The worst musical instrument ever

[midnight_rendezvous]

When played badly it's the violin IMO. In general though it's got to be the recorder.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Another vote for the recorder. I have a completely irrational hatred of any and all round music and 'London's Burning' and 'Three Blind Mice' being played round on the recorder is my idea of hell.

Same here. The problem with the recorder is that it's only played by small children with no musical ability whatsoever. It's an irritating sound anyway, but one made a hundred times worse by the bum notes chucked out by a tone deaf & musically challenged eight year old.


Also a shout for the bagpipes. I suspect that, in my own personal version of hell, I shall be welcomed through the fiery gates by the Band of the Royal Scottish Regiment and two hundred eight year olds playing Frére Jacques, ad infinitum.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Same here. The problem with the recorder is that it's only played by small children with no musical ability whatsoever. It's an irritating sound anyway, but one made a hundred times worse by the bum notes chucked out by a tone deaf & musically challenged eight year old.


Also a shout for the bagpipes. I suspect that, in my own personal version of hell, I shall be welcomed through the fiery gates by the Band of the Royal Scottish Regiment and two hundred eight year olds playing Frére Jacques, ad infinitum.

My mum plays the recorder. She goes off every week to her recorder group, and every now and then they give a 'recital'.

And she's 80. As she insists on telling everyone...

 

[Hornblower]

Ohh, good thread. Any instrument when it's played badly is the worst, but if you stuck a gun to my I'd probably say rauschpfeife. It's a medieval wind instrument like the crumhorn and cornamuse (and as I play them I should like them) but unlike them it just makes a very loud noise. (It sounds like a set of bagpipes but with the tuning removed). It was originally used in battle as an early trumpet to try and intimidate the enemy.

Nice work Brovion. The only 'instrument' that trumps this is the human voice.

 

[Del Fenner]

But the ukulele sounds fantastic. You can't judge an instrument by the prick who's playing it.

The worst instrument in the world, is the Recorder. 100%. It NEVER sounds nice. Never. Hideous sound. Urgh.

A Royal College of Music graduate friend did her degree majoring on the recorder. All I can say is that you have never heard someone play it properly.

 

[KingstonSeagull]

I'd have to agree with Jew's Harp

 

[Nigella's Cream Pie]

Definition of a gentleman: Someone who can play the bagpipes but doesn't. Mustn't be a jock either of course.

 

[Fran Hagarty]

Saxophone

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

A Royal College of Music graduate friend did her degree majoring on the recorder. All I can say is that you have never heard someone play it properly.

I've listened to various examples of incredible musicians playing them. The only time they can trick you into making it sound nice is when they play lots of notes in quick succession. That way, the true tone of the instrument is hidden. Then every now and then they stay on a note for more than 1/2 a second and "HOOOOEEEAAAAHHHH"....

Awful instrument.



Edit: spelling

 

[Questions]

The nose flute........why ? It's downright disgusting. Fancy not being able to play because you have a cold. If you,re an integral part of a ensemble then you'd let everyone down. Baloney.

 

[Man of Harveys]

Ukelele. Most pretentious shit on the planet, combined with whistling; it's a hipster knob's wet dream as he adds it into the background of his/her YouTube video.

I would have to go along with this. After all it's really just a small, cheap, tinny-sounding toy guitar with a tiny fraction of the guitar's dynamic or expressive range - something which might be excusable when real guitars were still quite expensive but that's far from the case these days. Although...I do love the song Ram On by McCartney which features it prominently.

BTW, I'm going to stick up for bagpipes - surely this bellyaching about them is just so much anti-Scottish blether. But you get similar folk instruments in England too - there was some bird in the Northeast who was a bit of a virtuoso a few years back.

 

[brakespear]

I quite like the recorder. SOunds quite nice on 'Ommadawn' anyway. It's difficult to think of an instrument that I haven't heard somebody play and liked so I may just have to nominate the harpsichord as I can only think of a couple of piueces I like.

 

[Hillian1]

I quite like the recorder. SOunds quite nice on 'Ommadawn' anyway. It's difficult to think of an instrument that I haven't heard somebody play and liked so I may just have to nominate the harpsichord as I can only think of a couple of piueces I like.

This has got to be one of the pieces.

 

[Man of Harveys]

I may just have to nominate the harpsichord as I can only think of a couple of piueces I like.

I'm not even going down the JS Bach road for fear of seeming pretentious. But I couldn't imagine either this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0I2ZrBuFdQ

...or even better, this utterly magical piece of music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG-ZO26pnE8

...any other way. The harpsichord rocks.

 

[Dusty_Fryer]

When I were a lad, there was a cupboard at school where the chosen few were allowed to select an instrument to accompany the hymns in assembly. If you were first in, you got to select the best instrument. Sorry, HT, but that tended to be the bongos or the tambourine with the drum skin. If you were last in, you normally got lumbered with the triangle or this sort of wooden stick thing with metal ball-bearings that you would move around to create some kind of awful metal on metal scraping noise. I still hear that sound in my nightmares. "Jubilate," SCRAPE SCRAPE SCRAPE, "Everybody..."

 

[aolstudios]

Ukelele, a million times the Uke bloody lele. Especially groups & orchestras of the bloody things

 

[Theatre of Trees]

Saxophone

Me too - really used to despise those log drawn out wailing solos found in the middle of songs.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

BTW, I'm going to stick up for bagpipes - surely this bellyaching about them is just so much anti-Scottish blether. But you get similar folk instruments in England too - there was some bird in the Northeast who was a bit of a virtuoso a few years back.

Kathryn Tickell, playing the Northumbrian Small Pipes - as you say, a quite different instrument from the Highland Pipes.

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[Man of Harveys]

Kathryn Tickell, playing the Northumbrian Small Pipes - as you say, a quite different instrument from the Highland Pipes.

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Lovely stuff.

 

[Dick Head]

I was on the way to a gig and I had to stop at a service station for a piss. Afterwards I thought I'd get a coffee and had just sat down when I remembered I'd left my accordion in plain sight on the back seat of my car (I usually take it with me or put a blanket over it). I rushed back outside to where I'd parked the car but to my dismay somebody had already broken the window and thrown another three accordions inside.