Musical Instruments Which Grate

[Flying_Monkey]

Didgeridoos played by long-haired surfer types with piercings.

Tell me about it... I used to be a roadie for a band called Dr Didg - whose didg player was at least very good indeed, but it doesn't half start to drive you crazy after a while - and also makes you realise how awful just about all those dribbling hippies who think they can play the thing are...

 

[swee'pea99]

The Dribbling Hippies - weren't they with Columbia, late '60s...?

 

[Maizie]

The recorder. An instrument of torture

When played by a child, out of tune (and almost invariably overblown), it often is.
When played en masse by children, all out of tune in their own different way, and likely all overblowing, definitely grating.

When played by someone who knows how to play it it's gorgeous. It does help if you don't really use any instrument higher than a treble, better still a tenor (the squeaky recorder played at primary school is a descant, the next up from a treble).

(But then I'm biased, as I'm sort-of saving up for a great bass recorder...)

 

[Mr Phoebus]

When played by a child, out of tune (and almost invariably overblown), it often is.
When played en masse by children, all out of tune in their own different way, and likely all overblowing, definitely grating.

When played by someone who knows how to play it it's gorgeous. It does help if you don't really use any instrument higher than a treble, better still a tenor (the squeaky recorder played at primary school is a descant, the next up from a treble).

(But then I'm biased, as I'm sort-of saving up for a great bass recorder...)

I still remember 'music lesson' in the 2nd year Juniors.
It was a mad rush and free-for-all to the recorder box to get one that didn't have its mouthpiece chewed or had teeth marks on the end of it. Bleeuuughhhh!!!!

 

[Globalti]

Pan pipes here as well. Sickening, ghastly, soppy, Demis Roussos hotel foyer music.

Bleargh!

 

[Smokin Joe]

I must defend the bagpipes here. No-one with a soul can fail to be uplifted by the sound of a pipe band, drums a-rattling in the background.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

The electric guitar. It's vile. Take a moderately pleasant, if undemanding instrument, make the body solid so that it loses any resonance it once had and then amplify and distort the hell out of it.

Electric guitars are what one graduates to after learning to plink out "froggy went a - courting" on a plywood box. They're great, I've got seven (and an acoustic!). The more distorted, the better ... you can make so many great noises with a heavily distorted guitar, especially if you're not scared to hit it with things and chuck it on the floor.
I'd agree with the sax, though ... I can't stand the noise those things make.

 

[Fab Foodie]

C'mon guys, the Alto and Tenor Saxophones are great instruments, full of Soul, suitable for Jazz, Blues, Soul, Rock, Gospel, 50's Rock 'n roll, Latin-American, Funk, hell even marching bands... a wide repetoire, it's dynamic and has a range of timbres. It's even relatively easy to play and a great instrument for beginners to start to make their own music.

I agree Kenny G is shoot, but that doesn't make the Sax a bad instrument

Currently I'm learning to play this:
(AWB; Pick-up-the Pieces)

View: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MfAJLGFWxYo


Or this from Miles Davis (Trumpet) and Cannonball Adderley...

View: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-3x-dSHKew&feature=related


I'm gonna go practice now...

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

Drum machine music

 

[Lardyboy]

Another pan pipe hater here.

 

[AndyS]

The piano. I just hate it, it doesn't sound even remotely like music.

And:

"I must defend the bagpipes here. No-one with a soul can fail to be uplifted by the sound of a pipe band, drums a-rattling in the background."

Do you have ears?

I nominate the Peruvian nose flute.

 

[Noodley]

Oh aye pan pipes. For ever to be associated with Princess Diana's death.

 

[Stan]

Pan pipes again. Never ever hit the tourist spots in Peru if you never want to hear these again.....they're evil.

 

[Keith Oates]

+1 - Bagpipes are horrible horrible things which set the nerves jangling and the mind reeling...presumably they were invented as weapons to use against the English.

And that shop...I know the one. I wonder how the staff can work 8 hours at a stretch listening to the same 'tune' over and over again...

The history of the bagpipes is very good in explaining it's appeal:

The bagpipe was 'invented' somehwere in the Middle east, they didn't like the sound so gave it to the Dutch, who also didn't like the sound so they gave it to the Irish, who didn't know how to play them so they gave them to the Scots, who didn't know any better.

I have my doubts about the authenticity of the story!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Rhythm Thief]

I like the bagpipes, but (like any instrument) they have to be played well or not at all.
I'm surprised no one's voted for the banjo yet ... when I played the banjo in the band I was regularly beaten about the head for so much as suggesting it could perhaps be played in this or that song.