real interesting to know what that instrument in "Runaway" is, that's 1 of my fav inst breaks in rock&roll too - thanx Kerry.
My friend John Chrisstoffells used to own the (I think) only Mellotron in NZ, it had belonged to the prog rock band Ragnarok in the '70s...I dunno where it is now...wish i did, those things are choice.

― duane, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Duane, click here for a pic of the daxophone, and other interesting Reichel stuffdax ophone

― Andrew L, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My friend John Chrisstoffells used to own the (I think) only Mellotron in NZ

the guy from the terminals? freaky.

my girlfriend gets all melty for mellotrons, to the point that i think i'll have to buy one of those sample modules that has mellotron and moog sounds.

the instrument i really, really want is a sarod. this week, anyway. next week it'll be a bulbul, or buchla box or cooking pot and spoon, or something.

― your null fame, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ooh! forgot the waterphone!!

― your null fame, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm sure Chris Knox has a Mellotron,and to be honest,I've at times been tempted to stop him in the street in Auckland and ask him about it.

― Damian, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

four years pass...

How about a group with both a tuba AND a Chapman Stick?

http://www.panmetropolitantrio.com

― kac attac, Wednesday, 3 May 2006 08:22 (twenty years ago)

what timing!

i heard this last night:

ihttp://www.thebakken.org/exhibits/mesmer/glass-armonica.jpg

a lovely piece by mozart for strings and glass armonica

― ambrose (ambrose), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 08:32 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

ha, was just about to post about the Imagine documentary about the Monkey Opera that damon albarn composed. during that they had footage of someone playing a glass armonica and and ondes-martenot and some weird french thing, a crystal something.

http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/martenot/index.html

― koogs, Friday, 6 July 2007 09:13 (eighteen years ago)

thirteen years pass...

‘It's pretty metal,' says man who turned his uncle's skeleton into a guitar’: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.5908896/it-s-pretty-metal-says-man-who-turned-his-uncle-s-skeleton-into-a-guitar-1.5909331

― This Is Not An ILX Username (LaMonte), Thursday, 11 February 2021 15:13 (five years ago)

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