Excellence On Obscure Instruments

[DennisN]

Ok, here's some more obscure instruments:

Infinite Guitar (which allows notes to be held with infinite sustain):

U2's The Edge demonstrating his Infinite Guitar (used on the U2 song With Or Without You):


A short clip with Daniel Lanois about the history of the invention:

Daniel Lanois and the Infinite Sustain Guitar


Ebow:

(though not an instrument itself, but an instrument accessory, which ought to be mentioned besides the Infinite Guitar since it produces a similar effect. I used to have one myself, and I've played it live. Very fun and experimental, and it can make quite special sounds.)

FIVE cool things you can do with an eBow! | Demo & Tips


Bagpipes:

Are bagpipes obscure? I don't know. At least some who don't like them wish they were, I think.
I actually love the sound of them. And maybe @pinball1970 has heard bagpipes in or in the vicinity of Scotland?

Here is an example of pure excellence. Not musical excellence but comedic excellence :

Wedding - epic bagpipe malfunction

 

[Hornbein]

Bass clarinet. Not really that obscure of an instrument, but this style certainly is.



Eric Dolphy inspired a friend of mine to take up the bass clarinet, which he plays to this day fifty years later.

 

[Hornbein]

Buchla synthesizer. Most obscure of all?



This little cameo appearance is all the love the Buchla gets on Grateful Dead albums. Not only that, a few years later they wiped out the Buchla from their releases. Many years later it became once more available.

 

[pinball1970]

Bagpipes:

Are bagpipes obscure? I don't know. At least some who don't like them wish they were, I think.
I actually love the sound of them. And maybe @pinball1970 has heard bagpipes in or in the vicinity of Scotland?

Here is an example of pure excellence. Not musical excellence but comedic excellence :

Wedding - epic bagpipe malfunction

Hilarious.

I do not hate the bag pipes, played in the right way at the right occasion they can sound mournful and haunting.

Or they can sound comedic and a little painful, like being out of tune is deliberately built into the instrument.

At a wedding is a risk if you ask me so they kind of asked for it to be honest.

 

[pinball1970]

Ha, real data. How much?

20K to sell it.
He kept hold of it.

 

[pinball1970]

This is as cool as it gets.

Now I am cheating a little because you have more at your disposal in an orchestra, but this piece ticks a few boxes.

An interesting mix.

I assume the first instrument is a recorder, not too obscure, what is the second thing? (EDIT: I am going for Ocarina- also used in "Wild Thing" and I am sticking that in too) We also have tubular bells and wood clappers.

 

[pinball1970]

Peter Frampton (Show me the way), Black Sabbath (Iron man) and this. Talk box.

 

[Vanadium 50]

The Tesla coil is a bit of a cheat because it is essentially just a loudspeaker. It's not really an instrument.

Then again, we are discussing bagpipes - made by turning a sheep inside out and sounding like that too.

 

[DennisN]

Ok, here are some more unusual/exotic instruments:

The ridiculously large vertical piano KLAVINS M450i:



(Native Instruments plugin "The Giant" uses samples from that piano model, link: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys/the-giant/)

Gamelan:



Sitar:

Played here in the intro to the awesome song Don't Come Around Here No More (song by Tom Petty):



..and in another awesome song:

The Beatles - Norwegian Wood

 

[BWV]

 

[Hornbein]

Now there's a real man's synthesizer.

 

[marcusl]

Sackbuts and Cornetts:

(actually just one Cornett)

 

[Hornbein]

Vox UL730 amplifier

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the first album I ever bought, way back when it was new. As it was the only one I had I listened maybe 500 times so the sound is engraved on my brain. One day much later I thought, I never again heard that wild electric guitar sound featured on the Sgt Pepper's theme. Hundreds of models of distortion units have come and gone but none of them the same. So I looked it up. Beatles fans are fanatical about the details of the recordings so the answer was easily found. It was the voice of the Vox UL730 amplifier. Fewer than a hundred were made and most were destroyed so it qualifies as a truly obscure instrument.



The problem was that most electric guitar players were (and still are) dedicated to tube amplifiers. The UL730 was a combination of tubes with solid state, so even the minority that prefered undistorted solid state wouldn't buy it either. No one save The Beatles would touch it. Or maybe because a UL730 has such an extreme brain-frying sound. A little goes a long way. I wouldn't want to hear that all day.

Nowadays as far as I know rock guitar players are keeping tube factories going. Think of how difficult those things are to make. Sooner or later it will be possible to duplicate the sound with electronics, they are slowly getting closer, but after fifty years this has yet to happen.

 

[kith]

Chapman Stick:

 

[Hornbein]

Launchpad

 

[pinball1970]

This guy is my favourite guitar player and he played Lute also.

Jan Akerman from Focus.

 

[DennisN]

Nowadays as far as I know rock guitar players are keeping tube factories going.

Yes.

And there are more markets for tubes too:

• tube preamplifiers for vocals, e.g. this one which I've used myself
• tube preamplifiers/amplifiers for Hifi usage, example here

 

[Vanadium 50]

This is a slightly different definition of "obscure".



The instrument is a flugelhorn, which is not that obscure: there are probably thousands (but probably not tens of thousands) in the US, But this is a Benge #5. This instrument has a fabulous sound, and horrific intonation. It's not just out of tune with respect to the band - it's out of tune with respect to itself. Lou Duda, one of the craftsmen who built the horn called it "a nmistake". Controlling the intonation has been described as like wrestling one or more trained seals.

To add to the fun, the physics of the trumpet family is such that notes played with fingerings including the 3rd balve run sharp. So the third valve slide can be extended to afjust. But not this horn! That would spoil the fun.

But this guy, whoever he is, just nailed it.

 

[Hornbein]

This is a slightly different definition of "obscure".



The instrument is a flugelhorn, which is not that obscure: there are probably thousand (but probably not tens of thousands) in the US, But this is a Benge #5. This instrument has a fabulous sound, and horrific intonation. It's not just out of tune with respect to the band - it's out of tune with respect to itself. Lou Duda, one of the craftsmen who built the horn called it "a nmistake". Controlling the intonation has been described as liek wrestling on e or more trained seals.

To add to the fun, the physics of the trumpet family is such that notes played with fingerings including the 3rd balve run sharp. So the third valve slide can be extended to afjust. But not this horn! That would spoil the fun.

But this guy, whoever he is, just nailed it.

I listen to a lot of jazz so it sounds normal (and very nice) to me.

Soprano saxes are naturally out of tune but with effort you can learn to compensate. Dave Liebman would play into a strobe tuner for a couple of hours every day. He was a big believer in boring practice. John Coltrane didn't do that so I avoid his soprano sax.

The Delta bluesmen played out of tune but it sounds pretty cool. By the way, there is Vietnamese folk music that sounds just like that.

In some countries like India and Japan Western music has taken over completely. Others like Vietnam and Indonesia the original is still the greatest. Burma has both. They had a law against Western music so you'd hear Van Halen with overdubbed singer in Burmese.

 

[Hornbein]

Hammer Dulcimer

Back in the Cambridge Massachusetts of 1979 I heard someone playing hammer dulcimer on the sidewalk. I thought it was great. I made sure to remember his name.



He still plays it but gained his fame as a singer/songwriter in the Pete Seeger vein.

Jamie Janover also plays hammer dulcimer but had to resort to backing up a rapper. Most people don't go for this instrument. A crackpot in Hawaii gained the trust of a rich person and had money. Jamie became one of his disciples and gave lectures.

The hammer dulcimer was invented in Iran. Someone playing this became quite famous in seventeenth century Europe, which inspired the invention of the pianoforte.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Soprano saxes are naturally out of tune

How do you get two soprano saxes to play in tune together?
--- Shoot one.

In the last few decades they have gotten a lot better. This seems coincident with the popularity of straight designs. I don;t know if straight is intrinsically better, or market forces drove this, or newer models, which just happened to be straight were better, or, or, or... Lots of possibilities.

A quick check seems to suggest curved sopranos are still out of favor - yourt choices are cheap Chinese junk or the ultra-expensive custom jobs.

But as bad as a soprano is, the Benge #5 was worse. They go from player to player, each one saying "those other guys struggled, but surely I can make it work" AAnd then a year later it's off to a new home.

Lots of people want one, but in the words of Mr. Spock "After a time you may find that 'having' is not as pleasing a thing as 'wanting.

 

[Hornbein]

Angklung

 

[Hornbein]

Glass Harmonica

 

[Vanadium 50]

If we're going to do Bach, the ultimate in irony would be Sheep May Safeky Graze...on the bagpipes.

 

[Hornbein]

Malfunctioning Appliances

Toploading Washing Machine



Air Conditioner et al

 

[Hornbein]

Pan pipes

It doesn't look real, but it appears that it is. It's from Romania.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Remember SNL's Zambeer, Master of the Brew Flute?

 

[pinball1970]

Glass Harmonica

I know this is tricky but there are wrong notes 125 ISH. Makes it sound major

 

[Hornbein]

Gibberish

This song was a hit in Italy circa 1973.



Still going strong in 2012.



Someone named Bernardo wrote "I was at a concert in Italy in 1973. The singer called out in English, 'you probably don't understand a word I'm saying.' The crowd went wild!"

In related news, when Bandmaid played Mexico City the audience sang along in Japanese. The global village has arrived.

 

[Hornbein]

Gayageum