A true master can create a musical instrument from scrap materials. But some people from different corners the world have understood this in different ways and have created some very unusual instruments in the world. It’s difficult to even describe them, and not everyone can figure out how to play them. Many of them make very strange sounds.
The AK 47 electronic guitar produces normal sounds and should be comfortable to play. The oddity lies in the shape of this instrument and the material from which it was made. And it is made from an AK-47 assault rifle. The guitar is called "Escopetarra", a word created from a combination of the Spanish words escopeta and guitarra. There are only a few copies of these in the world. original instruments, which, according to the authors, are symbols of peace. One of them was presented to Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General.
The instrument, named by its creator as “Chrysalis,” makes one believe that music can be extracted from the most unusual objects. It was created in the 70s and resembles a harp with a resonator. The shape was inspired by the Mayan stone calendar. It consists of two wooden wheels with strings, and they rotate freely in different directions. Despite its simplicity, it contains the author's technology. As the author, Chris Foster, explained in his book, when listening to this instrument, one can imagine that it is the wind playing a harp.
The instrument produces sound and splash at the same time. Why the splash? Because to play music, it comes into direct contact with water. A hydrolophone is an instrument in which sound is produced by pressure on water passing through many grooves and holes.
A fence is a fence that is installed at the boundary of a certain property, but according to musician John Rose, it can also be used as a musical instrument, especially if it is made of wires. The Australian musician, who considers himself a fencing specialist, uses both barbed wire and electric shepherd fences. The author of the idea plays them with bows and gives performances all over the world.
If we talk about future improvements in the sound of the harp, then most likely the strings will be replaced by lasers. This instrument has been used in sound and light shows around the world since the 80s. exist it different types from framed and without framed, to two-color and beam. To play it you need to use different electronic devices, software, projector and many photodiodes.
Electricity in its purest form, a Tesla transformer and a plasma speaker are the main components of this musical instrument. Named after the Greek god Zeus, the instrument produces sounds similar to those of a synthesizer. The Tesla transformer can be connected to various devices, with the help of which you can control the operation of the transformer while playing sound and light.
4. Huaca
The instrument is made from three connected clay vessels and can produce three different sounds at the same time. In 1980, Sharon Rowel created it after two years of research. But he was not the first to play the huaca. The first was Alan Tower. He not only played, but also recorded a disc with unusual music. The instrument itself is designed on the principle of a piano. Externally, the huaca, consisting of three chambers, resembles the lungs and heart of a person. Each camera is tuned to a specific sound, but in general, the sound of a huaqui resembles the sound of a flute.
3. Jew's harp
The Jew's harp is considered one of the oldest musical instruments, not only in appearance, but also because the sound must be reproduced with the mouth, playing with the fingers. It is difficult to trace its history back to ancient times, but it is known to have been used different peoples, confirmed by multiple images and historical references to him.
The Peterson Tuner company decided to combine alcohol and music and came up with a unique musical instrument. It consists of beer bottles into which air is blown. Bottles filled with mineral oil are carefully arranged in a walnut wooden frame. An air pump, which is controlled and controlled by a keyboard, pumps air into the bottles so that the musician can produce the required sounds.
1. Badgermin
A wooden box with two antennas coming out of it will cause surprise, and a badger with two antennas coming out of it will cause shock. This is truly the strangest instrument in appearance, however, it makes no less strange sounds.
Despite all the unusual forms and sounds, similar musical instruments are actively used by pop performers, turning their concerts into
Thanks to musical instruments, we can produce music - one of the most unique creations of man. From trumpet to piano and bass guitar, they have been used to create countless complex symphonies, rock ballads and popular songs.
However, this list contains some of the strangest and most bizarre musical instruments that exist on the planet. And, by the way, some of them are from the category of “does this even exist?”
So here are 25 truly strange musical instruments - in sound, design or, most often, both.
25. Vegetable Orchestra
Created almost 20 years ago by a group of friends who were passionate about instrumental music The Vegetable Orchestra in Vienna has become one of the strangest musical instrument groups on the planet.
The musicians make their instruments before each performance - entirely from vegetables such as carrots, eggplants, leeks - to create a completely unusual performance that the audience can only see and hear.
24. Music Box
Construction equipment is most often noisy and annoying with its rumble, in strong contrast to a small music box. But one massive music box has been created that combines both.
This nearly one-ton vibratory compactor has been redesigned to spin just like a classic music box. He can play one famous tune - “The Star-Spangled Banner” (US anthem).
23. Cat piano
I would like to hope that the cat piano never becomes a real invention. Published in a book about strange and bizarre musical instruments, the "Katzenklavier" (also known as the cat piano or cat organ) is a musical instrument in which cats are seated in an octave according to the tone of their voice.
Their tails are extended towards the keyboard with nails. When the key is pressed, the nail presses painfully on the tail of one of the cats, which produces the desired sound.
22. 12-neck guitar
It was pretty cool when Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page played a double-neck guitar on stage. I wonder what it would be like if he played that 12-neck guitar?
21. Zeusaphone
Imagine creating music from electrical arcs. Zeusophone does just that. Known as the "Singing Tesla Coil", this unusual musical instrument produces sound by altering visible flashes of electricity, thereby creating a futuristic-sounding electronic instrument.
20. Yaybahar
Yaybahar is one of the strangest musical instruments that came from the Middle East. This acoustic instrument has strings connected to wound springs that are inserted into the center of the drum frames. When the strings are played, the vibrations echo around the room, like echoing in a cave or inside metal sphere, creating a hypnotic sound.
19. Sea organ
There are two large sea organs in the world - one in Zadar (Croatia) and the other in San Francisco (USA). They both work in a similar way - with a series of pipes absorbing and amplifying the sound of the waves, making the sea and its vagaries the main performer. The sounds that the sea organ makes have been compared to the sound of water entering the ears and the didgeridoo.
18. Pupa (Chrysalis)
The doll is one of the most beautiful instruments in this list of weird musical instruments. The wheel of this instrument, modeled after the massive, round, stone Aztec calendar, rotates in a circle with with stretched strings, producing a sound similar to a perfectly tuned zither.
17. Janko Keyboard
Janko's keyboard looks like a long, irregular chessboard. Developed by Paul von Jankó, this alternative arrangement of piano keys allows pianists to play such musical works, which cannot be played on a standard keyboard.
Although the keyboard looks quite difficult to play, it produces the same number of sounds as a standard keyboard and is easier to learn to play because changing the key only requires the player to move their hands up or down, without having to change fingerings.
16. Symphony House
Most musical instruments are portable, and the Symphony House is definitely not one of them! IN in this case the musical instrument is an entire house in Michigan with an area of 575 square meters.
From the opposite windows that allow the sounds of nearby coastal waves or the noise of the forest to penetrate, to the wind blowing through the long strings of a distinctive harp, the entire house resonates with sound.
The largest musical instrument in the house is two 12-meter horizontal beams made of anegri wood with strings stretched along them. When the strings are played, the entire room vibrates, giving the person the feeling of being inside a giant guitar or cello.
15. Theremin
Theremin - one of the very first electronic instruments, patented in 1928. Two metal antennas determine the position of the performer's hands, changing the frequency and volume, which are converted from electrical signals into sounds.
14. Uncello
More like the model of the universe proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century, the unzello is a combination of wood, pegs, strings and an amazing custom resonator. Instead of a traditional cello body that amplifies the sound, the unzello uses a round fishbowl to produce sounds as the bow is played across the strings.
13. Hydrolophone
Hydrolophone is a musical instrument new era, created by Steve Mann, which emphasizes the importance of water and serves as a sensory exploration device for the visually impaired.
Essentially, it is a massive water organ that is played by plugging small holes with your fingers, from which water slowly flows, hydraulically creating the traditional organ sound.
12. Bikelophone
The Baiklophone was built in 1995 as part of a project to explore new sounds. Using a bicycle frame as a base, this musical instrument creates layered sounds using a loop recording system.
It is constructed with bass strings, wood, metal telephone bells and more. The sound it produces is truly incomparable because it produces a wide range of sounds from harmonious melodies to sci-fi intros.
11. Earth Harp
Somewhat similar to the Symphony House, the Earth Harp is the longest in the world string instrument. A harp with stretched strings 300 meters long produces sounds similar to a cello. A musician wearing cotton gloves coated with violin rosin plucks the strings with his hands, creating an audible wave of compression.
10. Great Stalacpipe Organ
Nature is full of sounds that are pleasant to our ears. Combining human ingenuity and design with natural acoustics, Leland W. Sprinkle installed a custom lithophone in Luray Caverns, Virginia, USA.
The organ produces sounds of varying tones using tens of thousands of years old stalactites that have been converted into resonators.
9. Serpent
This bassy wind instrument, with a brass mouthpiece and finger holes similar to a woodwind, was so named because of its unusual design. The curving shape of the Snake allows it to produce a unique sound, reminiscent of a cross between a tuba and a trumpet.
8. Ice organ
The Swedish Ice Hotel, built entirely of ice in winter, is one of the most famous boutique hotels in the world. In 2004, American ice sculptor Tim Linhart accepted an offer to build a musical instrument that would fit the hotel's theme.
As a result, Linart created the world's first ice organ - an instrument with pipes carved entirely from ice. Unfortunately, the life of this unusual musical instrument was short-lived - it melted last winter.
7. Aeolus
Looking like an instrument modeled after Tina Turner's bad hairstyle, the aeolus is a huge arch with many pipes that catches every breath of wind and converts it into sound, often produced in the rather eerie tones associated with a UFO landing.
6. Nellophone
If the previous unusual musical instrument resembles Tina Turner's hair, then this one can be compared to the tentacles of a jellyfish. To play a nellophone, which is constructed entirely of curved pipes, the performer stands in the center and strikes the pipes with special paddles, thereby producing the sound of the air resonating within them.
5. Sharpsichord
One of the most complex and strange musical instruments on this list, the sharpsichord has 11,520 holes with pegs inserted into them and resembles music box.
When the solar-powered cylinder turns, a lever rises to pluck the strings. The power is then transferred to the jumper, which amplifies the sound using a large horn.
4. Pyrophone Organ
This list covers a lot various types remade organs, and this one may be the best of them all. Unlike using stalactites or ice, the pyrophonic organ produces sounds by creating mini-explosions with each keystroke.
Hitting the key of a propane and gasoline-powered pyrophonic organ provokes exhaust from the pipe, like a car engine, thereby creating sound.
3. Fence. Any fence.
Few people in the world can claim to be a “fence-playing musician.” In fact, only one person can do this - Australian Jon Rose (already sounds like the name of a rock star), creating music on fences.
Rose uses a violin bow to create resonating sounds on tightly strung "acoustic" fences, ranging from barbed wire to chain link fences. Some of his most provocative performances include playing on the border fence between Mexico and the United States, and between Syria and Israel.
2. Cheese Drums
Being a combination of two human passions - music and cheese - these cheese drums are truly wonderful and very strange group tools.
Their creators took the traditional drum kit and replaced all the drums with massive round wheels of cheese, installing a microphone next to each to produce more delicate sounds.
For most of us, their sound will be more like the drumsticks of an amateur drummer sitting in a local Vietnamese restaurant.
1. Loophonium
As a small tuba-like bass musical instrument that plays a leading role in brass and military bands, the euphonium is not such a strange instrument.
That is, until Fritz Spiegl of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra created the toiletphonium: a fully functioning combination of a euphonium and a beautifully painted toilet.
We have previously written about musical instruments that sound unusual and look interesting, but do not become popular. They are, as they say, “famous in certain circles” - for example, among fans ethnic music or in a subculture.
About the importance of sound and the difference in approaches
Sound is important to build suspense and create atmosphere. Even the most monstrous monsters do not inspire the right level of fear and horror if they remain silent dummies - especially in our culture, where silent films can captivate only as an object of nostalgia.Moreover, the opposite is also true - sound can turn the most ordinary scenes into scary ones, and realistic characters without disgusting makeup into monsters.
The purpose of traditional musical instruments is to create a harmonious sound that is pleasing to the human ear. But in horror films (and, by the way, horror games), sound and music perform the exact opposite function - it should frighten, cause horror, discomfort and unpleasant sensations.
Therefore, instruments that produce unusual sounds are favored by sound engineers and horror film composers - they allow you to go beyond the tonality that is comfortable for the ear and create unusual and frightening sounds.
There are many relevant samples available in digital sound effects libraries, but they lack variety, are often repetitive, and lack effectiveness. To create a truly uncomfortable atmosphere, composers need to look for new and unexpected combinations of sounds. We have already written about the theremin - a regular “guest” of frightening and stressful soundtracks. But there are other instruments that seem to have been specially created for recording music for horror films.
Waterphone
An instrument that is used primarily for recording film soundtracks, where it creates an unusual, ethereal or piercingly harsh sound. It was invented in 1968 by Richard A. Waters. It can be heard on the soundtracks to the films “The Matrix” and “Poltergeist.”The waterphone is a round bowl with monolithic bronze rods different lengths around the edges. The bowl is filled with water and serves as a resonator. Because of the water, the sound appears to vibrate. The waterphone is usually played with a bow, but sometimes unusual sounds are produced by striking with a rod or a rubber mallet. The sound depends on the length of the rods or the position of the water in the bowl.
The Waterphone allows you to extract microtones (musical intervals smaller than a semitone), which is why the Waterphone sounds so unlike ordinary musical instruments in the standard 12-tone tempered tuning.
Richard Waters himself explained that the popularity of the waterphone among sound designers and sound engineers is due to the fact that “its sound serves as a reflection of the Strange and Unknown: aliens, ghosts, unusual states of consciousness and drug effects, death - the sounds of the waterphone are often used to illustrate everything This".
Only one company in America has the right to produce real waterphones - one instrument costs from $1,100. Interestingly, the waterphone sometimes resembles the song of whales - there have been cases when, using this instrument, researchers managed to attract killer whales.
Here's an example of how the waterphone sounds in one of the songs in the musical Dreaming by Howard Goodall.
Yaybahar
This musical instrument is a recent invention of a Turkish musician named Görkem Şen. It sounds like electronic music from old horror films, although the yaybahar is an acoustic instrument that contains nothing electronic.The main components of the yaibahara are a long neck (like a guitar) with two strings and membranes (large and small). The membranes are connected to the fingerboard by two long springs that vibrate with each touch. The musician produces sound with a bow, and the vibration of the strings, reflected from the membranes, is intricately refracted, creating an echo effect. You can also hit the membranes like elements of a drum kit.
By the way, Yaybahar quickly found fans - some of them create their own instruments of this kind. For example, in this blog one of the enthusiasts talks in detail about how and from what he made his own yaybahar.
Shen plays both his own improvisations and music written for other instruments on the yaibahara - for example piano works French composer Erika Satie. But, most likely, very soon this instrument with its alien sound will be discovered by horror film composers.
The Apprehension Engine
A real factory for the production of sound effects for horror films.This tool (or more precisely, a whole system of tools) created guitar master Tony Duggan-Smith (
One of the most unique creations of human hands are musical instruments. For example, with the help of piano, bass guitar, and violin, musicians create complex symphonies, arias, and rock ballads. But now we will not talk about classical instruments that everyone knows, but about the strangest and most alien musical instruments that exist in our world.
For example, there is a house with an area of 575 square meters. meters, which is a musical instrument. Or maybe you'll be surprised by an instrument that creates sounds in a truly terrifying way. Intrigued? Well, here we go, the strangest musical instruments in the world...
10. Vegetable orchestra
This orchestra was formed almost 20 years ago by a group of comrades who were interested in experimental music. The group makes their instruments before each performance- made entirely from vegetables such as carrots, eggplant, leeks.
9. Music box
Construction equipment is often very loud and noisy. It was using these qualities that a huge music box was created. More precisely, a 1000-ton construction machine was converted into a music box that could play one famous melody — The Star Spangled Banner - US anthem.
8. Zeusaphone
Imagine music influencing electricity. Known as "Singing Tesla Coils", the device creates sound by changing the type of spark of electricity, which creates a futuristic sounding instrument.
7. Symphony House
Most of the instruments are handheld, but the Symphony House is a little big for that. With an area of 575 sq. meters, the whole house is a musical instrument. The largest instrument in the house is a pair of 12-meter horizontal beams encased in wood with copper strings running along them. When the wind strings begin to play, the entire room vibrates, giving the listener the eerie feeling that they are standing in the center of a giant cello.
6. Theremin
Electric musical instrument, created in 1920 by a Soviet inventor Lev Sergeevich Theremin in Petrograd. Playing the theremin involves the musician changing the distance from his hands to the antennas of the instrument, due to which the capacitance of the oscillating circuit and, as a result, the frequency of the sound changes. The vertical straight antenna is responsible for the tone of the sound, the horizontal horseshoe-shaped antenna is responsible for its volume.
5. Unzello
More like the model of the universe proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century, the unzello is a combination of wood, pegs, strings and an amazing custom resonator. Instead of using a traditional cello body to amplify the sound, the uncello uses fishbowl to make sounds when playing a bow on the strings.
4. Nellophone
Musical instrument looks like the tentacles of a jellyfish. To play a nellophone, which is constructed entirely of curved pipes, the performer stands in the center and strikes the pipes with special paddles, thereby producing the sound of the air resonating within them.
3. Fence
Australian John Rose is a man who knows how to play on the fence. He uses a violin bow to create resonant sounds on tightly strung "acoustic" fences, ranging from barbed wire to chain link fences. Some of his most provocative speeches include the game on the border fence between Mexico and the United States, and also between Syria and Israel.
2. Cheese drums
Their creators took a traditional drum kit and replaced all the drums with massive round heads of cheese, placing a microphone next to each to produce more delicate sounds.
For most of us, their sound will be more like the drumsticks of an amateur drummer sitting at the local diner.
1. Toiletofonium
Being a small tuba-like bass musical instrument that plays a leading role in brass and military bands, euphonium not such a strange instrument.
That is, until Fritz Spiegl of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra created the toiletphonium: a fully functioning combination of euphonium and beautifully painted toilet.
We hope that your opinion on musical creativity has expanded significantly, because as some tools show us, you can create anywhere and from anything. What is the weirdest instrument in the world you would like to play?
Here is a list of some of the most unusual instruments in the world. All of them are still played by musicians, no matter how ancient or strange the instruments may seem.
Theremin
was invented in Russia in the last century. More precisely, in 1919. The instrument received this name from the name of its creator, Lev Sergeevich Termen. This unusual instrument is the first electric musical instrument in history. Sounds are produced by a seemingly simple movement of the hands: just move your hands within the radius of the electromagnetic field next to the metal antenna. The left hand usually controls the volume, while the right hand is responsible for the pitch. But learning to use both hands when playing this instrument is not so easy!
Reactoscope
or in other words – a multimedia media table. The thing is unique and, moreover, beautiful. You touch it and it makes a sound, and what’s more, the instrument can be programmed to suit almost any requirement. With the help of a multimedia table, you can not only surprise clubbers, but also delight colleagues and partners with bright presentations, for example, or notify visitors about the variety of menus in a restaurant.
Bonang
Musical greetings from Indonesia. This instrument consists of a set of small bronze gongs, which are placed on a wooden stand and fastened together with cords. There is a small bulge in the middle of each gong, which, when struck with a special wooden stick, produces a soft sound. The stick is wrapped with either rope or cotton cloth to give greater depth to the sound. There are male bonangs - with higher wooden sides and convex gongs - and female bonangs - with lower sides and flat gongs.
Sub-bass flute
looks like a large curved flute, and makes very strange sounds. Some instruments can be up to 4.5 meters long! It’s not so easy to play on such a colossus, you must admit. The sounds extracted from the subcontrabass flute can confuse many - they are similar to someone simply blowing into a trumpet.
Serpent
also called for it appearance Contrabass-anaconda. However, the instrument sounds far from being as quiet as a snake, but rather like an elephant: loud and rolling. The serpent was invented back in 1590, but by the 19th century it had fallen out of use. Today it is played only by musical maniacs who are mastering more and more old inventions.
Lituus
translated from Latin, first of all, it means a curved augur staff or a military pipe, also curved. This tool was used most often as a warning signal in wartime. But in the Middle Ages, the well-known Johann Sebastian Bach glorified the lituus by writing coins OJesuChrist, meinsLebensLicht under it.
Trembita
We can safely say that it is a Ukrainian relative of Lituus. Trembits, like their ancient counterparts, are primarily used for notifications of various kinds. And since they are mostly popular in the Hutsul region and the eastern Carpathians, they are widely used by shepherds. But this wooden trumpet is also sometimes included in orchestral performances.
Hang
consists of two metal hemispheres connected to each other and vaguely resembles the notorious UFO saucer. This tool is still in childhood, because it was invented only in 2000. As a rule, the hang is placed on the knees or between them, and the sounds are made depending on the imagination of the player: with fingers, hands, palms.
Otamaton
It is quite justifiably called the singing tadpole. This Japanese invention really looks funny: like a note with eyes and a mouth. By pressing the head and manipulating the “tail,” the gadget is activated and makes incredible sounds. What can the Japanese come up with! This toy instrument is only two years old, but it confidently occupies a position in the market, but, by and large, it is an entertainment market, not a musical one.
Glass harmonica
in appearance it slightly resembles a loom and consists of glass hemispheres of various sizes. The spheres are strung on a metal rod, which in turn is fixed into a kind of resonator box with water and vinegar, but so that the spheres are only half immersed in it. By perfecting the simple act of playing wet glasses in the 18th century, an inventive Irishman conquered the world with a new instrument. It was admired by the great composers and writers of that time, but nevertheless, someone started a rumor that the glass harmonica was the work of the devil's henchmen: it causes premature births in women, has an extremely unsatisfactory effect on state of mind people and scares animals. The instrument was forgotten until our times, until in the 20th century composers decided to return the selected “voice” to the instrument.
Vargan
It looks like a very strange and even incomprehensible instrument. At first glance, not everyone can figure out how and where to apply it to extract sounds. The harp is a reed musical instrument, and sounds are extracted from it in the appropriate way. If you hold it between your lips or teeth, blow or change the position of your lips, sounds will be heard. It is often called a pagan instrument, because history cannot find the origins of its appearance. Recent studies show that the jaw's harp could well have been invented five thousand years ago in South Asia and spread throughout the world due to its compactness, simplicity and undoubted unusualness.
