Unusual Instruments

First a look at some of the most unusual musical instruments of the world: approximately 26 of them. Apart from fruit and veg there are some really clever ones out there with the most beautiful, delicate sounds.

Unusual Instruments

Here’s another trenche. For instance one, the Berimbau, seems to be a piece of taught wire that is whipped, that high pitch sound travels to a sounding box which feeds through a hollow stick and then to the performer’s mouth and into the microphone or have I got it wrong ? Sweet though. A gallop through 29 of the weirdest musical instruments..

Everything Music - Rick Beato

Well known session musician Rick is so often the first port of call if you want to both understand how so many different pop songs are put together but also to be enthused as to why their sound was so good that it gave the band a hit. Some people may not like his front foot style but his confidence comes from competence. The library on his YouTube channel, built up over many years, is a treatise of most popular instruments in most popular styles. He knows his stuff but is teaching that by slick audio and graphics that accompanies what he does. He doesn’t waste time. Yet he’s personal enough to say how, for instance, losing John Lennon affected him. Then, underpinning all of that he wants to get down and understand the inspiration for a song being written that way so he invites the artist in. I really like him and so do 2.6M other subscribers ! BTW he also has teaching on RickBeato2 -you will need to scroll to the bottom to enter that.

If you don’t know where to start here’s a taster: He’s flumoxed by the beauty of this song so he calls up the artist to ask him:

   Kiss From A Rose - by Seal. Brilliant !

The Whole 9 Yards

There are quite a few performers that can play many instruments: Mike Oldfield, etc However who of all the all-rounders out there who can come close to the breadth of musical entertainment offered by just one: The Tinselworm himself who, with his perfect pitch, educates us here on the finer details of major v minor chords..

(His real name isn’t William by the way, that came from a song, and he’s appeared in a remarkable number of films)

Remarkable Instrument: Theremin

There are few instruments that have been completely invented from scratch - most are a development. There are even fewer that have have been invented in the modern era but this is one. Originally played in early films for its haunting, out-of-this-world sound it takes years of practice to sound reasonable -yet it’s mastered by only a few. Here Carolina Eyck performs The Ecstasy of Gold by Ennio Morricone with her own special accompaniment (4min). Do check out others by her.

Others that are extremely good for instance: Katica Illényi plays Once Upon A Time In The West also by Ennio (3min).

Theremins play rock: see Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana (5min).

Theremins play Dubstep: see Sequioa Live by Lund Quartet (9min).

Theremins play Techno and it’s good: see Welcome or Garden Jam by Frenchman Mezerg.

Lastly, unless I saw it with my own eyes, I would not have thought it was possible to remember, let alone reproduce, Clare Torry’s performance of The Great Gig in the Sky by Pink Floyd but Charlie Draper can (2½min) -people are “speechless” in the Comments !

Will You - Hazel O’Connor

This piece throws me back to a house share in West London where we named a feral cat, that decided to move in, after the writer of this song. It really was wild ! Of course Hazel’s (O’Connor not the cat’s) lyrics and performance are legendary but after a Court appearance Wes McGoogan’s saxophone solo is now recognised as what sold it’s mood. It’s a song of troubling thoughts and my memory is also reminded of troubling times in a different way.. My next door neighbour was a renowned spy and never there -but ‘on holiday’ in the Czech Republic. His wife constantly worried when, not if, her husband was going to get caught and never come back. She looked ill with it. So this song always reminds me of her face as we chatted over the fence so often drowned out by the clatter of a Piccadilly Line train crashing through our conversations.

This is a full, restored and re-edited version of her Top-Of-ThePops appearance by MadFrank subtly mixed with shots from her infamous film Breaking Glass. The sound quality is good so pull up some hankies and turn the volume up !

Having reviewed many covers of many songs most have notes that are flat and/or mis-timed but Stuart Coleman’s sax does none of that in his superb McGoogan style rendition here: Will You sax solo - Lockdown challenge #2.

If you think that you can do any better the sheet music is here: SheetMusicDirect.

Finally if you think that by this time Hazel would’ve lost it ? Well, far from it. During the Lockdown of 2020 she and neighbour ‘Robert’ threw a Zoom in his back room. If you scroll to scroll to 14m10 you see: Hazel O'Connor performs a concert at home for the Isolation Music Festival.

Oscar Peterson

Where do you start with Jaz ? I can’t pick any one single person out. OK, say I pick Oscar Peterson ? I can’t pick any one of his brilliant performances out. There’s too much choice. So I’ll pick one at random by Mr Fairy Fingers because it’s just so catchy: Boogie Woogie Magic!!! The Best Ever Solo. Ronnie Scott's London 1974.

However if you say that you’re gonna watch that you have to watch this by Buddy Rich. Nobody, but nobody, can play like this: Drum solo par excellence Paris 1971