# Anybody play any unusual musical instruments?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [December 19, 2000, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320 "2000-12-19T08:07:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/1 "2000-12-19T08:07:43Z")
OK, har har guys. No, the skin flute is not an unusual musical instrument, although I am very proud to learn of your skill in penile embouchure. Thanks for sharing.
This is my first MPSIMS thread. I’m temporarily sick of GD and GQ, where I usually try to hang out.
My primary instrument of late has been the sitar. I have been taking lessons at least once a week for nearly 3 years. My primary reason for starting this thread is to see if there are any other sitar/Indian instrument players. Especially tabla players, especially somewhere in East Texas… 🙂
I also own a digeridoo, at which I’m getting better. Add to that a basic knowledge of the bansuri (bamboo flute). I also play the surbahar, but this is basically a big sitar. I am looking after my teachers esraj (bowed Indian instrument) but I can’t make it sound like anything but a screeching cat.
Non-unusual instrument (would that be usual instruments?) :
I also have played guitar (self taught) for 9 years and piano for 16. I have basic knowledge of the penny whistle/recorder family, as well as violin/viola and harmonica. My wife has played violin and piano for her whole life basically, but these aren’t so unusual in my book.
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### Author:  [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/2 "2000-12-19T08:17:50Z")
I almost forgot my kalimba that I purchased in Grahamstown, South Africa. It is also called an mbira or thumb piano. Sounds kind of like a doorbell.
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### Author:  [@oldscratch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oldscratch)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/3 "2000-12-19T08:18:29Z")
Theremin. I didn’t bring it with me when I moved from WI.
☹
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### Author:  [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/4 "2000-12-19T08:21:29Z")
I used to play a kalimba (badly), and I once tried playing an ocarina. That was interesting, because it occured to me that it probably looked like I was trying to play a potato, and I just couldn’t stop laughing. The ocarina’s owner was not impressed.
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### Author:  [@silent\_rob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silent_rob)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/5 "2000-12-19T08:27:00Z")
I’m fairly proficient with the mouth-harp. I might have the name wrong, though, as I’m rather drowsy right now. I picked it up years ago, and that’s what I’ve always called it. It’s what Snoopy plays, if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
Regular Instruments: Bass (electric), trumpet, harmonica, guitar, some keyboard.
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### Author:  [@absoul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/absoul)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/6 "2000-12-19T08:28:53Z")
I learned how to play the mandolin just so I could play “battle of evermore”, it’s not really an unusual instrument though… I do like those oversize gongs! BaaaWoooonnnnngggggggggggggggggggg…
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### Author:  [@Nen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nen)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/7 "2000-12-19T08:30:04Z")
I play the didgerdoo, although I haven’t mastered the “circular breathing” necessary to achieve a constant flow of sound.
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### Author:  [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/8 "2000-12-19T13:10:50Z")
The Snoopy thing is a Jew’s Harp. Got one. Can’t play a lick. My favorite nontraditional instrument is the melodica. If you can breathe and can play piano with one hand, you’re in. I collect more instruments than I can play. I also have a bodhran.
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### Author:  [@Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rasa)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/9 "2000-12-19T13:34:09Z")
I would just like to add that I’m insanely jealous of **edwino** for playing the sitar. He’s good, too, I’ve heard a .wav he recorded.
Hi weener, welcome to MPSIMS!
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### Author:  [@broccoli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/broccoli)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/10 "2000-12-19T13:39:56Z")
Besides normal instruments, I play the _ **KAZOO** _.
Seriously, i’m pretty good at it 😃
punk snot dead,
broccoli!
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### Author:  [@SqrlCub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SqrlCub)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/11 "2000-12-19T14:41:09Z")
Let’s see for the unusual instruments I play and own I would have to simply put in the lute and the didjeridu. (I can’t believe someone said that was a difficult instrument to play in a GD thread. It is quite simple.) I can also play the Krumhorn and several other Renaissance instruments but it has been a long time.
HUGS!
Sqrl
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### Author:  [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/12 "2000-12-19T15:10:46Z")
[1]Pat: What’s the difference between a man carrying a tuba case on the subway and a Giant Pink Bunny Rabbit on the subway?
Mike: The rabbit MIGHT be headed for a gig…\*
The tuba was my goddam main instrument\* between sixth grade and all through college; that’s unusual enough for me. Lonely nights sitting by the telephone waiting for someone to call for a tuba player is probably what led me to taking up the saxophone and the flute after I graduated.
If I was starting out today, I’d take up the violin. COUNT those bastards the next time you go to a concert…“lessee…winds in twos…four F horns…two trumpets…two trombones…NO TUBA…and, uh, 487 violin players.” You get “Old Joe Clark” down pat on one of those fucking squawk boxes, and there’s a chair waiting for you with the New York Philharmonic.
Oh, and the bass recorder is probably the most oddball thing I play today. You don’t see too many of THOSE damn things around. Probably because they cost a fortune and are only audible when all the other instruments lay out.
- _Main instrument:_ one that you can actually play
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/13 "2000-12-19T15:21:12Z")
People who play skin flute should learn to play flesh horn; then they could double.
Sorry. Musician humor.
Hey, Ike! What’s unusual about the tuba? I played one for years, even got a nigh-worthless degree in music for playing one way too much… Now, a serpent… that would be unusual…
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### Author:  [@MikeG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeG)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/14 "2000-12-19T15:26:17Z")
Lessee here, I play the flute and tinwhistle as my _main_ instruments but I also own a mandocello and I have played a _bombard_. A bombard is a Breton double reeded instrument that is Extremely Loud and Annoying. When played wth a group it can provide a nice note not unlike the chanters on GHB. Alone, it results in calls to the police.
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### Author:  [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/15 "2000-12-19T15:42:10Z")
Ike, I feel your pain–the only trombone gig I ever got was at a dive that wanted to call itself a cabaret. That job made me damn glad I was studying to be an engineer.
Let’s see…bamboo flutes, bamboo saxophone (I made my own :)), harmonic flute, didjeridu (I still have trouble with circular breathing). Nope, no unusual instruments here.
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### Author:  [@idiotboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/idiotboy)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/16 "2000-12-19T16:19:17Z")
Well, I’m learning to play the Accordion. I also have a few interesting instruments like a bamboo saxophone and a metal clarinet.
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### Author:  [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/17 "2000-12-19T16:49:52Z")
Doesn’t anybody play the saw? I find that absolutely enthralling. On her last album, Sarah McLachlan had an instrumental that was just piano, cello and saw. (IIRC, it won a Grammy last year.)
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### Author:  [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/18 "2000-12-19T16:51:49Z")
I, too, am a kazoo virtuoso. I have been known to play an _ **entire song** _ without anyone saying “Shut UP for the love of god”…
And when I was a kid I played the mountain dulcimer. That’s not the hammered kind, but something that looks a little like an elongated violin with four strings that you lay across your lap and play sort of like a steel guitar, but without a slide. I doubt I could play a note anymore… I haven’t played one since I was 13.
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### Author:  [@broccoli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/broccoli)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/19 "2000-12-19T17:11:29Z")
YES! More KAZOO people! I think my greatest solo Kazoo achievement has got to be the “flight of the bumblebee”. I once got ten choie people to kazoo the separate parts of Wagner’s “flight of the Valkryes” It was sooo sweet…
broccoli!
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### Author:  [@Nocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nocturne)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2000, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-play-any-unusual-musical-instruments/46320/20 "2000-12-19T17:24:59Z")
I can play the autoharp and the contrabassoon, but since I own neither of these instruments, I have only played them a few times.
I have also played on a calliope before…that was fun!
Regular instruments: Piano, alto saxophone, alto recorder, bassoon, and coming soon, hopefully–mandolin.
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