Unusual materials for instruments

Subject: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 May 21 - 04:16 AM

To start with: human femurs.

How to make a kangling

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Raggytash
Date: 24 May 21 - 04:43 AM

A mate of mine back in the 70's made a One Stringed Omelette Pandolin............... and could play a tune on it!

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: GerryM
Date: 24 May 21 - 04:50 AM

Nothing unusual about making *some* instruments from gourds, but "Totally Gourdgeous are an Australian folk band, in which the members' instruments are manufactured from gourds made by the group's Penelope Swales. They formed in Melbourne in 1998, with Swales on guitar, stomp box, hulusi, aslatuas, mandolin, vocals; Andrew Clermont on fiddle, guitar, mandolin and vocals; Carl Pannuzzo on drums, guitar and vocals; and Mal Webb on fretless bass guitar, mbira, gourd trumpet and vocals."

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 May 21 - 05:35 AM

I was going to mention brie, a uke made by a friend using an authentic French cheese box, but that's a bit blase after your suggestion!

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Felipa
Date: 24 May 21 - 07:12 AM

The pandolin made me think about pangolins; I hope not! The most recent charangos I've seen were not made with armadillo shells.

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: GerryM
Date: 24 May 21 - 08:48 AM

Lindsay Pollak makes a clarinet from a carrot.

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 May 21 - 11:29 AM

Other things I've read about lately: Johnny Farraj and Sami Abu Shumays describe a lot of stuff in their "Inside Arabic Music". The riqq (classical tambourine, the lead percussion instrument in the standard Arab ensemble) should be made of fishskin. And not just any fish - the ultimate is the skin of a Red Sea skate. And one kind of skin-bellied gourd violin should have its membrane made from the pericardial membrane of a water buffalo.

My wife's brother used to wallop people with pig bladders for a Morris side in Suffolk. This meant regular trips to the offal butcher.

The creepiest I've heard of is a Romanian folk clarinet where the "reed" is an eviscerated slug. Dunno if the eyestalks look up at you as you put it in your mouth.

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 May 21 - 11:53 AM

I grew up hearing the Hoffnung Concerts played every so often on my local classical radio station. Lots of non-traditional items crafted into musical instruments.

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: leeneia
Date: 24 May 21 - 11:58 AM

Once upon a time, Europeans made a wind instrument from the horn of a gemsbok, an animal which is now protected. I have a modern variant, a gemshorn made from the horn of a Texas longhorn steer.

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 May 21 - 02:57 PM

From Facebook - a lyre made from a human skull.

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 24 May 21 - 04:09 PM

I wonder if those horns were cleaned with a chamois cloth?!

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 May 21 - 04:44 PM

Recycled donkeys:

The quijada

I have a couple of Chinese "dizi" flutes. These have a kazoo-like membrane to modify the sound.   Traditionally it's glued down with "eijiao", donkey hide gelatin. Fresh garlic juice works about as well, and the donkey hide trade is so horrific I wouldn't consider replacing the eijiao I currently have - donkeys are traded from Africa on a huge and destructive scale to feed the demand for eijiao as a traditional Chinese medicine.

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Tangledwood
Date: 24 May 21 - 07:36 PM

A friend made a concrete banjo. It actually sounds good but is rather heavy.

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: BobL
Date: 25 May 21 - 03:35 AM

Heavy Metal musician Midnight Prince reportedly incorporated half of his deceased uncle's skeleton in an guitar (long story, details here).

i (the newspaper) suggested he should adopt the stage name "Simon and Half Uncle"...

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 25 May 21 - 05:25 AM

Might be too much of a Hollywood tropical cliché anymore to qualify for 'unusual' but anywho:
Conch (instrument)
Hear the Musical Sounds of an 18,000-Year-Old Giant Conch

Come carnivale season, anything not screwed & glued down goes in the percussion section.

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 May 21 - 12:04 PM

I've seen a flamenco dancer in a dedicated shop repeatedly trying shoes with strategically placed tacks to get just the right sound.

In primary school, we used to put tacks in our shoes and see who could slide the furthest over the classroom floor ;-)>

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 25 May 21 - 01:21 PM

I have a friend in Aberdeen who made a working bagpipe out of the bag inside a 3 litre winebox

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: The Og
Date: 26 May 21 - 09:06 AM

As a kid I used to make music with dandelion stems...

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: banjoman
Date: 27 May 21 - 07:10 AM

I own (and made) a banjo using an old frying pan as a resonator. Sounds pretty good.

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 May 21 - 02:05 PM

Let us not neglect musical uses of porridge. The South Indian mridangam (double headed log drum with a wildly complicated technique) has one skin centre-weighted with rice paste, applied fresh for every performance. And Burmese gongs are tuned by loading the inside of the central boss with dried-on rice porridge.

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 May 21 - 03:59 PM

I won't bang on about it but, on a visit to Chiang Mai (not so far from Burma/Myanmar, of course), I greatly enjoyed rice porridge for breakfast.

And let us not forget the feather plectrums used to play the English cittern.

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: GerryM
Date: 27 May 21 - 06:50 PM

He made fiddle strings of her long, yellow hair.... He made fiddle pegs of her little finger bones....He made a little fiddle out of her breastbone....

But, the only tune that fiddle would play was "Oh, The Wind And Rain".

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: pattyClink
Date: 27 May 21 - 07:40 PM

Super Chikan's fuel can guitars!

https://www.arts.ms.gov/folklife/artist.php?dirname=johnson_james

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jun 21 - 02:43 AM

I'll let others be the judge of what is unusual.

A wide variety of pottery instruments are the subject of the book From Mud to Music (ISBN 978-1-57498-349-4)

Bart Hopkin has written several books and has invented a wide variety of instruments.

I found Tan Dun's performances of Paper Concerto and Water Concerto interesting.

I saw an interesting YouTube video about playing music on a Mason jar partially filled with water. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XqwVciXa-w

Also on YouTube, I saw Evelyn Glennie play a jawbone of a donkey or some such beast. The teeth made a rattling noise. I didn't find Glennie's video, but here is a Led Zeppelin cover which includes the donkey jawbone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZMY-py8hb4

Yet another YouTube video. "Over the Rainbow" played on a cat organ. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxEHi6Mlzmk

I just had an idea. I have seen molds used for growing vegetables to create a particular shape. Could such a mold be useful in forming gourds to be a consistent shape and size to make a standardized instrument?


I

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Planetluvver
Date: 02 Jun 21 - 02:46 AM

I'll let others be the judge of what is unusual.

A wide variety of pottery instruments are the subject of the book From Mud to Music (ISBN 978-1-57498-349-4)

Bart Hopkin has written several books and has invented a wide variety of instruments.

I found Tan Dun's performances of Paper Concerto and Water Concerto interesting.

I saw an interesting YouTube video about playing music on a Mason jar partially filled with water. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XqwVciXa-w

Also on YouTube, I saw Evelyn Glennie play a jawbone of a donkey or some such beast. The teeth made a rattling noise. I didn't find Glennie's video, but here is a Led Zeppelin cover which includes the donkey jawbone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZMY-py8hb4

Yet another YouTube video. "Over the Rainbow" played on a cat organ. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxEHi6Mlzmk

I just had an idea. I have seen molds used for growing vegetables to create a particular shape. Could such a mold be useful in forming gourds to be a consistent shape and size to make a standardized instrument?

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Planetluvver
Date: 02 Jun 21 - 02:55 AM

and how could I have forgotten the cave organ in Luray Caves located in West Virginia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stalacpipe_Organ

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Jun 21 - 04:24 AM

many years ago I saw a busker with glass bottles hanging on a framework. Each bottle had a different amount of water in it & he was making beautiful new age music. Unfortunately I only saw him once.

The busker I saw was a long haired hippy playing a single row of identical bottles, definitely not playing classical music on 2 rows of bottles & I think he might have been tapping them with his hands, not a spoon.

Subject: RE: Unusual materials for instruments
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Jun 21 - 04:41 AM

There was an excellent bottle xylophone player outside Nyugati Station in Budapest for years. He did the fine tuning with a syringe. There are lots of videos of him on the web.