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Songs with unique instruments in them
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Clinically Insane
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So, I'm listening to AC/DC today, "It's a Long Way To The Top" which has a bagpipe in it, and immediately after, the station played Tull with a flute. How many rock/pop songs have instruments in them that generally aren't found in that kind of music?
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Mac Elite
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In a big country dreams stay with you like a lovers voice fires the mountainsiiiiiide. Stay a-liiiive.
oh wait, those were guitars. OK, let's go with the Beatles, namely George Harrison.
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Banned
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A lot of people may not notice it, but Counting Crows uses an accordion in a number of songs.
I think non-traditional instruments are often the way a group can stand out from the crowd.
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Mac Elite
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Posting Junkie
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I'm not a fountain of knowledge regarding popular music, but I do know that Good Vibrations has a theremin in it. I think it used the harpsichord as well, if I remember correctly. The Beatles also occasionally used the harpsichord, and more famously, the sitar.
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Posting Junkie
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Moderator Emeritus
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I think Billy Joel's Downeaster "Alexa" might have the most beautiful use of an accordion in pop music.
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Nemo me impune lacesset
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2002
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Originally Posted by starman
How many rock/pop songs have instruments in them that generally aren't found in that kind of music?
Robert Randolph & the Family Band
I don't know of any other funk/soul bands that use a pedal steel guitar.
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Forum Regular
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Factoid: Many of John Lennon's later songs included the sound of a cat being strangled in the background.
John Lennon hated cats.
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Clinically Insane
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Originally Posted by Face Ache
Factoid: Many of John Lennon's later songs included the sound of a cat being strangled in the background.
John Lennon hated cats.
Maybe the assassin was a cat ?
-t
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Mac Elite
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{Animated sigs are not allowed.}
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Clinically Insane
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Baninated
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Originally Posted by CharlesS
I'm not a fountain of knowledge regarding popular music, but I do know that Good Vibrations has a theremin in it. I think it used the harpsichord as well, if I remember correctly. The Beatles also occasionally used the harpsichord, and more famously, the sitar.
The Theremin in Good vibrations isn't like a normal one. It was more like a side guitar.
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Baninated
Join Date: Oct 2002
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Originally Posted by dreamryche
WOW I've never head of that. Really neat. I love Dream Theatre musically, but man some of their songs seem too campy.
Dave Navarro used a vibrator over his guitar pickups to make odd sounds.
The Ebow is also a cool little device.
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Mac Elite
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The bloodhound in Pink Floyd's Seamus.
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hayesk
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Originally Posted by waxcrash
Robert Randolph & the Family Band
I have their "Unclassified" album.
To add to the list:
The Dream Academy's "Life in a Northern Town" has an english horn in it.
Some of Midnight Oil's songs have cellos.
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Senior User
Join Date: Mar 2000
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My Spine by Bjork consists of vocals and a bunch of exhaust pipes played as a xylophone.
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Forum Regular
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Originally Posted by Kevin
Dave Navarro used a vibrator over his guitar pickups to make odd sounds.
The Ebow is also a cool little device.
And, of course, there's Paul Gilbert and his power drill with picks taped to the bit. Also cool are guitars equipped with Sustainers or Sustainiacs. I'm going to be dropping a Sustainiac Stealth in an old Hamer of mine sometime in the not-so-distant future.
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Professional Poster
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Posting Junkie
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Originally Posted by Kevin
The Theremin in Good vibrations isn't like a normal one. It was more like a side guitar.
In fact, it has nothing in common with the "real" Theremin at all.
As for "unique" instruments - I submit just about every album by Einstürzende Neubauten, and particularly recommend their latest "Perpetuum Mobile", which features a number of tuned plastic plumbing pipes played with compressed-air guns across their openings.
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check out Goma, their main schtick is that they have a didgeridoo. i always liked the baritone sax of morphine as well.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
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Is farting considered an odd instrument ?
-t
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Jackyl "The Lumberjack"...lead chainsaw
Jackyl "Headed For Destruction"...chainsaw+vocoder
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Baninated
Join Date: Oct 2002
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Originally Posted by analogika
In fact, it has nothing in common with the "real" Theremin at all.
Well the both worked on resistance, and had a similar sound.
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Posting Junkie
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I really don't mean to be a smartass, but:
I can get a very Theremin-like sound out of any of my analog synths - in fact, the "Theremin" in the first few bars of Portishead's first album "Dummy" is a Roland SH-101. The sound is quite easy to build if you know your gear.
And every monophonic synth keyboard up until the mid-80s was resistance-based (pressing down the key would vary a fixed voltage through resistors and thus change the pitch of the voltage-controlled oscillators).
The Tannerin (used on "Good Vibrations") used a resistor strip played much like a slide guitar in place of a keyboard.
The Theremin is unique not because of its sound generator, but because it is controlled entirely through induction (via two antennae for pitch and volume), with the performer not touching the device at all.
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Administrator
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The Theremin was the first synthesizer, at least in many ways. Sure, it's analog-that's pretty much the point. But it was the first, all-electronic method of generating sounds that did not start from some mechanical source.
The "normal" Theremin is played by waving one's hands in space in certain areas around the device-listen to the sounds in "Forbidden Planet" for an example of the breadth of a Theremin's capabilities-all the sound effects and all the music were produced with a Theremin.
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Addicted to MacNN
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Many compositions by Shakira include native Latin American instruments for the chorus or for background.
Gloria Estefan and Cafe Tacuva too.
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Mac Elite
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its the singing saw dude !
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{Animated sigs are not allowed.}
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Professional Poster
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Originally Posted by analogika
The Theremin is unique not because of its sound generator, but because it is controlled entirely through induction (via two antennae for pitch and volume), with the performer not touching the device at all.
I really don't mean to be a smarter ass, but don't you mean capacitance?
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Dedicated MacNNer
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Theremins work on capacitance, not resistance. A friend of mine built one recently, and i can safely say that playing it is exceedingly difficult.
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You see, my friends, pirates are the key. - thalo
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Posting Junkie
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capacitance, then.
Sorry.
The decisive point is the method of interaction with the instrument.
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Registered User
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Originally Posted by Kevin
The Theremin in Good vibrations isn't like a normal one. It was more like a side guitar.
Peter Gabriel has a pretty good record for using unusual instruments. I can't remember the name of the instrument at the beginning of SledgeHammer (doudouk or something like that). Sounds like a wooden flute or recorder, more breathey.
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Mac Elite
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One tune that always has gets me, is Jane's Addiction's My Time with harmonica in it, mot unusual , but really sweet to hear.
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A Jew with a view.
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Baninated
Join Date: Oct 2002
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Originally Posted by analogika
The Tannerin (used on "Good Vibrations") used a resistor strip played much like a slide guitar in place of a keyboard.
Um, that is what I said.
The Theremin in Good vibrations isn't like a normal one. It was more like a slide guitar.
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Baninated
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Originally Posted by version
One tune that always has gets me, is Jane's Addiction's My Time with harmonica in it, mot unusual , but really sweet to hear.
I had a mp3 of them doing that song. But Dave plays the melody on the guitar instead of the harmonica.
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hayesk
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Originally Posted by finboy
Peter Gabriel has a pretty good record for using unusual instruments. I can't remember the name of the instrument at the beginning of SledgeHammer (doudouk or something like that). Sounds like a wooden flute or recorder, more breathey.
It's a prophet analogue synthesizer.
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Posting Junkie
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Originally Posted by Kevin
Um, that is what I said.
Um, yes. You did. You may note that I expanded on your point to say that not only was that theremin not played like a theremin, but that it wasn't actually a theremin.
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Baninated
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Originally Posted by analogika
Um, yes. You did. You may note that I expanded on your point to say that not only was that theremin not played like a theremin, but that it wasn't actually a theremin.
*sigh*
So you were basically just splitting hairs. That is why I said "It wasn't like a normal one"
Meaning they aren't the same thing.
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Mac Elite
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Van Halen -
Poundcake. The beggining was done using a electric drill against the guitar. Not exactly a musical instrument - but a cool sound nonetheless.
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Posting Junkie
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Kevin, I wasn't splitting hairs.
It's not a Theremin at all.
It's like you said "The guitars on Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition' aren't like normal ones. They're more like pianos" and somebody comes along and says, "We'll, it's a Hohner Clavinet, which is nothing like a guitar at all,"*) and you get all huffy like somebody claimed you were wrong, rather than clarifying your point.
Sometimes it's funny to watch your automatic defense-mechanisms. Now relax, Kevin.
*) except, in this example, the clavinet actually has more in common with the guitar than the Theremin with the Tannerin - at least the clav and guitar use the same sound generation principle.
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Baninated
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Er analog. By me saying "It's more like a slide guitar" I am saying it's not a theremin.
But nevermind, this will go one forever. You won the internet.
Sometimes it's funny to watch your automatic defense-mechanisms. Now relax, Kevin.
And now you are projecting. Great.
I was just pointing out, what we said wasn't all that different. You felt the need to "correct" me was just you being argumentive. Which we both know you are.
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Posting Junkie
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Dude, you're a ****ing moron.
People reading your post would have still referred to a "theremin" - albeit a modified one - being used on 'Good Vibrations'. IT WASN'T, and the misconception should probably be clarified.
You weren't wrong at all. You merely only got one-third of the way there. I point this out and you go into auto-defense mode like somebody's called you on a "sixteenth chapel" faux pas or something. I chuckle at this and suddenly I'm "projecting" again.
Tell me, Oh Grand Idiot, how my correcting you was any different from your correcting CharlesS, except that you flared up like a hit dog and posted some criteria that are common to just about every analog synthesizer ever built? Did you just want to argue? Or do you just assume ill-will every time somebody directs a post at you? Isn't that the definition of "projecting"?
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Senior User
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Hednigarna - Min Skog: Chainsaw.
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The gene pool needs cleaning - I'll be the chlorine.
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Posting Junkie
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Originally Posted by analogika
Dude, you're a ****ing moron.
People reading your post would have still referred to a "theremin" - albeit a modified one - being used on 'Good Vibrations'. IT WASN'T, and the misconception should probably be clarified.
You weren't wrong at all. You merely only got one-third of the way there. I point this out and you go into auto-defense mode like somebody's called you on a "sixteenth chapel" faux pas or something. I chuckle at this and suddenly I'm "projecting" again.
Tell me, Oh Grand Idiot, how my correcting you was any different from your correcting CharlesS, except that you flared up like a hit dog and posted some criteria that are common to just about every analog synthesizer ever built? Did you just want to argue? Or do you just assume ill-will every time somebody directs a post at you? Isn't that the definition of "projecting"?
I am very sorry that I posted in this thread at all.
How's this: The song "Good Vibrations" has an instrument in it which, while not being a theremin, sounds like one to a listener, thus being unique since most popular music does not make use of an instrument that sounds like a theremin.
I think that should be a statement that everyone should agree with. Now can the flame war stop, please?
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Administrator
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Songs with "unique" instruments...
Almost everything Spike Jones ever recorded. Slide whistles. Pistols. Washtubs (not washtub bases, though he did use those, but just banging on a washtub). Sirens. SCREAMS!!! Mel Blanc doing sounds with his voice. Unique is hardly strong enough a word.
A few titles:
Black and Blue Danube Waltz
I Only Have Eyes for You
Der Fuehrer's Face
Clink, Clink, Another Drink (featuring Mel Blanc on "glugs.")
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Posting Junkie
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Wow, Kevin really retarded up this thread too. Not everyone is out to get you for expanding on your f"cking point.
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Posting Junkie
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Originally Posted by CharlesS
How's this: The song "Good Vibrations" has an instrument in it which, while not being a theremin, sounds like one to a listener, thus being unique since most popular music does not make use of an instrument that sounds like a theremin.
What makes the song "Good Vibrations" truly unique is that it is probably the only recording of the Tannerin (while there is a whole plethora of "spooky" tracks - many of them soundtracks - that contain theremin).
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Posting Junkie
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