# Your Least Favorite Instrument
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 28, 2006, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669 "2006-04-28T23:34:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2006, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/1 "2006-04-28T23:34:15Z")
Inspired by the Hammond Organ thread, which I hate, I was just wondering what organs you dislike.
Okay…so I hate the organ
I hate when guys play a saw. It freaks me out.
And you can tap on the brakes with the pan flute, thankuverymuch.
Anyone?
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### Author:  [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2006, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/2 "2006-04-28T23:35:22Z")
Organs? What _organs_ you dislike? I like 'em all pretty much.
What INSTRUMENTS do you dislike. What the fuck!
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### Author:  [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2006, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/3 "2006-04-28T23:39:57Z")
Stupid pancrease!! Boo!!! 🙂
I’ve never liked the flute, myself. Everytime I hear a flute solo, I wonder what they were thinking. Did The Trogg’s original lyrics for _Wild Thing_ include a penciled-in segment that read “Wicked flute solo!”
No, I’m not a big Jethro Tull fan.
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2006, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/4 "2006-04-28T23:42:58Z")
Unless you’re covering “Whole Lotta Love” or doing FX for your haunted house/old school sci-fi movie, I’m not big on the theremin.
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### Author:  [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2006, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/5 "2006-04-28T23:46:14Z")
> [@Dooku](#):
>
> I’ve never liked the flute, myself. Everytime I hear a flute solo, I wonder what they were thinking. Did The Trogg’s original lyrics for _Wild Thing_ include a penciled-in segment that read “Wicked flute solo!”
That’s not a flute in “Wild Thing,” it’s an ocarina.
My least favorite instrument is the accordion and its relatives, but only when used in Mexican/Norteno music. I do like it in British/Celtic folk music.
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### Author:  [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2006, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/6 "2006-04-28T23:53:27Z")
> [@Biffy the Elephant Shrew](#):
>
> That’s not a flute in “Wild Thing,” it’s an ocarina.
[Huh](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocarina). [/Ignorance fought].
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### Author:  [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/7 "2006-04-29T00:05:07Z")
The Recorder, not mearly because it sounds bad even when played by an expert, but because it is so often given as the first instrument for people to learn on. It put me and probably many off the idea of learning a musical instrument.
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### Author:  [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/8 "2006-04-29T00:06:26Z")
> [@pravnik](#):
>
> I’m not big on the theremin.
No? I think it adds a lot to the Pixies’ _Velouria_.
Anyhoo, I know it’s the least original instrument to dislike ever, but I just can’t get into the Scottish bagpipes. I’m sorry, but when played, they sound to me like someone is violating a goose.
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/9 "2006-04-29T00:17:06Z")
> [@Loopydude](#):
>
> No? I think it adds a lot to the Pixies’ _Velouria_
Weird, I don’t remember them using one…but I always preferred _Doolittle_ and _Surfer Rosa_ to _Bossanova_ and didn’t listen to it nearly as much.
Okay, the Pixies, Led Zeppelin, and mad scientists get a pass. Everyone else, permit required.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/10 "2006-04-29T00:26:29Z")
Everyone else? “I’m picking up good vibrations. She’s giving me the excitations.” 🙂
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/11 "2006-04-29T00:27:29Z")
Farfisa organ, and maybe the oboe. Other than that I can’t really think of any. I used to hate the accordian until I spent a 4th of July at the home of a couple of old Seattle TV kiddy show hosts. They and their neighbors played accordian, and were concert-quality, too. I changed my mind about the instrument that day.
And I _love_ the bagpipes!
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/12 "2006-04-29T01:11:51Z")
Saxophone. It sounds so incredibly cheesy to my ear. I can’t explain it. Just so 80s.
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### Author:  [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/13 "2006-04-29T01:13:07Z")
> [@Dooku](#):
>
> Stupid pancrease!! Boo!!! 🙂
I’m not exactly on the best of terms with mine since the diabetes, but we kind of need each other, so we make do…
> [@](#):
>
> I’ve never liked the flute, myself.
I didn’t either until I decided I should pick it up because I was one of only two sax-clarinet doublers I know who didn’t play one. Now I hear places in my favorite music that make me think, “They coulda used a flute here.”
In fact I can’t think of an instrument I really hate, although the celeste (keyboard glockenspiel) is often cloyingly overused and after about 5 minutes of bagpipes I develop a distinct feeling of carbohydrate bloating.
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### Author:  [@hawksgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawksgirl)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/14 "2006-04-29T01:19:45Z")
Alto Saxophone.
I far prefer the “breathiness” of the clarinet, softer, less brash and harsh on the ears. Plus altos always sound sharp to the point that it sounds wrong.
Plus, every time I hold my boyfriend’s sax for him, I must fight the urge to put the mouthpiece in my mouth and say “Sax-a-ma-phone!”
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### Author:  [@Dusty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dusty)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/15 "2006-04-29T01:46:58Z")
The piano. Its muddy, overpowering tone is no comparison to the clear, crisp notes of the harpsichord. But I’m biased there.
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### Author:  [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/16 "2006-04-29T01:53:25Z")
Saxophone: the woodwind that thinks it’s a brass instrument.
My sister played the tenor saxophone in high school, and one year right before she played her solo for Solo & Ensemble, the judge told her the following joke:
What’s the difference between a saxophone and a lawn mower?
You can tune a lawnmower.
Har har har! What a great joke to tell a nervous fifteen-year-old. He was laughing it up, but it completely rattled her and she ended up bombing the solo. She was so angry that she cried when she got home.
Anyway, I actually like the saxophone, having played tenor and alto sax and the clarinet in high school. They’re similar enough, but I do admit that the brassiness of the saxophone can get to be a bit much and I don’t like the soprano sax at all. As for what instruments I hate, there are times when I just want to round up all the trumpet music in the world and write “tacet” at the top. This may have to do with the fact that most of the trumpetists I know are fairly obnoxious, though. For instruments themselves, the piccolo (specifically for the solo in “Stars and Stripes Forever”) can go away. So can the oboe. Far, far away, like into the sun.
Oh, and I hate my pancreas. Stupid thing. Work, goddamn you!
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### Author:  [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/17 "2006-04-29T04:00:47Z")
> [@Dusty](#):
>
> The piano. Its muddy, overpowering tone is no comparison to the clear, crisp notes of the harpsichord. But I’m biased there.
The harpsichord needs to fucking die.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/18 "2006-04-29T04:12:30Z")
Absolutely bagpipes. They sound like cats being tortured.
And then there’s baroque (or earlier) music played on “original instruments.” Hey guys, there’s a reason those instruments were replaced. (Except harpsicords. Bach on a piano is just wrong.)
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### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/19 "2006-04-29T04:18:10Z")
I’ve never been particularly fond of the harmonica, and keyboards in general are vastly overrated and overused.
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### Author:  [@fusoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fusoya)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2006, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-least-favorite-instrument/354669/20 "2006-04-29T04:38:52Z")
Oboes suck
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