Top 20 Uncommon Instruments

[IceWizard]

<20> 12-Necked Guitar



<19> Clackamore


The Clackamore is both a percussive and melody instrument. It is easy to play - simply hold it to your lips and tap with your fingers. This is all you need to do to play along and provide a percussive beat. By forming the mouth into shapes akin to saying "E" and "O", and by opening and closing the throat, melodies from nursery rhymes to blue grass riffs can be played.




<18> Daxophone


The daxophone, invented by Hans Reichel (1949–2011), is an electric wooden experimental musical instrument of the friction idiophones category.




<17> Dubreq Stylophone


The Stylophone is a miniature analog stylus- operated keyboard. Invented in 1967 by Brian Jarvis, it entered production in 1968, manufactured by Dubreq. It consists of a metal keyboard played by touching it with a stylus— each note being connected to a voltage- controlled oscillator via a different-value resistor—thus closing a circuit. The only other controls were a power switch and a vibrato control on the front panel beside the keyboard, and a tuning control on the rear.

Some three million Stylophones were sold, mostly as children's toys.




<16> Due Capi


The Due Capi was invented and created by Oliver DiCicco of the group Mobius Operandi. Italian for "Two Heads", the instrument is made from aluminum, wood, drum heads, and contains piezo pickups.

A convoluted maze of chrome plumbing pipes rises up from a jet-black column. Each pipe is capped with a saxophone mouthpiece. On the Due Capi, two separate mouthpieces lead down through a series of tubes and valves to a common air chamber, so that the players' breath interacts, pushing and pulling as they blow.

DiCicco started building instruments back in the early 1970s, inspired by the example of Harry Partch.

[IceWizard]

<15> The Fiddle Dee Doo


It's a globu-tubular horn, with a goatskin resonator. The tubular section of the horn is the neck and fingerboard of the fiddle, and the goatskin membrane on the globular section is the soundboard of the fiddle. It can have one or two gut strings.

The blow hole for the horn is on the back of the globular section. While it can be played as a globular horn or as a fiddle, it's most interesting when the two systems interact.

For example, when blowing into the globular horn, the strings of the fiddle vibrate sympathetically.

Created by Barry Hall of Burnt Earth.




<14> Pyrophone


A pyrophone, also known as a "fire/ explosion organ" or "fire/explosion calliope" is a musical instrument in which notes are sounded by explosions, or similar forms of rapid combustion, rapid heating, or the like. It was invented by Georges Frédéric Eugène Kastner.




<13>Huaca


Invented in 1980 by Sharon Rowell in the California bay area, this multiple chambered pan-cultural vessel flute, based on the thousands of years old idea of sound in clay, is a radical innovation.

Chambers are tuned to a specific key and to each other in a tempered fashion like the piano. The shape of the instrument reminds some of lungs or the heart, while the finish looks ancient and earthy.

The huaca has three large chambers with a split mouthpiece allowing one, two or three notes to be played simultaneously.




<12> Koralimba


The koralimba is a double sided electric kalimba with tines arranged under the thumbs and forefingers in a pattern that mimics the notes that the thumbs and forefingers can reach on the strings of the west african harp-lute known as a kora.




<11> Laser Harp


A laser harp is an electronic musical user interface and laser lighting display. It projects several laser beams—and a musician plays these by blocking them to produce sounds- reminiscent of a harp. The laser harp has been popularized by Jean Michel Jarre, and has been a high profile feature of almost all his concerts since 1981. British electronic musician Little Boots has used a similar instrument in concerts.

[IceWizard]

<10> Omnichord


The Omnichord is an electronic musical instrument introduced in 1981 by the Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation. It typically features a touch plate, and buttons for major, minor, and 7th chords. The most basic method of playing the instrument is to press the chord buttons and swipe the touch plate with a finger or guitar pick in imitation of strumming a stringed instrument.

Originally designed as an electronic substitute for an autoharp, the Omnichord has become popular as an individual instrument in its own right, due to its unique, chiming timbre and its value as a kitsch object.


<09> Otomatone


The otamatone is a new electronic instrument that resembles a musical note with a cartoon face. It was invented by Novmichi Tosa of Maywa Denki, an art collaboration of the Tosa family that specializes in nonsense machines. The otamatone is now available to the public.


<08> Serpent


The serpent is also called a contrabass anaconda. It is an ancestor of the modern tuba and was introduced in the year 1590. The sound is made with the mouth like a trumpet or tuba, but the notes are made by covering finger holes like a flute.


<07> Shakulute


A shakulute is a hybrid of a shakuhachi, or Japanese bamboo flute, and a western silver flute. The shakuhachi is blown into from the end.

To make a shakulute, you attach a special head joint to your flute so it can also be blown from the end. This hybrid instrument was developed by shakuhachi maker Monty Levenson.


<06> Singing Ringing Tree


A 3-meter-tall, wind-powered musical sculpture made of galvanized steel pipes, it stands high above the English town of Burnley. The pipes swirl to form the shape of a tree bent and blown by the wind, and produce an eerie, melodious hum as the constant wind on Crown Point drifts through them.

The Singing Ringing Tree's pipes are used for both aesthetic qualities as well as for tuning, with their sound varied according to length and added narrow slits on the underside of specific pipes. The sound produced by these twisted metal trees covers several octaves and is said to be simultaneously discordant and melancholy, and intensely beautiful.

---

---

---

<05> The Musical House


A man's home is his castle, and now, also his instrument. The Wege house, located on Northern Lake Michigan, is an experiment in living, created by Architect David Hanawalt and Bill Close, Sonic Installation Artist. Built like some kind of Byzantine harp, strings wind along the walls and through the halls, allowing family members and their guests to pluck or strum at random. Talk about living in harmony!


<04> Theremin


The theremin (/ˈθɛrəmɪn/[1] THERR-ə- min; originally known as the ætherphone/ etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) 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 (Термéн), who patented the device in 1928.

The instrument's controlling section usually consists of two metal antennas that sense the relative position of the thereminist's hands and control oscillators for frequency with one hand, and amplitude (volume) with the other. The electric signals from the theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker.


<03> Udderbot


The Udderbot is a low-tech DIY slide woodwind instrument with revolutionary potentials, invented by Jacob Barton and Matt Gray in 2005.


<02> Gamelan


Gamelan (/ˈɡæməlæn/[1]) is the traditional ensemble music of Java and Bali in Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. The most common instruments used are metallophones played by mallets and a set of hand-played drums called kendhang which register the beat. Other instruments include xylophones, bamboo flutes, a bowed instrument called a rebab, and even vocalists called sindhen.


<01> Berimbau


The berimbau (/bərɪmˈbaʊ/; Brazilian Portuguese: Portuguese pronunciation: [beɾĩ ˈbaw]) is a single-string percussion instrument, a musical bow, from Brazil. Originally from Africa where it receives different names,[1] the berimbau was eventually incorporated into the practice of the Afro-Brazilian martial art capoeira, the berimbau (the soul of capoeira) leads the capoeiristas movement in the roda—the faster the berimbau is playing the faster the capoeirista moves in the game.

The instrument is known for being the subject matter of a popular song by Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell, with lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes. The instrument is also a part of Candomblé-de-caboclo tradition.

[G.Elias]

The theremin is one of my fav instruments,you can get software versions for use in software like cubase,not as good as the real thing but fun all the same.
I watched the movie,"They came from outer space" yesterday.The theremin was used a lot in that film and no doubt many other sci fi films,think the original Sar Trek intro music may have used the theremin,interesting post Ice.

[Spanky]

Cool stuff, Ice,

Left out--not you--one of the most common.  I played what we called the "kalimaba"--African-- when I was young by the way.  The one they left out, or I didn't see was popular forevever, especially 19th century America:  the "mouth harp" or "juice harp".  You'd put it in your mouth, and the way you managed the interior of your mouth provided the pitch.

[IceWizard]

I got one of those!

Old folks called them a "Juice Harp" ... That sucker will rattle teeth and pinch tounges and lipz...

Fun though...

Thanks Spanky..

Ice

[Spanky]

---

The theremin is one of my fav instruments,you can get software versions for use in software like cubase,not as good as the real thing but fun all the same.
I watched the movie,"They came from outer space" yesterday.The theremin was used a lot in that film and no doubt many other sci fi films,think the original Sar Trek intro music may have used the theremin,interesting post Ice.

Thanks Tommy,

For reminding of the theremin use in science fiction.  It's almost impossible to describe, except maybe way early electronic music, and you're right in suggesting it was used in half the early fantasy and sci fi movies ever made--all of which were cheap.  I just think of big electric tubes and arcing electricity, evil guys,, evil experiments, and the theremin in the background, ha.  Acoustically synonymous with "creepiness".


Spank

[G.Elias]

Cool stuff, Ice,

Left out--not you--one of the most common.  I played what we called the "kalimaba"--African-- when I was young by the way.  The one they left out, or I didn't see was popular forevever, especially 19th century America:  the "mouth harp" or "juice harp".  You'd put it in your mouth, and the way you managed the interior of your mouth provided the pitch.

A few kids at the school i went to had these,sound great,they called them jews harps,something maybe got lost in translation i think.

[Spanky]

Cool stuff, Ice,

Left out--not you--one of the most common.  I played what we called the "kalimaba"--African-- when I was young by the way.  The one they left out, or I didn't see was popular forevever, especially 19th century America:  the "mouth harp" or "juice harp".  You'd put it in your mouth, and the way you managed the interior of your mouth provided the pitch.

A few kids at the school i went to had these,sound great,they called them jews harps,something maybe got lost in translation i think.

Yeah, same here.  But I've never seen a person of the Jewish faith depicted sitting alone or in a group playing  "jews" harp, ha.  Hard to sing Hava Naglila, dance (name of the dance too, and they always go together), and play the juice harp at the same time.  Anyway, as the song proceeds the tempo speeds, and if following the melody, your finger would be left behind.  But  did hear it pronounced the same way, like you.

[G.Elias]

Forgot about the virtual Theremin website,just click mouse in yellow area and drag to produce sound,change waveforms in top right,mess with other settings like delay(echo)mfeedback and scuzz(distortion).

http://femurdesign.com/theremin/