Unseen Musical Instruments Revealed!

Hi again.

First of all, I know this was so last week, but...it was blue and black, not white and gold. And it was rather ugly in my opinion.

Anyway, after the craziness of yesterday's last post I've decided to write something a little more refined, educational, and edifying. That said, I was trying to go for a post title similar to the sorts of things you see in internet ads - Like, "He found WHAT in his backyard?!" with a really grainy picture that upon further investigation turns out to be some kind of tree branch or something boring like that.

Anyway in this post I'm going to introduce you to some cool musical instruments which you probably haven't heard of before.

Starting off, this here is called the Balalaika:

The Balalaika is a traditional instrument from Russia; it is triangular-shaped and usually has three strings. I have one about the size of a mandolin, but it can be a lot bigger than that:

In Russia there are a lot of balalaika orchestras, here's a pic of one and a sample of what traditional balalaika music sounds like.

I've never learned any Russian music on my balalaika, I just play original compositions and songs I already know. Here's my cover of Ten Thousand Reasons by Matt Redman.

Next up we have the Daxophone. This instrument was created by the late Hans Reichel, and looks something like this:

You play it like this:

1. Insert one of countless wooden "tongues" into the stand, which contains a microphone. Each "tongue" is about the length of a ruler.

maybe not quite a thousand tongues, but...Charles Wesley anyone?

2. Pluck or bow the ruler while moving a wedge-shaped block (seen below) up and down the "tongue."

The results are different every time - Reichel managed to produce sounds ranging from exotic percussion to distorted human screams, grunts, and even the occasional "Hi!"

Enjoy this cut from his album Yuxo:

Thirdly we have the Taishokoto, or as I like to call it, the mutant Japanese typewriter infused with autoharp DNA. I found one of these babies in the music shop where I got my Balalaika, and I would've bought it too, but these things cost a lot of money.

Anyway basically you strum the strings while holding down the keys to get different pitches, like so:

Not sure quite what all you can do with it, but it's still kind of a fun toy.

Next up we have...violins, violas, cellos, and guitars. Boring, right? Wait until you see what they look like...

These were all created by musician and artist Ken Butler, and you can see him playing some of them (including a golf club) here:

Another odd instrument out there is the Gravikord, based off of a traditional African instrument known as the Kora, and designed by Bob Grawi.

A Kora

A Gravikord (with an...interesting slogan)

The Gravikord sounds really cool when played well, and I'm a little surprised that it hasn't caught on much. Maybe Avicii or someone else famous should use one in a song to get some publicity for the poor thing.

Here's a song played on Gravikord by inventor Bob Grawi:

Next we have what is reputably the world's largest musical instrument - the Great Stalacpipe Organ. Found in Luray Caverns in Virginia, the instrument consists of a normal pipe organ keyboard, but instead of playing pipes it controls tiny hammers positioned throughout the cavern which tap on stalactites, each tuned to a specific pitch. It sounds a bit like a giant marimba with a lot of reverb.

If I ever sat down at that thing's keyboard, I would probably play this song:

As uncanny as it sounds, this beast actually exists. And it sounds cool too.

Beethoven anyone?

Finally, we come now to one of my favorite rare and unusual instruments known as the Car Horn Organ, a whacky sound sculpture made by Wendy Mae Chambers. Using this instrument, a player sitting at a keyboard can play car horns, one for every pitch. Wendy searched through countless junkyards to find car horns that could play every pitch she wanted, and her efforts payed off. 

To conclude this post, here's a beautifully patriotic number played on said instrument. Ladies and gentlemen, please remove your hats, and don't forget to subscribe for more weird posts like this one...