Musical instruments come in a great variety. However, most of the time, we limit ourselves to old good guitars, pianos, violins, and other well-known ones. But once we peek behind those, we will discover a whole plethora of unique and often hands down weird instruments. Some of them are ridiculous enough for us to question the sanity of their creators.
So without any further ado, let’s take a look at the most unusual musical instruments ever.
Stylophone
This is a super cool instrument that reminds us of using a stylus with a tablet. It’s a small analog keyboard with a stylus that’s used to activate keys and create sound. A stylophone makes a very interesting electronic sound with a bit of reverb and quack. Also, it’s a very simple instrument and it won’t be hard to learn how to play it.
Pikasso Guitar
We all know Pablo Picasso and we all know guitars. Usually, guitars have 6 strings and you might’ve seen ones that have up to 12 strings. But how about a 42-string guitar with 4 necks? Weird, right? Such a guitar came to Linda Manzer’s imagination. The creation was inspired by Pablo Picasso’s work — that’s why we’ve mentioned him before. And the instrument was named a Pikasso guitar. Just like the paintings of the famous artist, this guitar sounds fairly random, strange, nonetheless unique.
Glass harmonica
If you love ethereally-sounding compositions, the glass harmonica will quickly become your new favorite. It utters a kind of a sound that makes us think that there is a ghost playing a ghost organ. While actually, it’s just a live human being playing a glass harmonica. Benjamin Franklin is behind this creation that consists of glass bowls of different sizes. You need to wet your fingers with water for better sound execution and slide with them over the glass to play this instrument.
Crwth
Pronounced as “Crooth”, this medieval Welsh instrument might look rather insignificant. Until you hear the sound it creates. A crwth produces an extremely vivid, hypnotizing, and thick sound that takes over the mind right away leaving virtually no space for other sounds. And the best thing is that this instrument is not very demanding when it comes to the materials it’s made of. You can find videos that show how people create crwths from any suitable piece of wood they find using a fishing line for strings.
Hang drum
This is another instrument for the lovers of otherworldly sounds. Looking like an alien spaceship, a hang drum produces the sound that is simultaneously soft and sharp, dull and bright. Listening to this instrument feels soothing as its sound hypnotizes you. That’s why often hang drums are used for creating trance and psy tracks.
Nyckelharpa
While the sound of a nyckelharpa is not quite unique, the look and mechanics of this instrument are. It comes from Sweden and is around six centuries old. To play a nyckelharpa, one needs to both hit keys placed underneath the neck and slide with a fiddlestick over strings. Interesting, what’s harder to play — a nyckelharpa or a violin?
Yaybahar
Horror films created a whole new genre of music. And a yaybahar is the perfect instrument for creating such music. This ridiculously-looking instrument utters a wide range of prowling creepy sounds that make our nervous system switch to the alert mode immediately. Even if one plays smooth and connected notes using a yaybahar, it still sounds very ethereal. One can play this instrument in different ways to produce unique sounds.
Wintergatan
A Wintergatan looks like some steampunk machine. And it is a machine. A Wintergatan uses 2000 marbles to create sounds — and it can create a huge variety of sounds. Actually, one could use just this machine to create a complete piece of music that involves sounds of different instruments. Playing a Wintergatan seems as difficult as rocket science. It’s a truly unique and remarkable musical instrument.
Theremin
Coming back to musical instruments with creepy sounding, we discover a theremin. It’s one of the earliest electric musical instruments and is played without contact. It has antennas that can sense the movements — so you need to move your hands above a theremin to play it. The reward is an eerie sound that’s both alluring and terrifying.
Wheelharp
While it’s hard to say that an instrument looks weird once you see a Wintergatan, a wheelharp still has a quite unique appearance. It has 61 bowed strings that are controlled by a keyboard. A wheelharp has a rich deep sound that makes you think that you hear several string instruments playing at once.
Zeusaphone
The name of this instrument makes perfect sense when you see it in action. A zeusaphone is built on a dual-resonant solid-state coil that produces an electronic sound along with lightning, of course — hence, a zeusaphone, a reference to Zeus himself.
Pyrophone
As if it wasn’t intimidating enough for us to risk getting electrocuted with a zeusaphone, we discovered an instrument that could give us burns. A pyrophone is basically a fire organ that makes sound with fire. It sounds dull and, well, fiery. Perhaps, it creates a nice background for other instruments. But listening just to a pyrophone is fairly boring.
Sharpsichord
This instrument is basically a huge hurdy-gurdy made of a cylinder with 11,520 holes. One can plug pins into these holes to program a specific melody. Then, just like with a barrel organ, all you need to do is to turn the handle continuously.