odd musical instruments !

Subject: odd musical instruments !
From: Bill D
Date: 15 May 03 - 07:59 PM

ok, Rick Fielding, I got one for you!...uh, two....maybe three, depending on how you count....but you gotta take your shoes off!

one man band, with short clip

found at this page ....
which is a subset of this page

LOTS of other stuff.....

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Bill D
Date: 15 May 03 - 08:03 PM

like THIS!

a long 6th finger might help

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Cluin
Date: 15 May 03 - 08:27 PM

I'm still intrigued by Linda Manzer's Pikasso guitar thingy.

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Sorcha
Date: 15 May 03 - 08:35 PM

Isn't it Stephen Bennet who plays a harp/guitar? Might be somebody else, can't remember for sure.

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Cluin
Date: 15 May 03 - 08:42 PM

Michael Hedges played one too on a few pieces.

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 03 - 09:09 PM

Listen to the combolins used in the Corries recordings. Go to the Corries web site to see them.

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: PoppaGator
Date: 15 May 03 - 11:36 PM

Check out Phil DuGruy and his Guitarp:

http://www.guitarp.com/guitarp.html

which is part of:

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: open mike
Date: 16 May 03 - 05:09 AM

then there is the lagerphone
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~goreing/lagerphone.htm
i think this guy is a mud cat...
also a pole hanger...

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 16 May 03 - 07:00 AM

Really a fine collection, of which the lagerphone is a true and genuine folk instrument. One can see it in Germany, too, where it is known by the name of Teufelsgeige = Devil's violin.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 16 May 03 - 07:09 AM

does anyone play the phonofiddle? (1 string and a horn attached for amplification)

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Jeanie
Date: 16 May 03 - 08:07 AM

My dear departed dad was brilliant on tobacco tin with one hand and teeth with the other(which he tapped with the stem of his pipe).

- jeanie

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Jeanie
Date: 16 May 03 - 08:17 AM

By the way...most of his teeth were his own and he *did* keep them in whilst playing !!

- jeanie

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: JennyO
Date: 16 May 03 - 09:44 AM

Yes, I think the lagerphone guy is one of ours. I went back to his homepage, too, and liked the clock with the little numbers that follow you around. Cool! His link to the Wongawilli website is worth looking at. They are close to us, just down the south coast a bit - an excellent Australian bush band.

I have a friend who started making lagerphones. I was saving bottletops for him. Then he and his wife took moved away from Sydney. Now I have bags of bottletops and no-one to give them to. I miss them too. Come back Ron and Pat!

Jenny

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Bill D
Date: 16 May 03 - 10:38 AM

I am sort of bemused that NO one has commented on my original link. I might have well as posted just the title. *wry grin*....

ah, well

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: MMario
Date: 16 May 03 - 10:44 AM

it's a cat-herding type of day Bill.

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Bill D
Date: 16 May 03 - 11:06 AM

gee...I thought I was putting out a saucer of milk! *grin*....

(I had a dog once, MUCH easier to get to do what you want....I'd say "sit up, or won't you?"...and he either sat up, or he didn't...)

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Pied Piper
Date: 16 May 03 - 11:23 AM

This is a great site Bill thanks a lot for linking it. For some time I've been thinking about getting a soprano Sax, and now I find that some one is making Saxes out of bamboo with a simple system fingering.

Cheers

PP

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 16 May 03 - 11:45 AM

Dig out your recording of the Beatles "Give Peace a Chance" ... that's not a drum ... it's a wardrobe.

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: GUEST,alinact
Date: 16 May 03 - 11:48 AM

How about Ted Egan's Fosterphone for simplicity.

Allan

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: GUEST,Johnny in OKC
Date: 16 May 03 - 01:08 PM

I have a home made "boom fiddle", possibly
something like your Teufelsgeige ??
It is a broom stick mounted with a tambourine
(for banging with a drumstick), wood block,
cowbell, bike horn, and a small cymbal on top.
The whole thing bounces on a spring. This is
a versatile rhythm instrument, but Juilliard
refuses to recognize it, so it qualifies as
Folk. Takes years to master the intricacies.
JOHNNY in OKC

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: open mike
Date: 16 May 03 - 03:06 PM

well a nyckelharpa doesn't seem odd to Swedes,,,,but then,,,,,

anerican organization for this instrument
swedish dept. of musicology
Leif Alpsjo's site
a nyckelharpa builder

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: GUEST
Date: 16 May 03 - 03:59 PM

BillD I opened the site and marveled at the instruments but couldn't listen here at the office. Will do when I get home. Thanks. They look intrigueing.

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: TIA
Date: 16 May 03 - 04:47 PM

Oooh cool, my kids and I will be there for hours, then hours more in the basement buildin' stuff. Thanks BillD!

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Emma B
Date: 16 May 03 - 05:00 PM

Hey Mr Red, remember the 'Japan Banjo' I bought at a flea market in Greenwich? - perhaps someone will have a clue how to tune it! or what the hell it is!!

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: CraigS
Date: 16 May 03 - 05:32 PM

There's odder instruments than this about, but nothing here to challenge the lightening feet of Dr Isiah Ross!

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Little Robyn
Date: 16 May 03 - 06:10 PM

I liked Henry Kipper's tremelodeon!
Robyn

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Bill D
Date: 16 May 03 - 08:33 PM

One of the most interesting things for me was the Stoessel-laute , as a friend (Peter Sailer) in our local (Wash DC) folk society plays the standard 'folk' version.

See here and here

as he explains it, the Steussel/Stoessel was banned by the Nazis as something not in keeping with the philosophies of the party, and thus many were destroyed. I had not heard of the 'lute' version until I found this site.

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: GUEST,Tim
Date: 16 May 03 - 08:49 PM

There are tons of odd ones out there. Last weekend I saw Dave Para play a hickory leaf.

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Gorgeous Gary
Date: 16 May 03 - 10:40 PM

A couple of years back, my filk friends and I in the DC area held a small convention. Our main guest, Arizona filker, Celtic musician, and excellent banjo strummer Joe Betancourt brought along a friend and
bandura player with him. We were mighty impressed...

My personal favorite odd instrument (which isn't really all **that** odd...) is my uncle Don Ehrlich's Pellegrina, an ergonomic viola created by Oregon instrument maker David Rivinus. My uncle is the first violist to play one in a major symphony orchestra (San Francisco).

-- Gary

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: GUEST,reggie miles
Date: 17 May 03 - 11:06 AM

Bill, my friend Robert OneMan Johnson's version of Jesse Fuller's "foot diller" could qualify for that site. It's a 12-string bass that he plays with his foot. He calls it his foot piano.

I'm not certain if my Nobro which is actually a hybridization of both the Dobro and National brand guitars that I made out of stuff I found at various garage sales would though. It doesn't have the freakish look of some of those things pictured there. I guess I've just got to get freakier. I'll work on that. I do have some ideas that fall into that freakier range but need more time to execute them.

Let's see, I'll need to get the underground laboratory ready and I'll need a lab assistant with a name like Igore. Yeees, that's it! Then I'll need a brain, a gooood fresh brain, MAAHAHA! (he laughs deleriously out of control)

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Bill D
Date: 17 May 03 - 11:12 AM

well, I saw a guitar made from a toilet seat once..(the commercial kind with a gap at the front)...you & Igor might start there even WITHOUT a brain!

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: dwditty
Date: 17 May 03 - 11:41 AM

Not all that strange, but I just ordered a Diddleybow last night. One of its main components is an Altoids tin....the model I chose is ready to be plugged in as well.   www.diddleybow.com

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 May 03 - 10:35 AM

I remember seeing a picture of a cajun travelling one-man-band with several intruments one of which looked like a pedal driven Double Bass - bicycle pedals. Anymone out there put a name to the artist &/or the instrument?

And there is a regular festival goer with what looks like an Appalacian dulcimer in a box with a lid and more frets. It was described as a Japan Banjo though the Jappaning of it was the black lacquer. I have yet to hear it played.

Subject: RE: odd musical instruments !
From: khandu
Date: 18 May 03 - 11:29 AM

Anyone here ever play a Chapman Stick?

k