Unusual Music Instruments
Most aspiring musicians pick up traditional instruments such as the piano, violin or guitar. But others consider those instruments as “too mainstream”. Here is a list with some of the most unusual music instruments ever created, including some you probably never heard of before:
26. The Yabahar
The Yaybahar is a new electric-free, totally acoustic instrument designed by Istanbul-based musician Gorkem Sen. The vibrations from the strings are transmitted via the coiled springs to the frame drums. These vibrations are turned into sound by the membranes which echo back and forth on the coiled springs. This results in an unique listening experience with an hypnotic surround sound.
25. The Chapman Stick
The Chapman Stick (The Stick) is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and has been used on music recordings to play bass lines, melody lines, chords, or textures. Designed as a fully polyphonic chordal instrument, it can also cover several of these musical parts simultaneously.
24. Hydraulophone
A hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water (sometimes other fluids) where sound is generated or affected hydraulically. It was invented by Steve Mann, and has been used as a sensory exploration device for low vision individuals. Click to hear an example.
23. Theremin
Is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the thereminist (performer). It is named after the westernized name of its Russian inventor, Léon Theremin, who patented the device in 1928.
22. The 12 Neck Guitar
Japanese artist Yoshihiko Satoh takes mass-produced goods and alters or multiplies them to “unleash the energy residing in their function and shape”. Or, simply speaking, he multiples them by awesome. His guitar sculptures above are by far his most impressive works, however he’s also experimented with exaggerated length in irons, toy trucks, and even functional mopeds.
21. The Vegetable Orchestra
Worldwide one of a kind, the Vegetable Orchestra performs on instruments made of fresh vegetables. The utilization of various ever refined vegetable instruments creates a musically and aesthetically unique sound universe.
20. The Great Stalacpipe Organ
The Great Stalacpipe Organ is an electrically actuated lithophone located in Luray Caverns, Virginia, USA. It is operated by a custom console that produces the tapping of ancient stalactites of varying sizes with solenoid-actuated rubber mallets in order to produce tones. It was designed and implemented in 1956 over three years by Leland W. Sprinkle inside the Luray Caverns near Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, USA.
19. Symphonic House
Symphonic House, a 6,200-square-foot, $2.4 million concrete and wood structure with Scandinavian and Japanese touches. It not only emphasizes natural sounds, but is an instrument in its own right, from windows that can be adjusted to let in the wind’s song to the huge “house harp” in the living room. Read the whole story in the New York Times.
18. Zeusaphone
The zeusaphone or thoramin, is a form of plasma speaker. It is a variation of a solid state Tesla coil that has been modified to produce musical tones by modulating its spark output. The resulting pitch is a low fidelity square wave like sound reminiscent of an analog synthesizer.
17. Wired Fence
The Australian musician Jon Rose is a “fencologist” who has played music on all types of fences – from barbed wires to army fences – worldwide. Whether it was playing the old 1967 border between Syria and Israel or the Strzelecki Desert, Rose, for the past 30 or so years, has been playing the fence with a bow.
16. Aeolus
Aeolus is the ruler of the four winds in Greek Mythology..and also a new giant stringed musical instrument designed to resonate and sing with the wind without any electrical power or amplification. If you’d like to hear the sound it makes please check this link.
15. The Singing Ringing Tree
The Singing Ringing Tree is a wind powered sound sculpture resembling a tree set in the landscape of the Pennine hill range overlooking Burnley, in Lancashire, England. Listen to its unusual sound.
14. The Janko keyboard
The Janko keyboard is an alternate musical keyboard layout for pianos designed by Paul von Jankó in 1882. Each chord, scale, and interval has a consistent shape and can be played with the same fingering, regardless of its pitch or what the current key is. If you know a piece of music in one key you can transpose it simply by starting at a different pitch because the fingering is the same in every key. Here is a demonstration.
13. A pipe organ entirely made of ice
A pipe organ entirely made of ice inside the the first and the largest Ice Hotel in the world. The organ was build in 2004 by the American Artist and Ice Sculptor Tim Linhart. While working as an ice sculptor at Sweden’s famous Ice Hotel, Tim found the perfect conditions he needed for the instrument, a consistent 22°F degree temperature.
12. The Uncello
What can you make out of some maple wood, cello strings, harpsichord pegs and a fish bowl? Well, you could make one Uncello like Mr. Dennis Báthory-Kitsz did.
11. The Earth Harp
The Earth Harp is the longest stringed instrument in the world, with strings that extend up to 1,000 feet in length. The Earth Harp’s first installation featured the resonating chamber mounted on one side of a valley with the strings stretched out nearly 1,000 ft to the other side. How does the Earth Harp work? The Earth Harp is played using violin resin on cotton gloves and musical bows. The performer’s hands are run along the strings to created beautiful cello like tones. The act of rubbing the strings creates a longitudinal compression wave.
10. Loophonium
The marriage of a euphonium and a lavatory. It was made for a concert of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on April Fools’ Day 1960, at which the instrument was played. The man who did it was the orchestra’s principal flautist Fritz Spiegl.
9. The Music Box
A 22,000 lb vibratory compactor, turned into a 2000 lb music box, capable of being moved through a single door, and installed in a second floor gallery–and of playing The Star Spangled Banner.
8. The Chrisalis
Invented and built by Cris Forster, the Chrysalis was his first concert-sized instrument. The instrument’s design was inspired by a huge, round, stone-hewn Aztec calendar. Cris thought to himself, “What if there were a musical instrument in the shape of a wheel? And what if this wheel had strings for spokes, could spin, and when played, would sound like the wind?” Source.
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