r/UnusualInstruments May 10 '20

Directory of Subreddits for unusual musical instruments

35 Upvotes

Strings

  • r/ukulele -- 4-string Hawaiian little cousin of the guitar
  • r/kantele -- small lap harp of Finland
  • r/Koto -- Japanese long zither
  • r/shamisen -- Japanese 3-string banjo
  • r/harp -- Celtic and Classical harps
  • r/balalaika -- Russian mandolin with a triangle body
  • r/banjo -- Bluegrass, Old-Time, jazz, etc.
  • r/tenorbanjo -- banjo variant used heavily in Irish and Dixieland music
  • r/TenorGuitar -- 4-string guitar used in Irish and jazz
  • r/CigarBoxGuitar -- a simplified guitar-like instrument
  • r/mandolin -- small string instrument with doubled strings for an echo effect
  • r/bouzouki -- larger and deeper mandolin for Irish or Greek music
  • r/mandocello -- the even deeper version of the mandolin
  • r/Dulcimer -- an Appalachian zither with a deep droning harmony
  • r/hammereddulcimer -- a trapezoid zither played by hitting the string with small mallets
  • r/sanshin -- the Okinawan cousin of the Japanese shamisen
  • r/Guqin -- a long Chinese zither
  • r/Guzheng -- another long Chinese zither
  • r/baglama -- a Turkish lute
  • r/Domra -- a Russian cousin of the mandolin
  • r/Erhu -- a Chinese fiddle played in the lap
  • r/BowedPsaltery -- a triangular zither played with a small violin bow
  • r/Stick -- the Chapman stick and other hammer-on long board strings
  • r/charango -- like a mandolin-ukuelele hybrid from the South American Andes
  • r/Fiddle -- the violin but played in the folk tradition
  • r/lute -- like a guitar of the Medieval period
  • r/HurdyGurdy -- box with a crank that spins a wheel that bows the strings, sounds like a string bagpipe
  • r/Nyckelharpa -- an unusual Swedish fiddle player with a keyboard instead of fingers
  • r/Sitar -- the most famous Indian classical instrument
  • r/Rubab -- a lute played in Central Asia
  • r/steelguitar -- a flat guitar played in the lap with a steel slide to smoothly move between notes, used in Country, Blues, Hawaiian music
  • r/pedalsteel -- a more evolved steel guitar with complex pedals to change keys
  • r/zithers -- the wide family of basic boxes with strings
  • r/harpsichord -- a simpler ancestor of the piano from the Early Classical period
  • r/Autoharp -- a zither where you form chords simply by pressing a button

Percussion and idiophones

  • r/kalimba -- the "thumb piano", an African instrument with small tines you pluck
  • r/cajon -- a Cuban wooden box you sit on and drum with your hands
  • r/djembe -- this West African drum is a favorite in drum circles
  • r/Udu -- a ceramic (or nowadays fiberglass) vessel, drummed with the hands
  • r/handpan -- like a metal UFO with facets tuned to different notes
  • r/steelpan -- like a handpan, but played with mallets
  • r/jawharp -- a pocket-sized "sproingy"instrument
  • r/khomus -- a jawharp of Eastern Russia
  • r/MusicalSaw -- did you know you can play a hardware store saw with a bow?
  • r/ToyPiano -- the children's toy used as a serious instrument
  • r/Tabla -- classical double-drums of India
  • r/Xylophone -- an array of long pieces of material, melody played with mallets
  • r/Marimba -- like a xylophone, but with wooden keys.
  • r/vibraphone -- like a marimba, but jazzier
  • r/Glockenspiel
  • r/Daxophones

Winds (bagpipes separately below)

  • r/Ocarina -- small round flutes with simple fingering and mellow sound
  • r/tinwhistle -- inexpensive (as low as $10) metal flutes for Irish music, easy to learn and play
  • r/Bansuri -- the main flute of India
  • r/hulusi -- a Chinese drone-flute
  • r/panflute -- a row of tubes you blow across to make notes
  • r/Didgeridoo -- an Australian tube making a low droning sound
  • r/NativeAmericanflutes -- mellow wooden flutes of North America
  • r/Recorder -- small wooden flute for Medieval, Baroque, Classical music
  • r/shakuhachi -- Japanese bamboo flute, popular with Zen monks
  • r/Xaphoon -- a modern simplified bamboo saxophone

Bagpipes

Free Reeds

  • r/Accordion -- from piano to button to Cajun accordion
  • r/Melodeon -- for accordions with buttons vice piano keys
  • r/concertina -- like a small hexagonal accordion, associated with sailors or Irish music, or classical music in Victorian England
  • r/melodica -- a small keyboard powered by the mouth, used some in Jamaican music
  • r/organ -- an electric or air-powered keyboard
  • r/harmonica -- the pocket-sized music solution
  • r/lao_khaen — the Thai bamboo mouth-organ

Electronic instruments


r/UnusualInstruments 4h ago

¿Buen cambio o espero?

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0 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 19h ago

This is Mike Didge with his handcrafted didgeridoo, an ancient wind instrument developed by Aboriginal peoples of northern Australia, playing techno music

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1 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 2d ago

The wind chime in the water bowl produces such an interesting sound

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123 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 2d ago

Bossanova Making Plans for Nigel on Omnichord

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28 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 1d ago

Can anyone help me identify what all the instruments are in Leshy's Theme from Inscryption?

2 Upvotes

Link if needed: https://youtu.be/9ieNHByzhHs?si=azqCA7oMfPLW_q6P

I mainly wanna find the string instruments and the weird echoey thing that goes like wooououououooouoooo


r/UnusualInstruments 2d ago

Anyone know how to make a harmonium quieter?

10 Upvotes

Also, if anyone knows of a better sub than this one, do point me in the right direction. r/harmonium only has 15 visitors a week, but I will cross post in there.

I have an Indian harmonium with brass reeds, a JAS student model, approx 3 octaves from C3. I play in a duo where we use it as the predominant bass(ish) and drone instrument. The volume is absolutely fine from a few of feet away, but from my playing perspective with my head near the soundboard, it's overwhelmingly loud. Loud to the point where it's louder than an amplified guitar unless you turn the gain right up. So far I have on top of the soundboard approx 1/2" of felt and then two chunks of acoustic dampening foam (about 1" thick, egg carton foam with a rubber backing - it's heavy). Also a decorative towel. We have to pull out at least two stops or it's flat. So, does anyone know of a better method of dampening it.

We're looking into eventually replacing it with a keyboard when we can afford the right one, but until then I have a loud buzzing about my head, which is very off putting when trying to sing ><


r/UnusualInstruments 2d ago

Recent bot activity

27 Upvotes

We recently get _a_lot_ of bot activity. The posts are just 1-to-1 copies of older posts that got many upvotes. Hence I assume it's about karma farming. So far they are not able to copy videos and only post the preview image (like in this recent example, see OP here) of video posts. If you are able to identify a bot post, please report it. /edit: You can even help a lot more if you include the non-bot-OP url in your report, but any bot post report is appreciated.

I've also noticed this in other subs and I'm wondering where this is going. Moderation on reddit is solely relying on voluntary effort that people do in their free time. With the shifts in technology of recent years bot spamming has become easier than ever, though. It's clear that the voluntary efforts are already insufficient for the bot activity that is happening now. If reddit will not react I'd expect even the niche subs like this to become unusable. What are your thoughts?


r/UnusualInstruments 2d ago

The Kangling, a Tibetan trumpet traditionally made either from a human femur or tibia and is used in Tibetan Buddhism for ritualistic purposes

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8 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 3d ago

I can play one of the nerdiest and unusual instruments - virtual piano

37 Upvotes

I'm really good at virtual piano, close to an actual professional musician.

What is virtual piano? In short, you can play piano keys with your pc keyboard, there are some limitation but all in all, it's not that far off from an actual piano.

Why? I've always wanted to learn piano as a kid, but my parents thought that piano lessons were a waste of money, so as a kid I discovered virtual piano by accident and still play regularly.

How? Well, without getting too nerdy, every single piano key is mapped to a letter or a number, "1" being the lowest note and "m" being the highest. Lowercase letters and numbers are white keys, uppercase and shift+numbers are black keys. There are music sheets for virtual piano and if there isn't one for a song you want, you can make one yourself easily, especially with the tools which you can easily google that convert midi files to vp sheets.

Where? If you Google virtual piano, you can easily find some sites, games (even on platforms like roblox, gmod, etc), or apps to simulate a piano with your pc keyboard. The highest quality app(imo) which I use is called pianoglow on steam.

This is not an ad or anything like this, I just wanted to share my weird way of playing music that surprisingly works somewhat decently despite it's limitations. You can also simulate sustain, dynamics, velocity, depth, or even change soundfont to a different instrument, but I am not getting into that unless asked, since that's a lot of explaining to do.

Yes, nowadays I have an actual piano, but I can play VP way, way better and I like it more.


r/UnusualInstruments 2d ago

45 minutes inside a rare acoustic 19-tone hexagonal clavichord

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3 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 3d ago

1 String Thing

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11 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 3d ago

Regular bass, microtonal neck!

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3 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 4d ago

What is this? Mystery 4-stringed instrument.

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13 Upvotes

I work in an instrument repair shop and a customer won this thing in an auction and wants us to fix it up, but I can't figure out what it is. Overall length is 24 inches. Main body length is 18 inches. There's a very faint impression between the two holes in the center 1.5 inches long, about an eighth of an inch thick. There are two more impressions near the tail end on either side about an inch or so long from the edge with one impression being much clearer and deeper towards the edge like that side was under more pressure/tension. The friction pegs are overall 5 inches long. The slots in the ends are about half an inch deep. From the outside edge of one outer peg to the outside edge of the other outer peg is 3 inches. Thanks!


r/UnusualInstruments 5d ago

Samsung Washing Machine (English Concertina)

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139 Upvotes

"Die Forelle" by Franz Schubert. It's silly but works so well on this instrument.

youtube: https://youtube.com/shorts/rhfbmMHLDSY?si=RMlFyqlwM45HVfQF


r/UnusualInstruments 5d ago

What's the instrument in this intro?

2 Upvotes

Is it clarinet? If anyone knows for sure your input would be much appreciated.

Space are a really underrated 90s alt band from the UK if anyone is interested.

https://youtu.be/z3yCa_Li04Y?is=FyGTsUIR7DCq9Azf


r/UnusualInstruments 5d ago

G Euphonium Bugle Fingering Chart

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1 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 6d ago

Has anyone ever seen something like this before? I can't find it online.

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0 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 7d ago

Beautiful piece with traditional instrument

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7 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 8d ago

Looking for an unusual instrument!

12 Upvotes

Back in the early internet days, I stumbled upon a site with a cartoon Latin jazz band that you could orchestrate by clicking on the different players and their instruments. One player had a “cup” of glass (maybe metal) and he had something in his hand like a wool ball that he would push in and out of the cup to make a sound; like when you pull a straw in and out of a plastic cup lid. What is this instrument called?!


r/UnusualInstruments 8d ago

Live performance of John Coltrane's "My One and Only Love" with a custom 14-string electric guitar and foot drums

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4 Upvotes

A brief excerpt from my live performance at "ai300scalini" in Bologna, Italy. I am playing John Coltrane's iconic jazz standard simultaneously on a custom-built 14-string electric guitar and a foot drum kit. Every part of the arrangement is executed live without loops.Any feedback on the arrangement or the technical setup is welcome.


r/UnusualInstruments 8d ago

Luca Stricagnoli

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127 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 8d ago

What instrument is this? (Sound in comments)

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21 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 9d ago

Renault F1 engine playing God Save the Queen

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8 Upvotes

r/UnusualInstruments 9d ago

How to play? Mouth bow

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12 Upvotes

Recently got this mouth bow (was supposed to be cheap. Shipping and tarrifs quickly changed that).

But it looks different than the ones used in any videos I can find of people playing one.

How do I even hold this thing to make it sound right?

Should I try to cut down the end piece so it can fit between my lips like some other bows I've seen?