Ah, I remember those pianissimo sections in high school band…
click, click, click-lick-lick, click…
I should recommend to you all the glories of The Portsmouth Sinfonia, dedicated to the proposition that enthusiasm for the music is much more important than musical talent.
A badly-played E-flat alto clarinet sounds like an emotionally distressed cow.
Actually, I have yet to hear a well-played E-flat alto clarinet.
Along those lines, I commend to you the exquisitely bad Guckenheimer and his Sour Kraut Band Back in the 1960s I worked at a small town radio station that had a copy of one of their albums.
It takes great musicianship to miss notes and chords by just enough to be piercingly sour, and this bunch has the gift.
In the immortal words of Spider Robinson, “It cleared the room like a Yoko Ono record.”
Interestingly enough, the notes on the above URL reveal that the whole thing was a project of Richard Gump, scion of the family known for the famous San Francisco store.
The classic Heinlein quote is
A beginner attempting to play a violin is probably the most horrid sound on earth. I’d describe it as somewhere between a cat being torn in half and a coloratura soprano being burned at the stake.
Which brings us up to:
Clarinet: Dying bullfrog
Tuba: Flatulent elephant
French horn: Mating seals
Theramin: Burning cat
Oboe: Screeching velociraptor or unhappy duck
Bagpipes: Strangled cat
Bassoon: Tortured goose, or (blessedly) girrafe
Trumpet: Chimpanzee being castrated, doped-up owl, drowning peacock, or rusty typewriter
Alto clarinet: Emotionally-distressed cow
Violin: Gutted cat (how appropriate) or burning coloratura
And sorry, klockwerk, but “airplane” or “car” just doesn’t have the same ring to it as “mating seals”. Can’t the car at least have a bad transmission ;)?
Ah, that reminds me. Not having your trombone slide oiled properly also makes for some disturbing noise. I’m not quite sure what to compare the sound to, other than the simple sound of metal scratching against metal. It’s not quite nails on the chalkboard, but that’s the closest ugly metaphor I can come up with.
Believe me, you have no idea until you’ve actually heard the sound. I suppose the airplane could be a WWII era plane going down in a dogfight. As for the car…:rolleyes:, I guess it does sound too much like a fancy (and healthy) sportscar, unless you do the biting of the reed thing to accomplish the sound of a car screeching to a halt and burning rubber.
Hammond organs, even when played well (i.e. not by me), still sould like music to ice skate to.
My mentor and tuba teacher, Howard Johnson, refers to the soprano saxophone as the “weasel horn.”
Unfortunately, it’s most apt.
Maybe it’s something about reeds: we were once in attendance at a concert where a sax quartet was playing some new composition that was . . . well, it was hard to take, let me put it like that. And even harder after he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Isn’t this just the soundtrack to those old Heckle and Jeckle cartoons?”
I had to go out in the lobby; you’re not supposed to be laughing like that in the middle of a gig.
your humble TubaDiva
Who will join 350 of her closest friends Friday the 12th for Atlanta TubaChristmas. Hopefully it will sound better than what’s in this thread.
(Unless, of course, someone puts a Pez dispenser on your leg.) 
Oh, by the way TubaDiva, I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that I go to school where the famed John Griffiths teaches (Univeristy of Regina). It’s a priveledge to get to take classes and study with such a great man. How long have you been playing Tuba?
Back on to the main topic: John has a thing for playing the most interesting pieces, including songs which involve doubling his tuba part with humming into the mouthpiece while buzzing. I can’t quite remember the name for this technique, but it’s on the top of my head.
Anyhow, speaking of vulgar sounds, I’m off to write my music history exam for the ancient to Baroque time periods.
A badly-played trumpet might with some accuracy be compared to the sounds one expects to hear from the long-lost elephant burial grounds as a new resident prepares to move in.
Or so my sixth grade band instructor stated as he described my early efforts.
[sub]no hyphen needed in badly played[/sub]
“The sound of a harpsichord - two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm.”
- Sir Thomas Beecham
Of course that’s even played properly, but it’s a great image.
I’d say the recorder played badly is something like a dying bird being thrown down a well.
Some more from Beecham and others, from this page of musical sarcasm:
“Her singing reminds me of a cart coming downhill with the brake on.” --Sir Thomas Beecham on an unidentified soprano in Die Walkyre
“Her voice sounded like an eagle being goosed.” --Ralph Novak on Yoko Ono
“Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands and all you can do is scratch it.” --Sir Thomas Beecham to a lady cellist.
OK, the description of the tromboon and the trombonophone definitely made me smile. But your comment really made me laugh out loud!
Thanks, I needed that… lol…
Oh yeah… forgot to keep it on topic. The Double Bass doesn’t sound too tragic when played badly. With the bow, you might get some weak sounds or maybe squeaking, but nothing so objectionable sounding.
This reminds me of a joke, though. How do you get the bass section of an orchestra to play in tune?
Shoot all but one of them. . . . . . (sorry.) It’s true though, nothing sounds like mud quite like an out of tune bass section. Gorecki was certainly taking a chance when he composed his 3rd symphony…
The really low part of the human voice sounds like gravel. I’m not sure if that makes sense, since gravel itself doesn’t make a sound unless you walk on it or drop it or something. But it’s true.
You, sir (or madam), have not heard me butcher a perfectly good double bass. I’ve gotten feline whooping-cough outta that thing.
If you refer to those with bass voices, I always thought that the lower notes (E[sup]2[/sup] and lower, maybe?) sounded like ripping a tin can in half. But, that could be a good voice doing that, what with cycles and all.
Now, poorly-used bass voices, or bass-parts-sung-by-tenors, disturb me. You hear a bit of this in doo-wop -type things (doesn’t Frank Zappa parody this in Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow?). To me, it sounds exactly like paper ripping, which isn’t that alarming unless you imagine the paper in question to be a really important bill or somesuch.
The sound of a badly played soprano (descant) recorder is akin to taking a cat, squashing it (so that it makes that high pitched squeeky sound), and then running its claws across a blackboard. Yes it grates, its awful. I recall one instance, where I was at a friend’s house and the next-door neighbour’s kid must have been learning to play the recorder. It was a crap recorder to start with, but coupled with it being played very inexpertly, I sat there and convulsed in sheer horror.