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Your UNfavorite instrument & why
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: number 6 Date: 21 Nov 07 - 10:33 PM Kendall ... point well stated. A good musician can make the worst of instruments sound good. biLL |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: The Sandman Date: 21 Nov 07 - 06:36 PM ioo100,sorry lead fingersLOL |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: The Sandman Date: 21 Nov 07 - 06:36 PM The English Concertina,Because I believe I am changing into one.Dick Miles |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: kendall Date: 21 Nov 07 - 03:53 PM Jed Marum could get a nice tune out of a sack of crowbars. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego Date: 21 Nov 07 - 03:50 PM Addendum for Guest: Tom Perhaps the highly specialized orificial Irish flute to which you refer could provide an appropriate accompaniment for Bowser and Blue's "Workin' Where the Sun Don't Shine" song in praise of the colorectal surgeon. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego Date: 21 Nov 07 - 03:48 PM I would have selected pan pipes until I heard them played in the context of a Peruvian folk group. It can be a rather pleasing, haunting sound, in the right hands. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: PoppaGator Date: 21 Nov 07 - 03:25 PM Yes, Becky, now that you mention it (and showed us the pictures), Jed has one of those banjolas. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Desert Dancer Date: 21 Nov 07 - 03:18 PM PoppaGator, Without having seen or heard it, as you describe it it's probably a "banjola" that Jed plays, not a mando-banjo. The banjola (which I think is a Gold Tone original instrument) does make a pretty sound. The mando-banjo is something else. ;-) 'Course then there's the banjo-uke... ~ Becky in Tucson |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: PoppaGator Date: 21 Nov 07 - 02:40 PM "suppository-flute"?!?!?!?! Hah! Is the banjo-mandolin everyone seems to dislike the same instrument Jed Marum plays? His instrument has a wooden body like a mandolin (or bouzouki or guitar, etc.), and is strung like a 5-string banjo, including the short drone string. He is able to coax some pretty wonderful sounds out of it, and he seems to feel that it's his best option for some of his songs... |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST,Tom Date: 21 Nov 07 - 02:02 PM The Irish suppository-flute, better known as the flageolet or tin-whistle takes some beating in terms of irritation. Like any instrument, results of great beauty can be achieved by a skilled and discerning player but such are too few and far between to justify even the existence of an instrument which mostly produces no more than a pointless and offensive twittering. The only logical course of action, in my opinion, is to impose a cripplingly large tax on the sale and purchase of them, thus discouraging all but the most serious of musicians from ownership. Luckily, they usually bend without undue force, and/or can be fitted into most bodily orifices, often without the use of a hammer, though beef or pork dripping can be an enormous help. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Roger the Skiffler Date: 20 Nov 07 - 09:13 AM I've always assumed it was my voice, looks and unpleasant personality that put people off. perhaps it was the washboard, kazoo & spoons instead (as well!). RtS "I've emptied bigger rooms than this" |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Sir Roger de Beverley Date: 20 Nov 07 - 07:43 AM The comments about the banjo-mandolin have set my mind at rest: I inherited one that belonged to an uncle of my father - he played it in a band in Hull in the 1920s. However, I have never managed to get on with it as it always sounds like an old bedstead whatever servicing, restringing etc I have done. Maybe I'll just hang it on the wall now. Roger |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: fogie Date: 20 Nov 07 - 06:49 AM What about flutes- like recorders even the best players can be sweet but the notes are more monotonous-sounding to my ears than other woodwind, perhaps the worst offender of this would be the panpipes. To my ear the oboe/ cor anglais is very expressive ,as I believe also is the sop sax and the clarinet. The Irish Pipes are also remarkably evocative, in comparison with the other bagpipes. Flutes can be played remarkably fast in comparison with many other wind, and although they can sound ethereal I cant feel much emotion behind the sound. Tenor banjos are also totally expressionless but I think of them as a partly percussive. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Mooh Date: 19 Nov 07 - 09:15 PM So Jack, tell us how you really feel. LOL! Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Jack Campin Date: 19 Nov 07 - 07:54 PM Acoustic guitars. Think of the range of different kinds of music they can fuck up: - Segovia demonstrating why Bach preferred to write for just about *anything* else rather than have his melodic lines reduced to a blurry confused mess - innumerable Russians playing technical studies with a phenomenal number of notes per second, half of them using harmonics and none of which contribute to any sense of tonal direction - almost every solo folksinger demonstrating that wrapping yourself in haze of chordal rumbling like an acoustic security blanket is a great way to fool yourself that the mumbling monody you're coming out with is really a tune - people like Renbourn demonstrating that there is a damn good reason why traditional British Isles dance music was developed on instruments that can play it in a danceable rhythm - people accompanying traditional music with bizarre jazz harmonies and pseudo-African rhythms that have nothing recognizably to do with the tune - people like Leo Kottke developing whole new genres of such consciousness-annihilating tedium that their only conceivable purpose is tranquillizing large predators when you don't have a fentanyl gun handy It's got a real purpose in flamenco. That's *it*. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: BixB Date: 19 Nov 07 - 06:24 PM The Bassoon during the first year that my son was learning to play it. It usually sounded like someone was strangling a canada goose in the music room. Thankfully however, three years later I listen to him playing an instrument that can best be described as hauntingly beautiful. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego Date: 19 Nov 07 - 05:36 PM I agree most wholeheartedly with Don Firth that it is, first of all, the player, much more than the instrument. I don't care for the ukelele, but I have heard some virtuoso performances on it (rarely). What I loathe is synthesized music and, most particularly, electronic drums. They put me in mind of the old jazz musician's take on Disco, when it was in vogue: "Rhythm & Blues for people who have neither." |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: PoppaGator Date: 19 Nov 07 - 05:33 PM Sarusaphone? At first I thought Bill D was objecting to the sousaphone, and I was ready to counter-object in defense of one of my favorite instruments. But then I took a closer look and decided to Google "sarusaphone" to see if anything turned up. I was given a number of links, and learned that the original idea for the intrument was to create a double-reed woodwind that would be louder than an oboe and thus fit for outdoor performance, especially in marching bands. Sarusaphones were designed and made in varous sizes, with a variety of tonal ranges. However, before long, manufacturers began marketing single-reed sarusaphones, because many more people know how to play single-reed than double-reed instruments. This instrument was developed/"invented" at about the same time as the saxophone, and Mr. Sax (yes, there was such a person) sued ~ unsuccessfully ~ for patent infringement. He apparently thought the sarusaphone was ianppropriately similar to his eponymous brass/woodwing invention. I would presume that the original double-reed sarusaphone would not have prompted the lawsuit, but that the single-reed variation was seen as insufficiently different from a sax. What I was NOT able to find was any kind of picture. I'm curious... |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: kendall Date: 19 Nov 07 - 04:41 PM I found myself in a restaurant in Fort William Scotland back in 1988, and they had a Highland piper . I asked him if he knew "The Dark Island". He did and he played it. It was a very large place so the sound of the pipes didn't cause any hearing loss. That was one of the fond memories that I have of my first trip to Scotland. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST,Songster Bob Date: 19 Nov 07 - 03:57 PM I can't think of a single instrument that -- in its place -- qualifies a 'unfavorite.' Most instruments, well-played, are all right in their place, and can even be, as someone here said, 'hair-raising.' I can stand the dulcimer, the fiddle, the guitar (6-, 9- and 12-string), the Hawaiian guitar and Dobro, the banjo (tenor or 5-string), the ukulele, the mandolin (with and without the banjo part), even the guitar-banjo, an even-more-unsuccessful marriage than the banjo-mandolin; the sax (even Hassan Roland-Kirk and his three at once playing), the bodhran, the bongo, the dumbeck, the full-kit drum set; the piano, harpsichord, organ, synthesizer, calliope, and carrilon; the French, English, and other nations' horns, oboes, bassoons, and even the bombard (the latter playing 'over the hill and far away,' of course). Then again, 'unfavorite' could mean 'the one I don't like to hear more than once a year (or decade),' in which case, I think for me it would be highland warpipes (not to be confused with Northumbrian small-pipes or uilleann pipes or whatever -- even Bulgarian ones can be OK in limited amounts). But warpipes are a once-a-decade thing for me, and it should be even longer if the tune is either 'Amazing Grace' or 'Scotland the Brave.' I could make an exception, though for 'Nut Brown Maiden,' but that's just a reference to an obscure British film we love in our house. If I didn't mention your en-favorite or favorite or ambivalent-to instrument, tough. Make your own list. Bob |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Fidjit Date: 19 Nov 07 - 01:52 PM As a re-think on my previous post. It really relates to an instrument, or rather two indtruments being used badly, but the effect is still the same. Been waiting for someone to put this on here. Someone playing on the linoleum! Although step dancing or clog is ok. Chas |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 19 Nov 07 - 01:36 PM You are mistaken. I can play songs in D and in A on mine, and the use of G or G# or (C or C# on the bass string) makes many trad songs possible. Using the same tuning, I can also play mildly bluesy songs. I can also tune in D-A-G and play minor songs. Others play in D-A-C, but I haven't even explored that tuning yet. I agree that it not an instrument loud enough for ensembles, but it provides plenty of variation and pleasure in a quiet environment. I have a list of over 165 songs that I play on so-called Appalalchian dulcimer, ranging from Salve Regina to 'Since I Met You Baby.' As for 'tinny buzz-and-twang,' you probably have not heard good instruments. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Grab Date: 19 Nov 07 - 04:33 AM Appalachian dulcimer. To assist the player, the frets only cover a major scale, a decision I can only assume is because the player can't handle the mental challenge of chromatic frets. So everyone has to play in the dulcimer's key if you want to give them a go, and even then the lack of chromatics usually means there's somewhere in the tune (especially on British Isles folk tunes that go modal in places) where everyone else is playing a semitone away from the dulcimer. There's only one melody string, so the only way of playing a tune is sliding up and down in search of the note. And its body size and shape limits it to the tinny buzz-and-twang of a Martin Backpacker. Thankfully it's also limited to the volume of a Martin Backpacker, so you can fairly easily drown it out with people who can play real instruments. Graham. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 19 Nov 07 - 01:35 AM My least favorite is the saxophone. The sound wobbles a lot around any given pitch. Plus there's a tradition of abusing the instrument and the human ear by overblowing it once in every tune. I do not consider the bowed psaltery a sincere attempt to make a musical instrument. It's merely a curiosity. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: oggie Date: 18 Nov 07 - 04:57 PM Show my age here. There should be a spot in musical hell reserved for the "Stylophone". For an affordable Alto Psaltery check out www.thomann.de follow the links through traditional instruments/western. Be warned this site will get you buying stuff you didn't know you needed! All the best Steve |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Don Firth Date: 18 Nov 07 - 04:36 PM In Donizetti's opera Lucia de Lammermoor, based on the novel, "The Bride of Lammermoor" by Sir Walter Scott (in the opera, you have guys wandering around in kilts and singing in Italian), the big tour de force for the soprano (Lucia) is the "mad scene." Long, varied aria in which the lady really works to earn her nickel. Along with the orchestra as usual, the most prominent instrument accompanying her voice is a flute. In one legendary performance, the flute was replaced by a glass harmonica. Very eerie! Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: kendall Date: 18 Nov 07 - 04:08 PM How about the glass harmonica? Interesting, but a little goes a long way. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: wyogal Date: 18 Nov 07 - 04:00 PM I've played in an orchestra that used a real cannon for "1812" and was really nervous about the two very pregnant violinists that sat towards the back, next to the percussion. No worries, though, they weren't startled into early delivery. not a fan of artificailly produced "acoustic" sounds: drum machine, synth strings, etc... |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: theleveller Date: 18 Nov 07 - 03:34 PM Right now, the cittern - I just can't seem to get the bloody thing in tune today. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Don Firth Date: 18 Nov 07 - 02:38 PM The Theremin. Very effective in 1950s science fiction movies. I have a friend who got one recently and is teaching himself how to play it. But so far, he's been reluctant to bring it around. But I can be patient. . . . Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Whistlepenny Date: 18 Nov 07 - 02:30 PM Badly-played concertinas en masse can sound like the mating season at Slimbridge wildfowl centre. The bowed psaltery definitely wins out though. It must be the inspiration of the Theremin, probably the nadir of 20th century musical achievement. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Tradsinger Date: 18 Nov 07 - 02:26 PM I think the answer is that any instrument played well is listenable to, yes even banjos, accordeons, Scottish bagpipes and gurdies, and I have heard virtuoso players on each of these that can send a shiver up the spine. What is painful is to hear someone in public playing out of tune/badly, etc. It would be better if they went back and practised more or listened more to themselves before inflicting others to the sound. Tradsinger |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Fidjit Date: 18 Nov 07 - 02:17 PM Two women talking in each others face on the radio (er perhaps thats two instruments) Makes me reach for the off switch though. Chas |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Don Firth Date: 18 Nov 07 - 02:11 PM Yeah, I've heard good bongo-players from time to time. But in Seattle's Pamir House, where I sang often, we ran into the other kind a lot. Pamir House was kind of a hole, but it was a neat place to sing. There were usually two or three, sometimes four singers up front most of the time, and we'd alternate songs, sing impromptu duets and trios (usually unrehearsed, but they generally came off pretty well), and play off each other, complete with wisecracks and by-play. Nothing planned ahead of time, just off-the-cuff. It was like singing at a party, and the audiences loved it. We guys and gals up front were on the payroll, but the informality of it gave some folks the idea that it was a free-for-all. This attracted a lot of kids who came in with bongos (a way for the non-musician to participate), and they'd try to bonk, thump, and bang along with the singers, much to the irritation of the singers and the rest of the audience. Once John Timmons, the proprietor of the place, became aware of the presence of yet another kid with a set of bongos, he'd come out of the kitchen and ask them politely but firmly to cease and desist. Don Firth P. S. 'Course, in some performances of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture," in the finale, they use real cannon. Fairly impressive! |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Ythanside Date: 18 Nov 07 - 01:28 PM ANY instrument/s played at white-noise volume, a technique favoured by incompetents using decibels to batter the audience into submission. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Mooh Date: 18 Nov 07 - 01:17 PM Don...Bongos? In the hands of a pro they're fantastic, but usually they seem reserved for the incompetent. Number 6...Turntables? Wouldn't have thought of this one, such memories are better left suppressed. I'd rather whole orchestras of cowbells and bombards. It generally seems I prefer instruments that have an acoustic equivalent. Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Don Firth Date: 18 Nov 07 - 12:58 PM I'm amazed! We've come this far and no one has mentioned This—or these—are a device invented by Satan which allows those with neither musical talent nor a sense of rhythm to participate in musical events and torment real musicians, goading them into committing a mortal sin by horribly murdering the bongo player in a back alley somewhere. But where Satan's play goes awry is that murdering a bongo player is regarded by the minions of Heaven as a blessed act, not unlike St. Patrick's driving the serpents out of Ireland. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Gern Date: 18 Nov 07 - 12:20 PM Have we really gotten this far without mention of the tambourine? This personal annoyance of mine can drown out a stadium-sized rock band, and is rarely seen in competent hands. It is for often the prop for the instrumentally-challenged, and in the hands of someone without a sense of rhythm it is downright dangerous. If tambourines were made illegal, only criminals would have them. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Richard Bridge Date: 18 Nov 07 - 11:55 AM Ah- that was addressed to Magrath. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Richard Bridge Date: 18 Nov 07 - 11:54 AM Only if we can have Tippi Hedren in it |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Mikefule Date: 18 Nov 07 - 11:17 AM Typo! A single melodeon "played" well, not "plated". Although some people might prefer the idea of plating one! |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Mikefule Date: 18 Nov 07 - 11:16 AM Three or more of anything in a session, but especially three or more melodeons. Someone once said, "I never heard a tune palyed on ten melodeons that wouldn't have sounded better on one." A single melodeon, plated well, or two played together, sensitively, can be great. Hurdy gurdies can grate after the first twenty minutes. Kendall: the Saxophone may often sound like a kazoo. For an example of it not sounding like a kazoo, listen to the late Paul Desmond (played with Dave Brubeck, and made an album with MJQ). It's not "Mudcat" music, but it's a beautiful smooth melodeous honeyed sound. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: number 6 Date: 18 Nov 07 - 11:05 AM ... and I should add 'turntables' ... for those that believe this is a musical instrument. biLL |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: number 6 Date: 18 Nov 07 - 11:03 AM Cheap 'electronic' keyboards. biLL |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 18 Nov 07 - 10:55 AM a marauding flock of gulls pecking a bagpiper to death. That might be quite entertaining... |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Liz the Squeak Date: 18 Nov 07 - 10:34 AM Ah, school nativity plays... we're in a whole new ballgame here... I have sat through many a school concert where members of the various instrument families have been submitted to what can only be called torture. The noises they were creating would have done credit to a marauding flock of gulls pecking a bagpiper to death. Philip Glass would have been proud of them. LTS |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Doug Chadwick Date: 18 Nov 07 - 09:25 AM Different instruments in different circumstances .... I'm sure there is nothing more stirring than being led into battle by the highland pipes but I can live without a single piper paying a lament from the castle walls. Also, as a father of four, I've been to enough nativity plays and Christmas concerts never to wish to be present for the combination of the year six recorder group and "The Snowman". DC |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Richard Bridge Date: 18 Nov 07 - 09:20 AM Ah, oops, I should have said "Folksong singers". |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: wysiwyg Date: 18 Nov 07 - 09:12 AM High-pitched recorders played loudly and incessantly, solo, or overly loud in a session instead of being played as a small part of the whole. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: RangerSteve Date: 18 Nov 07 - 08:51 AM The only time I ever heard highland pipes indoors was in an arena. It was the Black Watch, and it was pretty stirring. But I can imagine what they're like in close quarters. What bothers me about them, however, is the fact that when they get to playing "Scotland, the Brave", they can't reach the high note in the B part. And the note they do hit doesn't seem to be even in harmony with the right one. But nothing comes close to the French pipe, I don't know the exact name, but it's a small, shrill (shrill, as in "IF IT DOESN'T STOP NOW I'M GOING TO COMMIT MASS MURDER AND NOT FEEL ANY REMORSE STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT GODDAMN IT SON OF A BITCH GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY AUGGGGHHH -SOund of my head exploding). And the tunes played on it are completely incomprehensible, at least to my American ears. The first time I heard one was as a kid, messing with my brother's multi=band radio. I thought I'd managed to get a station from another planet. (Really). Just thinking about it makes me BOOM SPLAT Sorry, folks, but Steve's head just expoded. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: SINSULL Date: 18 Nov 07 - 07:44 AM String Quartets. They all seem to be enjoying themselves but to me it is musical masturbation. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Emma B Date: 18 Nov 07 - 07:43 AM I've never heard an instrument I didn't like when played by someone in total sympathy with their instrument and music. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Mooh Date: 18 Nov 07 - 07:42 AM The player not the instrument. There's a form of rock music where the singers sound like the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street on speed; indoors highland pipes (witnessed two pipebands last night, they were great in the Santa Claus parade), beginner fiddlers (endearing though they may e, they sound like crap), etc etc, you get the idea. There are some cheap guitars with cheap strings which can't be intonated that parents want to purchase for their kids (often against my advice) for their first instrument. Three reasons they sound like shit (strings, box, intonation) and any one of them bother me, but all three together makes me cringe. That I have to listen to them played for a half hour every week is my personal hell. Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Richard Bridge Date: 18 Nov 07 - 07:40 AM A tunable didge in the hands of a player who can tune it and listen can be rather good. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Richard Bridge Date: 18 Nov 07 - 07:38 AM Mind you, a GOOD recorder makes a hell of a difference. Jacqui had an old Boosey and Hawkes rosewood, with a couple of chips in the fipple, which gave it a richness of harmonics not usually associated with the instrument, and it was a fraction flat so she had to "blow it up" a bit, which gave a very different and forceful quality to the sound. A few years before she died I bought her a Dolmetsch medieval pitch silkwood recorder, and possibly the fractionally larger dimensions associated with the A=415 pitch made a difference but it had a sorrowing fullness that was most effective. To get it spot on to being a semitone down from concert it was necessary to "crack" the main joint a fraction (one thumbnail thickness, Dr Blood was quite impressed that a couple of folksingers could tell the difference). It was not cheap - about half the price of a pretty good but not spectacular guitar. Say half a Martin or a Gibson as distinct from a Collings or a Brook or Fylde or Kincade. Lot of money for only a little bit of wood. She also had a pearwood sopranino that was very fast and light-sounding and she used that to great effect on instrumental bridges. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: redsnapper Date: 18 Nov 07 - 07:36 AM Mr Bridge's extensive exposé appears to have covered the matter as comprehensively as could ever be desired. RS |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Lowden Jameswright Date: 18 Nov 07 - 07:36 AM Kids in cars, windows down (so they don't rattle presumably), Bass Boost at Max - console yourselves with this thought: They'll be deaf before they reach 40 |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Betsy Date: 18 Nov 07 - 07:31 AM Didgeree don't |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Richard Bridge Date: 18 Nov 07 - 07:29 AM I did 3 posts above. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Lowden Jameswright Date: 18 Nov 07 - 07:00 AM Can't believe no-one's mentioned the recorder |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: kendall Date: 18 Nov 07 - 06:46 AM I agree about the limited range of the war pipes, but there has to be an exception to every rule, and this is one. I don't fancy the war pipes as a musical instrument, because I "feel" the sound of the pipes more than I hear it.It makes me want to kick asses and take names so to speak. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Newport Boy Date: 18 Nov 07 - 06:45 AM A little way back, Tootler said: Don't know if they count as instruments, but drum machines as used on so much pop music now - the sort you hear from about five miles away in some youth's beat up old [name your own make and model] car and are best represented as "dumb, dumb, dumb..." I'm the wrong side of 70, and a few years ago used to go to the theatre with a guy 10 years older. Reg could always turn out a 1-liner, and one evening, waiting to cross the road in Bristol, one of these cars went past. Reg watched it up the road, turned to me and said "My grandson's got that tune in HIS car". Excellent ear for music, Reg. Phil |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Richard Bridge Date: 18 Nov 07 - 06:13 AM Funny that it's almost always the B, as well. I have given this great thought, and have decided that in folk music or particularly song (and you all know what I mean by that) it's the expurgated grand piano, closely followed by the upright piano. Closely followed, for any folk music or song other than Morris dance music that Morris is actually being danced to, Brass, starting with the Cornet and Souzaphone or Bass Tuba, and working in towards the middle. Banjos (tenor) fine for trad jazz or (5 string) Irish(which I don't much like anyway) or American (which I like rather less) but intrusive in English music and song (OK for music hall), jury out on Scottish. Not keen on resonator guitar or mandolin in English either. I quite like the sound of hurdy-gurdies and bombardes (but bombardes are not good to sing with, a bit overpowering) although I do know of one hurdy-gurdy player who is an absolute embarrassment. The various drone pipes sound nice, although the war pipes can be a bit overwhelming and I wish they would go into concert pitch. Toot-toot (or gallopey-gallopey - you know you've all heard it) recorder can get wearing, but anyone who heard my late wife wail on the recorder (there were limits to her technique, but she got a pretty amazing sound) will know that the instrument can be almost inspiring at the right moment. Djembes require light and shade (and don't always get it) but on the right song (said late wife and I used to call for massed percussion on "Nottamun Town") the mass of percussion and clanking from all sizes of drum assembled, beer glasses, car-keys, triangles, and people drumming the right drones on guitars can be most effectively hypnotic |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Big Al Whittle Date: 18 Nov 07 - 05:52 AM I still don't think theres any experience worse (getting hanged maybe) than when someone starts the Recruited collier, or The Great Silkie and you thnk, 'that B string is MILES out' and you know its going to go ON and on and ON........ |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GRex Date: 18 Nov 07 - 04:33 AM Must agree with the majority; the Scottish bagpipes played indoors. I'm sure they were invented solely to frighten the enemy. GRex |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Sooz Date: 18 Nov 07 - 03:35 AM Saxophones - or the way they are used. Can't they play a whole tune? Why do they just play a rif for punctuation and then have several bars rest? |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 18 Nov 07 - 03:18 AM Mechanically/electronically-induced percussion or pseudo-percussion (e.g. you're trying to play in a session and some lamebrain simply HAS to join in and, quite undeterred by the fact that he can't play an instrument, starts rattling his car keys or tapping his beer glass, usually with a metal object. To me, spoons border on this category - I hate the bloody things! Even when played in rhythm - which they often aren't - they're just noisemakers. Adrien, I'm with you 1000%. If you haven't seen this thread (containing Con Fada O'Driscoll's "The Great Spoons Murder"), do: http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=67631 |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Dave Hanson Date: 18 Nov 07 - 03:01 AM One ukulele is good, two is OK but when you get any more it's a cacophany, we regularly get up five ukes in our local sessions, all in tune, all playing in time together, all playing the same chords, all sounding feckin awful together, it's definately the player not the instruments. If you don't like piano accordions [ I don't ] you should listen to Karen Tweed, she manages to make it sound wonderful. I agree with Mandotim about banjo mandolins, bleedin awful, I also have two of them, they havent seen daylight for many years. eric |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Tradsinger Date: 18 Nov 07 - 02:55 AM It's got to be the Scottish bagpipe - out of tune, too loud and the limited range means it can't play the tunes properly. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 18 Nov 07 - 02:41 AM The problem with the bowed psaltery, is that all the unbowed strings are undamped, thus you get infinite "A hurdy-gurdy disproves the theory that it's the musician rather than the instrument" As an owner of a Symphonie (the smaller earlier relative), and teh son of a violin p[layer, I have discovered the secret... If you bow a violin string hard at the same ratio point where the HG wheel strikes the string, you will get the same scratchy sound on a violin... I discovered that if you get the correct combination of rosin, and fluffiness of the cotton (actually, it has to be WOOL, NOT COTTON!), it allows the string to vibrate freely, without ACTUALLY hitting the wheel itself! This gives you a sweet violin sound! A VERY different sound, sweet!, trust me! :-) |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST Date: 18 Nov 07 - 01:16 AM "There is nothing either good or bad - but thinking makes it so" I like everything |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker Date: 18 Nov 07 - 12:54 AM when i was 20 i heard 1 lone full battle dress reagailed Highland military piper in a school assembly hall in bradford.. i've not been the same since.. that was also the same day i joined in on a glue your own psaltery workshop.. that was same era i was playing in a punk band in Leeds.. 30 yeaRS later.. iam the mutant genetically deformed offspring of medieival punk rock. yeah !!! |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 18 Nov 07 - 12:41 AM 3 of my least favourite sounds have been mentioned - bowed psaltry (I'll never be able to hear one again without hearing Kendall's slow motion rat fight!), hurdy-gurdy & scottish pipes indoors. I've heard both these in superb acoustic spaces & just had to leave. Scottish pipes are one of my favourite instruments outdoors, after all my ancestors were Borderers. Altho they have Scottish names, Borderers fought both Scots & English indiscriminately! I assume that's why I love the sound of bagpipes outdoors, but I can't cope with a piper indoors, at least I can turn a recording down. Northumbrian & other pipes are great indoors. sandra |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Nick E Date: 17 Nov 07 - 10:41 PM Kweyboard. Weeboared. KREBOERD. I don't much like Keyboard. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Beer Date: 17 Nov 07 - 10:40 PM Well Kendall I don't know if "Spoons" are considered an instrument or not. But I have this to say about them. I have been in the presence two occasion whereby the spoon player were excellent. On the hundred other times I would have loved to ask the players to bend over. There is nothing more irritating than someone playing the spoons especially with good fiddle players and not being able to carry the beat. Beer (adrien) |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker Date: 17 Nov 07 - 10:40 PM ..and i really dont like chorus FX pedals.. the blight of late 70's and most 80's folk rock guitar recordings.. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Celtaddict Date: 17 Nov 07 - 10:35 PM Much as I like bagpipe music (war or small), a bombarde (which seems not far from a chanter) seems to go straight through my skull. It sounds like a weapon, in name and in sound. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Don Firth Date: 17 Nov 07 - 10:27 PM Bit of trivia: The French horn isn't French, it's English (basically, an English hunting horn with valves). The English horn isn't a horn, it's a woodwind. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: kendall Date: 17 Nov 07 - 10:17 PM I'm talking about the instrument itself, it's own unique sound, not the player. It goes without saying that a poor player will make irritating noises on any instrument. I don't really hate the small pipes, but I do much prefer the war pipes. Most penny whistles sound flat to me. As far as blown instruments go, I like the sound of the French horn. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Bill D Date: 17 Nov 07 - 10:09 PM well....I never was too fond of the sarusaphone...especially the contra-bass model. I guess no one else was either, because I can no longer find a picture of one online. (Google will give you a few remarks). But seriously, 'almost' any (well made) instrument can be played well by an expert....but put a poorly made Hurdy-Gurdy in the hands of someone with dubious credentials and.........and.....you get 25-30 years of Hurdy-Gurdy jokes. #1 joke: "It'll NEVER stop complaining till you quit twisting its tail!" |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 17 Nov 07 - 08:45 PM Aside from drum machines I don't have any. True enough, they can all sound bloody horrible and out of place, but then so can the human voice. There's a time and place for everything. Except drum machines. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker Date: 17 Nov 07 - 08:14 PM ..and before i open another bottle.. in all fairness.. the standard psaltry is an undeniably evil sound.. however.. there are a few instrument makers in the US who build bigger box richer sounding lower-octave psaltrys.. tenor.. and maybe baritone.. i really want one.. but far too expensive.. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker Date: 17 Nov 07 - 08:00 PM oh yes.. before i forget .. panpipes !!! obviously i dont care enough to get in a fight over them.. that would just be taking it to silly extremes.. ..and maybe its not the instrument itself.. maybe if punk panpipe CD's were openly on sale in every petrol station and supermarket world wide..??? |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST,Flatpick Date: 17 Nov 07 - 07:58 PM Bodhran (don't know if that's the correct spelling)as it's usually used by persons to intrude on a song being done by somebody else, and invariably a song not requiring any percussion whatsoever. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker Date: 17 Nov 07 - 07:54 PM new age hippy dippy floaty airy-fairy preset pads on digital synths... ..whereas i aspire to program my synths to as closely as possible emulate raspy abrasive buzzing scraping lovely hurdy gurdy and psaltry sounds.. i am convinced the dodgy dirty stinky itinerant musicians of the middle ages invented punkfolk !!!! |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Don Firth Date: 17 Nov 07 - 07:37 PM The occasional mellow jazzist (is that a word?) can get a pretty nice sound out of a saxaphone, but most of the time, at least to me, it sounds like someone is torturing a duck! Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Rapparee Date: 17 Nov 07 - 07:31 PM The Pandemonium, the instrument PDQ Bach wrote for. I think it's the player, not the instrument. I use the term "player" instead of "musician" deliberately. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: kendall Date: 17 Nov 07 - 07:07 PM I'll even add the Saxaphone. They all sound like a giant Kazoo to me. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Uncle Phil Date: 17 Nov 07 - 06:57 PM The Bombarde, of course. In the hands of an expert it sounds like a plastic toy from Walmart. - Phil |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Leadfingers Date: 17 Nov 07 - 06:42 PM Definately Musician NOT Instrument ! Though I AM wary of Scottish pipes indoors - And I WAS a Sergeant piper in an RAF Band in my youth ! |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: RangerSteve Date: 17 Nov 07 - 06:24 PM That's interesting. The first time I heard a recording of Fats Waller on the organ was the first time I liked the organ. As a kid, i couldn't stand them things. Once, while visiting the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC, there was an organ recital, the music being some avant garde unmelodic hooey. The cathedral is has been under construciton since about 1900, and is being buile entirely by hand, just as they were built back in the Middle Ages. It's a big, cavernouse stone place, the music was way too loud, and the organist his a note that consisted of all the keys and all the pipes, and lasted for about one minute. It resounded off the stone walls and was the loudest thing I've ever heard. I wanted to kill the organist and the composer. Fats Waller redeemed the instrument for me, and now I sort of like them. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Stringsinger Date: 17 Nov 07 - 06:05 PM Pipe organ. The only player I could tolerate was Fats Waller. Frank |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 17 Nov 07 - 06:01 PM Anything a sixteen-year-old in a music store puts his hands on. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: mandotim Date: 17 Nov 07 - 05:41 PM For me, it has to be the banjo mandolin (or mandolin banjo, or banjolin). The tuning problems of the mandolin (is it true that 'mandolin' is Latin for 'out of tune'?) combined with the lack of dynamic control of the banjo. It's an unhappy marriage, and one wonders what they ever saw in each other. It's a loud and utterly obnoxious instrument, and I really don't know why I have two of them. Or why I play them so often. Tim ;) |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: The Vulgar Boatman Date: 17 Nov 07 - 05:38 PM Don, amen. I can't believe that any instrument was designed or evolved wih the purpose of being painful to listen to. In the right hands, even the gurdy can be worthwhile, and Liz, Mozart's clarinet quintet is a delight by way of what the instrumnent was actually designed for, but why for pity's sake can't folk realise that a) it's rather important to be able to play the thing you're sitting behind properly before inflicting it on others and b) no amount of enthusiasm can excuse rank bad manners. If people would only get up to speed in the privacy of their own homes and amongst true and tolerant friends before going public, the world of folk music would be a better, more entertaining place. As for manners, a group of very talented young fiddlers made fools of themselves at a festival this summer by simply not knowing how to behave. The dilemma was that the grown ups were too polite to tell them... |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Tootler Date: 17 Nov 07 - 05:36 PM Don't know if they count as instruments, but drum machines as used on so much pop music now - the sort you hear from about five miles away in some youth's beat up old [name your own make and model] car and are best represented as "dumb, dumb, dumb..." |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Liz the Squeak Date: 17 Nov 07 - 05:10 PM Oh Kendall... see this can of worms? See that can opener in your hand?! I'm with Don on the 'player not the instrument' thing. Manners not withstanding though, I loathe the clarinet. Don't know why, but it just hits that frequency that makes my teeth itch, it's obtrusive, obnoxious and I can happily live without it. LTS |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Morticia Date: 17 Nov 07 - 04:49 PM A hurdy-gurdy disproves the theory that it's the musician rather than the instrument......no matter how accomplished the player a wasp with an out of tune whine up it's arse is the best that can be achieved with this work of Satan. |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Don Firth Date: 17 Nov 07 - 04:44 PM Now, I don't mind accordions at all. In fact, they are right at home in certain kinds of music and especially evocative in, say, French popular music, such as backing Charles Aznavour or Edith Piaf. Scandinavian music as well. My problem is with a fair percentage of accordion players. I remember in particular a woman who used to attend some of the "hoots" or song sessions in private homes during the late 1950s and early 1960s. She was into "songs of social protest," and she apparently felt her message was so important that she didn't have to abide by the usual courtesies—such as you don't start a new song yourself when someone else is halfway through a song they're singing. She would just honk away on her squeeze-box, drowning out guitarist and singer in progress, and launch right into her musical polemic. She was a royal pain in the patoot!! Another one was when I was teaching in a suite of studios at the Broberg House of Music. I had been there for some months, teaching guitar (classic, not amplified electric) when this new accordion teacher made the rounds and told all the other teachers there that they would have to keep it down when she was giving a lesson because she would not tolerate any "extraneous noise." Pretty damned high-handed. But she didn't think anything of launching into a top-volume rendition of "Lady of Spain," drowning out everybody else's attempts to give lessons. Fortunately she left after a week or two. Two noisy, she complained. And then there was a newly formed bluegrass group (guitar, fiddle, washtub bass, and full-speed 5-string banjo player) who used to show up at song fests from time to time. When they arrived, the ballad singers may just as well put their instruments away, because the crabgrassers would start in, drown everyone else out (they didn't consider British Isles or Anglo-American songs and ballads to be American folk music, hence dispensable), and go directly from one piece to another with no pause between. Hoot killers. It's not necessarily the instrument. It's the "musician." Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: Big Al Whittle Date: 17 Nov 07 - 04:15 PM an out of tune guitar |
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Subject: Your UNfavorite instrument & why From: kendall Date: 17 Nov 07 - 04:09 PM I was talking to a good friend of mine a week or so ago, and somehow we got on instruments that grate on our nerves. We both agree that the bowed psaltry sounds like a rat fight in slow motion. There is something about that frequency that makes our nerves bleed. |
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