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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 13 Mar 05 - 10:31 AM So ya wanna talk about weird instruments? So ya wanna see Frankenstein musical creations? Click here: OddMusic The first one is a banjo variant, but look through the site for other jewels. Like a combination boughran/didgiridoo, maybe? Very entertaining! Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 12 Mar 05 - 05:15 PM I met, and performed with, a guy back in the late fifties who had a banjo with six strings, in standard guitar tuning. It sounded great and he played everything from skiffle to trad jazz on it, but the thing I enjoyed most was his ragtime banjo set, played at breakneck speed. I played it a few times, and it really was very easy to get on with. Don T. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: hesperis Date: 12 Mar 05 - 04:30 PM Weirdest mandolin ever. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: GUEST,stumpjumper Date: 23 Jan 05 - 03:45 PM go to the musicians freind web sight they sell 6 &12 string banjos aka banjitars also banjolines ukalaly types |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Roger in Baltimore Date: 04 Jan 05 - 04:57 PM From relatives in Hawaii I received a nose flute for Christmas. Its a hollow tube about 12" long. The ends of the tube are open. There are four holes drilled in the long side. One near one end where I suspect you blow over it like a true flute and three for fingering for tone change. I haven't yet tried it to see if it is truly "playable". Roger in Baltimore |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Splott Man Date: 04 Jan 05 - 07:48 AM Joybell. We've got a Rock-Core Xylophone at Techniquest here in Cardiff (UK). Also a Theremin, a Giant Piano, and a Laser Harp. By the end of 2006 the exhibition will include 35 hands-on exhibits about different aspects of music. www.techniquest.org (sorry can't do clickies) regards |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: GUEST,Barry Finn Date: 30 Dec 04 - 01:53 AM |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: *daylia* Date: 29 Dec 04 - 08:15 AM I got a pair of these Tang Tangs for Christmas. What fun! They're a clacker / shaker combo and I just KNOW I'll be able to do more with them after a few weeks experimenting. Thanks for all the interesting links, folks! |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: freda underhill Date: 29 Dec 04 - 07:32 AM for some totally gourdgeous instruments try: penelope swales - oh my gourd! |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: GUEST Date: 29 Dec 04 - 07:16 AM During a visit to San Francisco, a few yrs back, PJ Swan brought me over to Lark in the Morning, a music store & there I got to lay my hands on the jawbone of an ass. It seems to be played by rattling it's teeth in some sort of fashion. Very interesting instrument. Did't Samson play it as a weapon. They have a nice picture of one at their site. Sorry still don't do the blue clicky thing. Barry |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Bert Date: 29 Dec 04 - 12:07 AM Lark in the Morning have lots of fun stuff. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Bob Bolton Date: 29 Dec 04 - 12:05 AM G'day Bill D, Some years back, I photographed a Rolmonica in the collection of a friend, Ray Grieve, who authored A Band in a Waistcoat Pocket a history of mouth organ players in Australia. (I might be blamed for this strange behaviour ... Ray, who actually plays flute, used to share a microphone with my mouthorgan playing in a rambling, under-equipped, band back in the 1970s ... I must have turned the poor lad's brain!) The Rolmonica does work ... but it takes a lot of puffing ... and the hand-cranking gets erratic as you succumb to hyperventilation! Regards, Bob |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: freda underhill Date: 28 Dec 04 - 07:40 PM if you're into eery strange instruments check this site. this man collects instruments from around the world, and makes them out of large vegetables and other strange things, and puts on concerts that sound and look wonderful.. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Joybell Date: 28 Dec 04 - 07:27 PM Oh yes! Robin, I think they still have those candy whistles in "Ye Olde Sweete Shoppe" in Maldon, (where the best little Folk Festival in Australia is held). The shop is next door to Yee Oldee Icecreamee Shoppee and Yeee Oldeee Antiqueee Shopeee. Cheers, Joy |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 28 Dec 04 - 07:03 PM You used to be able to get whistles made out of hard sugar candy.... |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Bill D Date: 28 Dec 04 - 06:19 PM now I DID once see a version of a Player harmonica in an antique shop! Wish I'd gotten it... |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Dreaded Thumbpick Date: 28 Dec 04 - 09:31 AM A mellophone... sounds like the predecessor of the ice cream cone. Ooops! That was a melloroll. Which actually sounds like a musical instrument. You can get a fine crunchy rhythmic sound until the ice cream melts and everything gets soggy. (:>) |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Joybell Date: 28 Dec 04 - 12:57 AM Thanks Robin, Motorised? Sounds fun. Pedals were more what I had in mind though. Do you have to put rosin on your fingers? Cheers, Joy |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 28 Dec 04 - 12:49 AM Glass harmonicas are available on the web - even a motorised version. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Joybell Date: 28 Dec 04 - 12:35 AM I'd like to see a "Rock Harmonicon" - a xylophone made of slate. And also several of those other strange 19th century instruments. A glass harmonica and a mellophone for starters. Cheers, Joy |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Joybell Date: 23 Dec 04 - 04:22 PM True-Love was wandering through India, 1960something, when he came upon a man carrying a curious instrument on his shoulder. The streets were full of people playing things, dancing and singing. Hungry for exotic musical experiences, True-Love followed the man in the hope of being close by when the strange instrument was played. They walked along dark alleyways and dusty open streets for a while until at last the man stopped. True-Love watched as the man climbed up onto a roof and stuck the strange instrument in the chimney! I've always loved that story. PS Dreaded TP I played a banjo mandolin along with a hundred other little kids. Believe me you don't want to know. Cheers, Joy |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Roger the Skiffler Date: 23 Dec 04 - 09:44 AM The staff of our local paper must have been at the Xmas spirit early as in today's issue in the "Musical Instruments for Sale" section after all the keyboards ("unused, still in box")are: "Fish tank"; "Cat Bed" and "Dog coat". Wonder how they sound? If all else fails there's always the cavaquinho , even better the banjo version (picture 2!). The same liner note that made me look this up described the tiple as "a more sophisticated ukulele"! RtS |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: goodbar Date: 23 Dec 04 - 03:35 AM amadan sometimes used a "banjolin" until their trailer got jacked. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Kaleea Date: 23 Dec 04 - 02:58 AM I have a wild thing called a Laud, which is sort of like an tear shaped octave mandolin, but has 17 strings tuned in 6 courses. Has a right funky tuning, too. It's really interesting pushing down 3 strings at once to get one note--or as close to one note as you can get if it's as in tune as it can be. Came from Spain. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Ernest Date: 23 Dec 04 - 02:18 AM Concerning the banjo fiddle: There is an instrument builder in the Zitadelle Spandau in Berlin, who builds banjo-fiddles using tambourines as a corpus. He uses them mostly for teaching the basics to children before they change to a real fiddle. Also builds banjo-lyres - ancient greek style instruments again with a tambourine as corpus.... Regards Ernest |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Songster Bob Date: 23 Dec 04 - 12:18 AM I don't have any really odd instruments (the electric banjo-guitar, the mando-banjo, the jew's harps, the banjo uke, they don't count), but I know a bit about some of the ones mentioned here. The Strohviol, for instance, was a commercial instrument intended for the recording industry. The horn mentioned worked from a metal diaphragm, sort of like an early National guitar's cone, and was to be aimed at the recording horn of the pre-electric recording machines used before about 1925 or so. Once electrical recording was invented, the Stroh instruments went the way of the dinosaur. Many of the autoharp-form-factor instruments were made by the Marx Musical Instrument Co., which seems to have been connected with the Marx who ran the Marx Toy Co., and also a distant uncle who "went into politics." The Marx Co. had the Marxophone (which used those metal piano-like keys mentioned above -- obviously made by a competitor), the Hawaiian Tremoloa (which had a single melody string that used a metal slide attached to an angled piece of metal, so that the plucking motion induced an up-and-down "bounce" that in turn made for a tremolo effect), and bowed-psaltery-like instruments such as the Ukelin. The strangest instrument I ever saw in person was at a musical weekend in Connecticut, when the guy brought out a, well, I guess you'd call it a one-man organ. It stood about six feet tall and maybe two feet through, like a stack of plumbing parts (no, it wasn't a Mattel "bathhouse brass" -- those were kazoos in fancy clothing), with large bulbous chambers and some method of producing a lot of air (I think it had an electric motor for an air blower, but it could have been foot powered for all I remember). The sound was enchanting, sort of like a Chinese mouth organ except a bit more melodic and, of course, louder. This was NOT a commercial item, and it took so much setup and exceptional care that I heard it played only once the whole weekend. The player was the inventor, and I can't remember anything more about him or it. Bob Clayton |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: GUEST Date: 22 Dec 04 - 08:44 PM I saw something called a mandolin-guitarophone. It was autoharp shaped, and meant to be placed on a table with the tuning peg end away from the player. There were keys, like antique typewriter keys on the near end, each connected to a thin piece of metal and a hammer. You played it like a piano, and the thin metal strips caused the hammers to bounce repeatedly on the strings, which gave it a mandolin-like effect, but the guitarophone part of the name is a mystery to me. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Leadfingers Date: 22 Dec 04 - 05:53 PM My mate Clive who i worked with in Bermuda back in the good old days is a pretty fair guitarist singer and bluegrass style banjo player . A couple of yeras ago he turned up at Sidders with a four string banjo built from a bass drum head he had acquired . Evil great beast the size of a Cello !! |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: GLoux Date: 22 Dec 04 - 04:21 PM How about a banjo fiddle? It is beneath the minstrel banjo, so just scroll down... -Greg |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 22 Dec 04 - 05:18 AM A regular at musical events hereabouts plays many instruments, incuding a phonofiddle. This is a one string bowed instrument with a small box resonator from which emerges a horn as from an old gramophone. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: jimmyt Date: 21 Dec 04 - 10:37 PM I once owned a bass helicon that was an over the shoulder 4 rotary valved bass marching instrument circa civil war vintage. Left it in the basement of a rental house when I moved to Calif. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: GUEST,Mark Cohen at work Date: 21 Dec 04 - 10:24 PM DMcG, my good friend Barry Blum plays one of those great triangular things in Kona's Traveling Jewish Wedding Band. It's a contrabass balalaika. Claudia Schmidt plays the pianolin. I saw and heard her play it in Seattle once. Listen to her recording of "If I Only Had a Brain." It's both bowed and strummed. Aloha, Mark |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Bill D Date: 21 Dec 04 - 01:21 PM here are just some of the instruments from the collection of Jon Eberhardt that Padre mentioned above. Jonathan and friends used to occasionally bring some to "weird instrument" workshops. They are now in the possession of his good friend Andy Wallace, who is slowly trying to place them in proper homes...which means, for those that are playable, with folks who CAN play them. the largest bunch has a ukelin in the background strange guitar on the right (I have pics of the various percussion instruments and flutes/whistles, too) |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: DonMeixner Date: 21 Dec 04 - 08:20 AM http://images.google.com/images?q=combolin+image&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=wi&sourceid=tipimg Try this link to see the Combolins as built by The Corries. Don |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Leadfingers Date: 21 Dec 04 - 07:28 AM That Pikasso is a Seriously Weird Beast !!! |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: mooman Date: 21 Dec 04 - 04:04 AM My entry is the Pikasso It also makes exceedingly good tea. Peace moo |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Seamus Kennedy Date: 21 Dec 04 - 02:31 AM I've owned a few mentioned up there; but the strangest was a Stroviol. One string on a neck with fret lines - no frets, just painted lines. The body was shaped roughly like a rifle- butt, and it had a trumpet like horn coming out of the body. It was held between the knees and played with a bow. Looked like a blunderbuss with a string, bridge and peghead. Seamus |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: open mike Date: 21 Dec 04 - 02:15 AM well as soon as I saw and heard a nyckelhaprpa I knew I would have to find out more... www.nyckelharpa.org bowed like a fiddle, with keys like a piano, and held in guitar-like position.. with sympathetic vibrating strings.. quite a combination! |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: PennyBlack Date: 20 Dec 04 - 06:17 PM and of course our very own PicStrum .. (Plug Plug) electric stick dulcimer - there's a few variations around. PB |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: GUEST,Vikki Ganger Date: 20 Dec 04 - 05:49 PM How about the banjimer: a appalachian dulcimer with an implanted banjo head. Sounds kinda like a dulcimer, kinda like a banjo. Then there is the dulcibro: a combination appalachian dulcimer and dobro. You play it with a slide, just like the real dobro (which is itself a pretty weird instrument--the unfortunate result of leaving a guitar overnight in a dark closet with a sporty chrome hubcap). Or the bowed dulcimer: a dulcimer made to be played upright like a cello, using a bow. It has a curved bridge, like the cello, and some have fine tuners. They can have traditional diatonic dulcimer fret patterns, chromatic frets, or even come fretless for the very brave. Dulcimers are like that: leave one alone overnight with any other folk instrument, and who knows what you will find in the morning... About the large balaika in the photo: Yes, that was a real balalaika: a contrabass balalaika; just like the bass in an orchestra is really a very large violin. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: gigix Date: 20 Dec 04 - 11:30 AM Karlheinz Stockhausen invented an instrument, whose name was a complicated German word that could be translated, roughly, "random hammered piano". In fact it was a sort of xylophone, whose bars are mounted over a sort of caterpillar moving endlessly under the player's hand, so that he never could know in advance which bar was going to hit. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Tannywheeler Date: 19 Dec 04 - 01:19 PM Fella named Frank Davis in Houston -- the one in Texas -- built what he called the "Daddy Banjo". Took a medium-sized drumhead, attached a long neck from a busted Fender electric something-or-other, included a drumstick inside the open-backed drum (worked off a cord tied around his foot) and 5-strung it. Banjo-ish twang, but deeper. Tw |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Roger the Skiffler Date: 19 Dec 04 - 03:32 AM Leadfingers has mentioned two of my favourites: the 6-string banjo (also played by Papa Charlie Jackson) and the sarussaphone, the Corries also played bandurria which didn't look like the Ukranian bandura but more like a 12-string mandolin. RtS |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: DonMeixner Date: 19 Dec 04 - 12:12 AM The Corries used intruments of Roy Williamson's design called Combolins. They had two of them. Based upon guitars as a primary instrument, one had an additional mandolin neck with four heavy strings for bass courses that could be set to tones via movable bridges. The other had an added Banduria neck/fingerboard with 26 tunable sympathetic (sitarlike) strings. Very amazing sounds from these instruments. Roy also played another oddity on "Kishmul's Galley". A shortneck 12 string guitar on a very large squareish, almost trapazoidal, body with many sympathetic strings on it. Any clue what it was? Don |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Dreaded Thumbpick Date: 18 Dec 04 - 10:33 PM I nearly heard of a nose-clarinet once. A tubular thing with a nose flute at the near end instead of a reeded mouthpiece. Wouldn't want to sit close to the output end. Then there are all the gourds -- pumpkin guitars, giant zucchini basses, gourd banjos and all those things made out of what some would have you believe is health food that you shake around and make noise with. How about bones and all the arguments over what or whose bones make the best racket? And wooden spoons connected at the heads so that you don't have to worry about making the ends meet. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: number 6 Date: 18 Dec 04 - 09:47 PM The Moog synthesiser back in 1968. Played by some guy (can't recall his name) in a Toronto Band called Kensington Market. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 18 Dec 04 - 08:36 PM I have a enamelled metal hospital bedpan with attached guitar neck. |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: MartinRyan Date: 18 Dec 04 - 08:25 PM You lot restore my faith in the essentially evil nature of humanity! Wonderful stuff. REgards |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: Leadfingers Date: 18 Dec 04 - 08:13 PM Guitar Banjo - 'Orrid bastardised beast played by Johnny St Cyr on early Jazz Records ! Banjolele - Ukelele banjo as played by George Formby - Got Two Manjolin - Eight strings tunes EADG in pairs with banjo type head -Got Two !! SEVEN string banjo (Not on list) Over a hundred years old (Temlett) Banjola -5 string banjo neck on Mandola body -Gentlemans banjo ! Weird One I would love to try is a Sarrousaphone !! Copper and brass bodied Bass Oboe (Farty Bass Sax Sound) as played by Sidney Bechet ! ( Saw one in M M M A 5th Ave New York) |
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Subject: RE: Odd instruments I've seen or nearly seen From: PennyBlack Date: 18 Dec 04 - 07:58 PM Dreaded Thumbpick - the most worrying thing was the amount of times I said "Got One" as I went down your list. A good place to look and buy unusual instruments here in the uk is here has had a few Ukelin. I have a couple of Banjola's (mandola with a 5 string banjo neck) and a dojo (Dobro Banjo) to add to the list. PB |
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