Your favorite unusual instrument!

[Kullervo]

Daxophone!

if you ask me again in 10 years from now, then I would still say the Daxophone. It deserves a unique and common place in the traditional symphony orchestra.

I've heard the Hans Reichel albums using the daxophone. It's not a very pretty sound, but would be interesting to hear in orchestral music (though I don't think I would want to hear it very often). Can anyone other than Reichel play it?

[greg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07qrTfgeYWo




interesting and diverse.......

[Ugh!]

Some of my friend Atle Selnes Nielsen's wonderful machines and kinetic sculptures are clearly among the most interesting unusual instruments out there...
http://www.siriogatle.no/atles%20startside.htm

[some guy]

Eugene, this is in the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius. I didn't see a name on it, but it looks like one of your friend Nielsen's works, doesn't it?

(I hope the "Attach" function works. I've never used that before, and I can't see the image on "Preview." Let's just see....)

[Ugh!]

Eugene, this is in the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius. I didn't see a name on it, but it looks like one of your friend Nielsen's works, doesn't it?

(I hope the "Attach" function works. I've never used that before, and I can't see the image on "Preview." Let's just see....)

It does resemble Atle's works, at least aesthetically, but according to the CAC website, the audiovisual installations there are:

CASPER CORDES & THOMAS LINDVIG (ISCM / DENMARK): Fuerteventura2007 (CAC basement lobby)
AD VAN BUUREN (ISCM / THE NETHERLANDS): Spiral Dance (CAC 2nd floor lobby)
ERIK BÜNGER (ISCM / SWEDEN): Dark Was The Night Cold Was The Ground (CAC southern hall)
DAVID BRYNJAR FRANZSON (ISCM / ICELAND): S-Be2 (CAC 1st floor lobby)

how did it sound?

[some guy]

Yes, I found the tiny card on the wall yesterday. It's the David Brynjar Franzson one. S-Be2.

And it sounds lovely. Clicking from the light balls and jangling from the springs.

When I have a minute, I'll upload the mp3 I took of it and link to that from here." I should say if I have a minute.

[Ugh!]

Percy Grainger's Free Music Machine deserves a place in this thread, don't you think?





http://www.rainerlinz.net/NMA/articles/FreeMusic.html

A small sound sample is available at :

http://www.abc.net.au/arts/adlib/stories/s880987.htm

[Ciel_Rouge]

How about a... "Squarepent - Homemade Tuba (Serpent)":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SccBcjTja1c

I read that serpents come from the renaissance period... Can they be heard in any HIP recordings?

[prémont]

Here's our more recent installation featuring a rather unusual band with unusual instruments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD6j6dxS2mM

Hear, hear, Doktor Døv, hopefully not an otologist.

My favorite unusual instrument is the Nyckelharpe.

[Ugh!]

Leon Berry's Beast in the Basement is unbeatable:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nel7TqO3g5k

[greg]

Leon Berry's Beast in the Basement is unbeatable:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nel7TqO3g5k

The amazing part is how it sounds like he's a whole band playing at once.

[MishaK]

Tim Hawkinson's Überorgan at the MASS MOCA:

[Ugh!]

Wow, that Überorgan is certainly something

...I wouldn't want to take on the road;)

Here you will find a soundsample from its' past life at the Getty Centre...

http://www.getty.edu/visit/events/hawkinson.html

It reminds me of David Byrne's "Playing the Building" installation at the Battery Maritime Building in NY:



Still, of all the organs, Leon Berry's basement beast is still unbeatable;)

[jimmosk]

Well, this thread's been quiet for a couple of weeks, so it won't be hijacking to shift it over to a slightly different interpretation of the topic: "standard" but seldom-used instruments.

I nominate the marimba.  There have been a handful of concertos for this mellow-toned mallet instrument over the years, with Milhaud's probably being the most famous, but in the last couple of decades there seems to have been a small explosion of interest in the marimba, with some great concertos by people like Eckhard Kopetzki, David Maslanka, and Miroslav Kokoška (who has three, one of them for marimba, baroque trumpet, and strings!). Alfred Reed wrote a great Concertino for Marimba and Band - the thicker sound of the band is a natural match for the wooden tone of the instrument.

Like a piano or harp, a marimba has a separate vibrating object for each note (a bar rather than a string), so chords are easy, unlike with most instruments (admittedly, string instruments can at least double-stop).  And a good player can easily handle four mallets, even six, at once -- not quite ten fingers, but not bad!

Take a listen to the Adagio - Allegro moderato last movement of Kopetzki's concerto (reduced for marimba and piano) here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmMrLDFFhjg

-J

--
Jim Moskowitz
The Unknown Composers Page:  http://kith.org/jimmosk/TOC.html

[Hollywood]

My favorite unusual instrument has always been Benjamin Franklin's Glass Armonica.

[Ugh!]

I would certainly like to get my hands on a glass armonica, I love the sound. Michel Redolfi has composed pieces for it to be performed underwater, augmenting the characteristic sound.

Another favorite instrument is of course Raymond Scott's Wall of Sound:



"If you walked behind the wall during the operation the music produced would be all but drowned out by the cacophonous klickety-klack of the relays as they switched positions."

as well as his Electronium:



It is just amazing to consider just how early Scott was with everything, from bop to synthesizers to ambient music. It is like he timed it all one decade too early for his own good

[ChamberNut]

Well, I know the accordion isn't considered that unusual.  But, I've always wondered if there was any classical music composed for the accordion?  Any accordion sonatas or concertos out there? 

Runs away.....

[SonicMan46]

Well, I know the accordion isn't considered that unusual.  But, I've always wondered if there was any classical music composed for the accordion?  Any accordion sonatas or concertos out there? 

Runs away.....

Ray - LOL!    I actually played the accordion as a teen and into my early twenties; no longer have one (although I've threatened my wife about buying a new one!  ) - I remember Myron Floren from the LW Show playing 'adaptations' of some classical music (like the 'William Tell Overture'), but not sure about the 'accordion classical repertoire'?  I'm sure there must be something?

What did I play back then (and not too well) - show tunes, Tin Pan Alley, Christmas songs, Italian tunes (for my father), and some of the popular songs of the day, e.g. Moon River was a fav of mine - my mother used to 'drag' me around to social functions & nursing homes to play (luckily not too often) - gave it up by my mid-20s.  Dave

[ChamberNut]

Ray - LOL!    I actually played the accordion as a teen and into my early twenties; no longer have one (although I've threatened my wife about buying a new one!  ) - I remember Myron Floren from the LW Show playing 'adaptations' of some classical music (like the 'William Tell Overture'), but not sure about the 'accordion classical repertoire'?  I'm sure there must be something?

What did I play back then (and not too well) - show tunes, Tin Pan Alley, Christmas songs, Italian tunes (for my father), and some of the popular songs of the day, e.g. Moon River was a fav of mine - my mother used to 'drag' me around to social functions & nursing homes to play (luckily not too often) - gave it up by my mid-20s.  Dave

That's awesome, Dave!    My uncle plays the accordion too, and quite well!  I find some classical pieces seem to have been composed where the strings or woodwinds are made to "sound" like the accordion, although I know they probably weren't.  I was thinking of this when I was listening to some of Bartok's Hungarian and Roumanian Dances.  Another that comes immediately to mind is the Final movement of Mozart's Gran Partita Serenade. 

[Ugh!]

On the subject of accordions: I recently had a great musical experience walking across a square in Bergen late one night where a Roma musician was playing accprdion. What was so great that he was playing the popular Lambada tune but on the bass he played an ostinato in a completely different tune, creating a wonderful bitonality.