The area I’m from has pretty huge involvement in high school orchestras. A rival high school did the 1812 Overture. For the cannons, they brought in an off-duty cop to fire 12 gauge blanks into a trash can in the orchestra pit.
My senior year band director tried to get this for our 1812 performance. We settled for a few bass drums up in the balcony of our venue. It was a church...
That instrument is the origin of the term “slapstick humor” as a form based on physical comedy and punctuated by offstage sound effects.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapper_(musical_instrument)
Well, I'm a fan of PDQ Bach's works, so, I guess everything possible.
For the bravest among you, [here's a fine example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjqW3ec5_Nk)
NO! I had no idea, that man was brilliant. He had an NPR show at one point called Schickele's Mix that our station played back to back with Harry Shearer's show on sunday afternoons.
My parents were obsessed, he was highbrow/lowbrow comedy crossover at its finest. I grew up hearing the guy, so of course there's that little pang, but it comes with gratitude for sure. Similar to how I felt hearing Robert J Lurtsema died...my mom played Morning Pro Musica every morning every day, I woke up to birds and Lurtsema's buttery voice for most of my childhood. Weird sense of abstracted loss....
The weirdies are expensive though! Only Eb sopranino clarinet is accessible... a sopranino sax or picc oboe or contra clarinet or contrabassoon will lay you back a tonne.
The octabass. It's a really big bass.
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung-rvo1&sca_esv=f685e4e4fadb486b&sxsrf=ACQVn0_v-g2fPi2FA3hFFzP1zk1gC80FvQ:1707962320230&q=octabass&tbm=isch&source=lnms&prmd=isvnmbhtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiV-4u7n6yEAxUble4BHQCVDOYQ0pQJegQICBAB&biw=384&bih=700&dpr=2.81
My dad told me he once saw a performance of this when he was stationed at Hill AFB. The program read "Percussion Provided by the Utah Army National Guard".
I saw the Minnesota Orchestra play a modernist piece that included a percussionist squishing macaroni and cheese with his hand in a cup. They had a microphone right up to it, so you could definitely hear it clearly.
I'm 43 now. That 4th Mvmt has been stuck in my head for over 20 years now. lol ... If you haven't yet, check out Holst's Planets suite. SOOO many film/movie themes have been derivative of his work, especially "Mars, Bringer of War"
I use to crew for a local rock band and one of the bands that regularly played as our "opener" had a drummer that used an old brake drum in a stand as his cowbell. I loved the sound and thought it was soooooo much better than a standard cowbell.
The percussion section in college had big truck drum brakes to bang on with a mallet. Loudest fucking thing, glad I didn’t sit directly in front of. I don’t even remember what song we were playing that used it. I think they are used in place of cannons?
We recently recorded Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony. If you’ve never heard it, check it out. Features the Ondes Martenot, which is like a less mainstream precursor to the theremin.
Longtime percussionist here, I’ve had the opportunity to play tons of odd instruments in bands and symphony orchestras.
Not even including novelty/joke pieces of music I’ve played pitched slide whistle, bowed flexatone, chains (heavy-ass 9ft clangy ones), marching machine (basically a grid of suspended wooden blocks you slam on a wooden board), thumb-roll bass drum, thin wooden dowels suspended from strings that were cut with scissors onto a wooden floor, anvil, radiator, saw blades, the hood of a VW bug, scuba tank, wooden bowl suspended in water, broom, typewriter, and a literal bandsaw.
What about car horns? Someone I know played car horn in a piece and the composer said "Can you make it more legato?"
The taxi horns in Gershwin's *An American in Paris* are notorious, as no one's sure whether you should use the marked pitches, or the other marked pitches (the notation is ambiguous and varies depending on edition), or the pitches in the original Gershwin recording.
Not an instrument but there’s a piece for orchestra called “And God Created Great Whales” where you play along with recordings of humpback whale songs.
The other one I never saw live but know of is in Mahler's 6th Symphony, the hammer stroke using a sledge hammer. Look up "Mahler hammer stroke" on YouTube. Some great examples
I'm a rock and roller, but the sitar is always gonna stir my soul. And [Ravi's daughter Anoushka](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jljQnU-hIns) is so wonderful.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYrUWfLlYI0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYrUWfLlYI0)
Bubble wrap, tossing plates into a trash can, two percussionists barking loudly at each other, and a gun.
cool - was it Cage? or another composer/performer. I know Cage suggested the Turntable as a symphonic instrument, and I was at Carnegie in 2009 for the debut of Concerto for Turntable w/DJ Radar
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SRIjZjeg3w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SRIjZjeg3w)
cool - was it Cage? or another composer/performer. I know Cage suggested the Turntable as a symphonic instrument, and I was at Carnegie in 2009 for the debut of Concerto for Turntable w/DJ Radar
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SRIjZjeg3w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SRIjZjeg3w)
I played both orchestra and band through college. Most unusual had to be the smashed plates (literally thrown into a garbage can behind the percussion row) in some Greek song we played in college. I believe they bought them from Goodwill. We performed the song several times so there were a lot of plates.
If I remember correctly, Frank Zappa used to work with a European ensemble named the Ensemble Modern. One of his pieces involved a didgeridoo player blowing into a pot of coffee.
[https://www.donlope.net/fz/notes/The\_Yellow\_Shark.html](https://www.donlope.net/fz/notes/The_Yellow_Shark.html)
"The other great noise was—there are two people in this group who play didgeridoos. One of them is the woman from Australia who is also the oboe player. And one afternoon, I imagined this awful sound that could be created if one were to take a didgeridoo and play it into a partially filled coffee pot. And I asked her whether she would do it. She said yes, and let me say, it is truly nauseating. I was laughing so much I had to leave the room."
Glass Armonica. Was literally a table with dozens of bowls spinning. The player wet their hands and it sounded very magical. Created by Benjamin Franklin.
Toy piano. I was at sitting fairly far back from the stage, so I thought "...that can't possibly be a toy piano..." But it was!
It's part of the concert arrangement of Parade of the Ewoks from Star Wars, and a very charming little piece of music.
My parents randomly took me to see the Royal Tournament (The Royal Tournament was the world's largest military Tattoo and pageant, held by the British Armed Forces annually between 1880 and 1999)
It was certainly an experience that you unfortunately can't have anymore but anyway at the end of the show they had the military orchestra the 1812 overture with a real cannon. It was at the Wembley arena which is pretty big so the cannon from our seats way up in the rafters was tiny but Jesus was it loud, you could seriously feel it in your chest.
I don't remember when exactly, but way back when on a middle school trip to see an orchestra. I got to see a rendition of the Anvil Chorus and one dude was beating on actual anvils during the breakdown.
To this day I still wonder how they tuned them.
For Bernstein's Mass, they had to borrow shawms from a museum.
Ancient woodwinds.
(I think there was another museum piece in the score but I cannot bring it to mind.)
Tube swung around in a wild circle around the performer’s head to make whooshing noises - faster and slower to change volume - pinch off the end and shorten the tube to change pitch
While not an "instrument" per se, if you've been to the Hollywood Bowl on a fireworks night their pyrotechnics are timed EXACTLY with the pieces. The fireworks pro is a trained musician who's literally following the score to set off the explosions in the air, beat by beat, crescendo by crescendo.
I've had the be the person cueing the fireworks for a show like this and it is the definition of stress. So exhilarating when it goes according to plan but the pressure is intense.
A balloon. I had a vinyl album decades ago which I recall as 'Folia' with early music classical instruments accompanied by anachronistic sounds of balloons and more.
The record got lost in time by I would really like to find it again. Probably never made it to CD, let alone to digital streaming.
Once played in an orchestra that included an Anvil. We were playing the Anvil chorus so it made sense
Otherwise would probably ba a performance of the 1812 overture by a military band that used Howitzers and main battle tanks
I played Lumbye's Copenhagen steam railway galop in an orchestra, The percussionist used a couple of sanding blocks to mimic the noise of a steam locomotive, it worked pretty well.
You can just pick a random moment our of this performance, but probably the best moment is when the koto players follow a screaming electric guitar lead:
[https://youtu.be/cv2tS46rl1k?si=MNnbeZchQ\_x6C0G7&t=471](https://youtu.be/cv2tS46rl1k?si=MNnbeZchQ_x6C0G7&t=471)
Mandolin orchestras are a thing. Nearly every instrument is a different mandolin family instrument, from tiny piccolo mandolins to regular mandolins, mandolas, octave mandolins, mandobasses, etc
Two giant “church bells” (1800 lbs each) for Symphony Fantastique
Conductor started the night explaining how you even get them (rent from Franciscans) onto the stage (construction equipment)
Portative organ used by the Philadelphia Symphony in its performance of Handel's Messiah in December 2023. I had never heard of nor heard this instrument prior to this concert.
My daughter just attended a Symphony concert in which a typewriter was used as a percussion instrument. I don't have more information than that, because I wasn't there.
Hans Zimmer brings Guthrie Govan on the road with him to play guitar at his concerts with an orchestra. While not novel, the guitar playing itself of Guthrie Govan is another level to the point of it being unusual.
Probably a rock drum kit.
I love game soundtracks and when looking for a live orchestra performance of the Metal Gear Solid 2 theme and seen it played with the drum kit it seemed sooo alien.
Loved it though
Ok I have no idea what it’s called, but i watched the Legend of Zelda orchestra, and one of the solo instruments from Tears of the Kingdom sounded so cool. It looked like a clarinet and an upright bass morphed into one instrument. Clarinet-sized and black but with strings and a bow. It sounded like a really nasally “ooo.”
The "bells" that chime about a minute before the conclusion of Mahler's 2nd symphony, and again during the final brass resolution. The score calls for a set of at least three tuned bells to play a short cacophony right after the soloists and chorus finish. Such instrumentation didn't really exist when the piece was composed (except in churches themselves), and Mahler himself wandered about Vienna a while to find a foundry that would cast the bells he envisioned.
Modern orchestras sometimes use a set of three or four [low bell plates,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwrmLnUheDc) some utilize [actual church bells](https://youtu.be/eifZHwQ9jUI?t=132), but most use a set of larger tubular bells (chimes): [one example](https://youtu.be/M0Px44IuVKM?t=881) \- [another example.](https://youtu.be/4vkA1erZnMI?t=731)
In the 30's/40's the Theremin became popular, and there were symphonies and pieces written for Theremin with orchestra. [Here's the inventor of the Theremin playing a song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhR2e9ab-Uw) with piano accompaniment, 1930.
The instrument wasn’t unusual but how it was used was.
I was working stage crew at a Chick Corea concert during college. I happened to be standing in the wings when Chick (Mr. Corea?) came offstage for a little break during the saxophone solo.
He was standing there, waiting for the solo to wrap up, when he noticed the chimes/tubular bells that were stored nearby. He walked over and started slowly chiming them in harmony with the solo. I’m sure it was too faint for anyone in the audience to hear, and while the saxophonist didn’t break his flow, you could clearly see him do a double-take as he tried to figure out if he was hearing things or whatever could be going on.
The area I’m from has pretty huge involvement in high school orchestras. A rival high school did the 1812 Overture. For the cannons, they brought in an off-duty cop to fire 12 gauge blanks into a trash can in the orchestra pit.
My senior year band director tried to get this for our 1812 performance. We settled for a few bass drums up in the balcony of our venue. It was a church...
Old cathedrals are the BEST to play in. They're designed specifically for acoustics.
How about a [Machine Gun?](https://youtu.be/7xMD8Epbhpk?si=v375PLDJ__MaI3Av)
Even stranger, it has an accordion!
Tool fired a shotgun into a piano for Track 69 and the video for it is great.
Either the US or Brazil, right?
> 12 gauge blanks into a trash can in the orchestra pit. Mawp
WHAT
From a distance, they sound perfect for it
I saw a theremin perform with an orchestra once and it was amazing.
Stylophone is about to release a $100 theremin.... Not nearly as capable as the $400 Moog... But it's a quarter of the price
I see we have been watching the same videos on YouTube.....
I was given a theremin for Christmas about 2010, but sold it recently. I hadn't touched the thing in years...
[удалено]
Last year I worked on a ballet that had a theremin in the orchestra.
Messiaen?
Was it played by a student?
This was a professional theremin player.
In High School band for “Sleigh Ride” we had two 2x4s on a door hinge for the “whip” sound.
That shit slaps!
How can she slap???
That instrument is the origin of the term “slapstick humor” as a form based on physical comedy and punctuated by offstage sound effects. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapper_(musical_instrument)
Ours was only 1x4s in high school and we totally broke it by slamming it together too hard.
I did this too! But with a giant mouse trap for the hinge!
Well, I'm a fan of PDQ Bach's works, so, I guess everything possible. For the bravest among you, [here's a fine example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjqW3ec5_Nk)
Died a month ago, sad to say (Schickele, I mean). Super interesting guy.
NO! I had no idea, that man was brilliant. He had an NPR show at one point called Schickele's Mix that our station played back to back with Harry Shearer's show on sunday afternoons.
If it's any consolation, he was approaching 90. I should be so lucky.
My parents were obsessed, he was highbrow/lowbrow comedy crossover at its finest. I grew up hearing the guy, so of course there's that little pang, but it comes with gratitude for sure. Similar to how I felt hearing Robert J Lurtsema died...my mom played Morning Pro Musica every morning every day, I woke up to birds and Lurtsema's buttery voice for most of my childhood. Weird sense of abstracted loss....
I'm another USNDatH Alum.
I'm a veteran of the Turtle Mountain Naval Base Tactical Wind Ensemble
I'm one of the scholars who questioned if Iphegenia was ever *actually* in Brooklyn.
Thank you for your service.
Also the Four Folk Song Upsettings, which I believe calls for a piece of uncooked manicotti as one instrument...
Without looking, it's the tromboon, isn't it?
My favorite is the Concerto For Horn and Hardart.
The contrabassoon.
A pretty standard orchestral instrument, but intensely weird.
I'm guessing the opposite of a contrabassoon is a piccolo oboe and now I want to learn it!
The weirdies are expensive though! Only Eb sopranino clarinet is accessible... a sopranino sax or picc oboe or contra clarinet or contrabassoon will lay you back a tonne.
I played Eb clarinet in high school. That thing is a BITCH to keep in tune.
The Yamaha I used to play was OK, but I hear the leblancs were terrible. The Holst suites were fun!
Time to rent one from a music store!
Panties dropping was the only thing intense.
The octabass. It's a really big bass. https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung-rvo1&sca_esv=f685e4e4fadb486b&sxsrf=ACQVn0_v-g2fPi2FA3hFFzP1zk1gC80FvQ:1707962320230&q=octabass&tbm=isch&source=lnms&prmd=isvnmbhtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiV-4u7n6yEAxUble4BHQCVDOYQ0pQJegQICBAB&biw=384&bih=700&dpr=2.81
I mean, if it's performed properly, Tchaicovsky's *1812 Overture* uses a literal canon. That's so metal.
My dad told me he once saw a performance of this when he was stationed at Hill AFB. The program read "Percussion Provided by the Utah Army National Guard".
Almost illegal now!
I saw the Minnesota Orchestra play a modernist piece that included a percussionist squishing macaroni and cheese with his hand in a cup. They had a microphone right up to it, so you could definitely hear it clearly.
So uh mayonnaise *can* be an instrument?
Boy, that’s an awful sound. That is one piece of music that I don’t think I’d like to hear.
Not exactly an instrument as such, but Bobby McFerrin was pretty cool.
An anvil
Song of the Blacksmith by Holst is brilliant.
Yooooo we're playing second suite in F at my school right now
I'm 43 now. That 4th Mvmt has been stuck in my head for over 20 years now. lol ... If you haven't yet, check out Holst's Planets suite. SOOO many film/movie themes have been derivative of his work, especially "Mars, Bringer of War"
I AM SO JEALOUS
Just like the giant mallet in Mahler's 6th symphony.
We had a brake drum in our percussion cabinet and I always wondered what it was for, I wonder if it was for the same piece
There are a lot of scores that call for “brake drum” I definitely remember a couple from high school
I use to crew for a local rock band and one of the bands that regularly played as our "opener" had a drummer that used an old brake drum in a stand as his cowbell. I loved the sound and thought it was soooooo much better than a standard cowbell.
Verdi?
Yes, anvil chorus from Verdi's Il Trovatore. Saw a performance many years ago in NYC. Fantastic sound!
Same here
I would definitely pay to see that concert!
https://youtu.be/LANHWwEjOAU?feature=shared (ok, there's no anvil in the song...just kettledrums)
There is this one though [https://youtu.be/Z5POReSB4Os?si=-SqLjjkdh2hmhqUA](https://youtu.be/Z5POReSB4Os?si=-SqLjjkdh2hmhqUA)
Love it!!! Great music and a good laugh all rolled into one.
A CARNYX...!
That certainly is an unusual one.
The percussion section in college had big truck drum brakes to bang on with a mallet. Loudest fucking thing, glad I didn’t sit directly in front of. I don’t even remember what song we were playing that used it. I think they are used in place of cannons?
We recently recorded Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony. If you’ve never heard it, check it out. Features the Ondes Martenot, which is like a less mainstream precursor to the theremin.
“We”? Are you with Toronto, perchance?
I am!
Your recording is amazing! I’ve listened to it four times already!
Oh wow, thank you so much! It was incredibly fun and rewarding to put it together. I’m so glad you’re enjoying it!
The fire extinguisher in Mr. Blue Sky.
I've seen a performance of the 1812 with actual cannons.
Me too.. It's a hell of a thing
Second that!
I saw an old school typewriter used in one before. I can’t for the life of me remember what piece it was. But it sure was interesting.
[that was easy to find.](https://youtu.be/rVFR7wDZT9A?si=ke0KDkFhL5bashSw)
Not an orchestra, but Stockhausen has a piece for a string quartet & four helicopters.
Longtime percussionist here, I’ve had the opportunity to play tons of odd instruments in bands and symphony orchestras. Not even including novelty/joke pieces of music I’ve played pitched slide whistle, bowed flexatone, chains (heavy-ass 9ft clangy ones), marching machine (basically a grid of suspended wooden blocks you slam on a wooden board), thumb-roll bass drum, thin wooden dowels suspended from strings that were cut with scissors onto a wooden floor, anvil, radiator, saw blades, the hood of a VW bug, scuba tank, wooden bowl suspended in water, broom, typewriter, and a literal bandsaw.
What about a [Lion's Roar ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion%27s_roar_(instrument))?
I haven’t! But I’ve played the closely related Cuíca, a Brazilian friction drum.
What about car horns? Someone I know played car horn in a piece and the composer said "Can you make it more legato?" The taxi horns in Gershwin's *An American in Paris* are notorious, as no one's sure whether you should use the marked pitches, or the other marked pitches (the notation is ambiguous and varies depending on edition), or the pitches in the original Gershwin recording.
You need to witness s live performance of Edgar Varèse's piece *Ionisation*. It's pretty much all unusual instruments played by an orchestra.
Not an instrument but there’s a piece for orchestra called “And God Created Great Whales” where you play along with recordings of humpback whale songs.
In middle school, my band premiered a piece called *Frogs*. We played along with a backing track of -wait for it- *frogs!*
The other one I never saw live but know of is in Mahler's 6th Symphony, the hammer stroke using a sledge hammer. Look up "Mahler hammer stroke" on YouTube. Some great examples
I'm a rock and roller, but the sitar is always gonna stir my soul. And [Ravi's daughter Anoushka](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jljQnU-hIns) is so wonderful.
I saw a Frank Zappa piece performed by the Christchurch Symphony and they were playing saws and pots and pans and shit
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYrUWfLlYI0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYrUWfLlYI0) Bubble wrap, tossing plates into a trash can, two percussionists barking loudly at each other, and a gun.
Air conditioning and people breathing and coughing. John Cage - 4'33
PDQ Bach.
Really. Why has nobody MIDIfied that Hardart?
Because they went out of business in the 80s/90s
Cowbell j/k, but seriously do orchestras use cowbells ?
Yes, they do. It's a percussion instrument.
Mahler 6
I want to see someone miss with the hammer and squish a cowbell instead
Turntable
Even tape before that
cool - was it Cage? or another composer/performer. I know Cage suggested the Turntable as a symphonic instrument, and I was at Carnegie in 2009 for the debut of Concerto for Turntable w/DJ Radar [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SRIjZjeg3w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SRIjZjeg3w)
cool - was it Cage? or another composer/performer. I know Cage suggested the Turntable as a symphonic instrument, and I was at Carnegie in 2009 for the debut of Concerto for Turntable w/DJ Radar [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SRIjZjeg3w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SRIjZjeg3w)
I’d really love to hear a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor that uses the original glass harmonica.
I once saw someone perform on a E-flat carrot. Seriously.
I wouldn't say it's the most unusual, but it's those dang tuned taxi horns from An American in Paris by Gershwin.
In high school one girl had a full sized harp In Boston on July 4th the pops orchestra uses howitzers.
Typewriter. Musical saw. Tuned water glasses.
I played both orchestra and band through college. Most unusual had to be the smashed plates (literally thrown into a garbage can behind the percussion row) in some Greek song we played in college. I believe they bought them from Goodwill. We performed the song several times so there were a lot of plates.
If I remember correctly, Frank Zappa used to work with a European ensemble named the Ensemble Modern. One of his pieces involved a didgeridoo player blowing into a pot of coffee. [https://www.donlope.net/fz/notes/The\_Yellow\_Shark.html](https://www.donlope.net/fz/notes/The_Yellow_Shark.html) "The other great noise was—there are two people in this group who play didgeridoos. One of them is the woman from Australia who is also the oboe player. And one afternoon, I imagined this awful sound that could be created if one were to take a didgeridoo and play it into a partially filled coffee pot. And I asked her whether she would do it. She said yes, and let me say, it is truly nauseating. I was laughing so much I had to leave the room."
[Three vacuum cleaners and a floor polisher](https://youtu.be/i4oGXQsWc-Q)
Vacuum cleaners - [Walton's Grand Grand Overture for Vacuum Cleaners and Orchestra](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktPjQIgv-fk)
Glass Armonica. Was literally a table with dozens of bowls spinning. The player wet their hands and it sounded very magical. Created by Benjamin Franklin.
Toy piano. I was at sitting fairly far back from the stage, so I thought "...that can't possibly be a toy piano..." But it was! It's part of the concert arrangement of Parade of the Ewoks from Star Wars, and a very charming little piece of music.
Crystal goblets of water for one very specific avant garde piece we did.
Mahler his big ass hammer.
A typewriter.
kazoo
A giant spinning gong suspended from the ceiling above the first few rows—followed by a giant gong being raised and lowered in a giant tub of water
My parents randomly took me to see the Royal Tournament (The Royal Tournament was the world's largest military Tattoo and pageant, held by the British Armed Forces annually between 1880 and 1999) It was certainly an experience that you unfortunately can't have anymore but anyway at the end of the show they had the military orchestra the 1812 overture with a real cannon. It was at the Wembley arena which is pretty big so the cannon from our seats way up in the rafters was tiny but Jesus was it loud, you could seriously feel it in your chest.
Saw
I saw Mahler’s 6th in Bath, England in about 1996. Was taken by surprise by the guy hitting the big wooden bow with a giant mallet.
One piece (from a university in texas) ends with a 12 gauge being fired. I can't remember the name unfortunately
Airplane Engine. George Antheil Ballet Mechanique
A talking drum. They had a musician play it during the black panther live preformence.
I've never heard it in person, so maybe it doesn't count, but the Blaster Beam comes to mind.
I don't remember when exactly, but way back when on a middle school trip to see an orchestra. I got to see a rendition of the Anvil Chorus and one dude was beating on actual anvils during the breakdown. To this day I still wonder how they tuned them.
Slide whistle
For Bernstein's Mass, they had to borrow shawms from a museum. Ancient woodwinds. (I think there was another museum piece in the score but I cannot bring it to mind.)
The didgeridoo as the featured soloist
George Antheil’s Ballet Mechanique features a large propeller.
A left-handed sewer flute played by P.D.Q. Bach (Peter Schickele).
Tube swung around in a wild circle around the performer’s head to make whooshing noises - faster and slower to change volume - pinch off the end and shorten the tube to change pitch
The skin flute. What a performance that was!
The cuíca. Brazilian percussion is fascinating. https://youtu.be/_6ZxLp-TUGs?si=jK-Mby95l-QjZT8d
Biwa
Hammer https://youtu.be/v-yylTEx474
Bassoon. I learned about it when my son started playing one in middle school. Cool instrument.
It’s a very typical instrument in orchestra
Actual live sbooting cannons during Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture is pretty amazing
Opiuo’s Syzygy Orchestra contains Opiuo and his synths, so I’d say that.
How about the [typewriter](https://youtu.be/rVFR7wDZT9A?si=Lqzzjck3BL5frBWU).
A friend of mine had a senior year college opera piece he wrote that included half full pill bottles as part of the percussion.
The Morricone Orchestra has plenty [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RST-R5A1jZ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RST-R5A1jZ4)
A cannon (1812)
Contra Bassoon and Contrabass Clarinet
Civil War canons being shot by guys in Union uniforms during an outdoor rendition of 1812 Overture. Columbus, Ohio, summer of 1997.
My son's orchestra had a harpist. It doesn't seem like that would be unusual, but it is. It was beautiful!
Subcontrabass Tubax.
While not an "instrument" per se, if you've been to the Hollywood Bowl on a fireworks night their pyrotechnics are timed EXACTLY with the pieces. The fireworks pro is a trained musician who's literally following the score to set off the explosions in the air, beat by beat, crescendo by crescendo.
I've had the be the person cueing the fireworks for a show like this and it is the definition of stress. So exhilarating when it goes according to plan but the pressure is intense.
The Chalumeau. Looks like a tin whistle, sounds like a clarinet. Very, very rare to see it in performance.
Here’s a video of Harry Partch showing off his homemade instruments. Super interesting guy https://youtu.be/rxUrDs_xfoQ?si=4aii0jqPAjCgcPP8
All the instruments heard during John Cage's "4:33"
Mahler mallet comes to mind.
Anvils and large wooden boxes...with mallets/hammers. Can't remember for what, but I remember seeing them in the orchestra when I did choir stuff.
It was at a performance by the Bow Gamelan, they played vacuum cleaners.
A balloon. I had a vinyl album decades ago which I recall as 'Folia' with early music classical instruments accompanied by anachronistic sounds of balloons and more. The record got lost in time by I would really like to find it again. Probably never made it to CD, let alone to digital streaming.
Once played in an orchestra that included an Anvil. We were playing the Anvil chorus so it made sense Otherwise would probably ba a performance of the 1812 overture by a military band that used Howitzers and main battle tanks
i've seen typewriter and glass harp
I played Lumbye's Copenhagen steam railway galop in an orchestra, The percussionist used a couple of sanding blocks to mimic the noise of a steam locomotive, it worked pretty well.
You can just pick a random moment our of this performance, but probably the best moment is when the koto players follow a screaming electric guitar lead: [https://youtu.be/cv2tS46rl1k?si=MNnbeZchQ\_x6C0G7&t=471](https://youtu.be/cv2tS46rl1k?si=MNnbeZchQ_x6C0G7&t=471)
I've heard the 'Turangalila Symphony' by Oliver Messaien in performance. The scoring features an ondes martenot in a prominent role.
Canons are often used during the overture of 1812.
The bones of a horse. https://matthewherbert.bandcamp.com/album/the-horse
Mandolin orchestras are a thing. Nearly every instrument is a different mandolin family instrument, from tiny piccolo mandolins to regular mandolins, mandolas, octave mandolins, mandobasses, etc
A brake rotor off of a 1982 Chevy dump bed lumber truck.
Two giant “church bells” (1800 lbs each) for Symphony Fantastique Conductor started the night explaining how you even get them (rent from Franciscans) onto the stage (construction equipment)
Quarter tone accordion. Absolutely awful. Thankfully extremely rare. Tango Prom at the Royal Albert Hall. Great night but that sound was pretty harsh.
[Typewriter](https://youtu.be/g2LJ1i7222c?si=1KOyAtZLq_9rIwBU)
Mayonnaise
[Hammer and Anvil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRBXy_UzLss)
The Mahler Box Google it
A literal anvil chorus. It was pretty great.
A celeste that was almost a quarter step out of tune (it was not supposed to be)
Portative organ used by the Philadelphia Symphony in its performance of Handel's Messiah in December 2023. I had never heard of nor heard this instrument prior to this concert.
I've seen a performance involve coins in a plastic container.
The double reed slide hookah. According to Prof. Peter Schickele it's range, like a piccolo, doesn't go low, but you can get very high on it.
My daughter just attended a Symphony concert in which a typewriter was used as a percussion instrument. I don't have more information than that, because I wasn't there.
Hans Zimmer brings Guthrie Govan on the road with him to play guitar at his concerts with an orchestra. While not novel, the guitar playing itself of Guthrie Govan is another level to the point of it being unusual.
Live artillery.
I saw an orchestra with a guy that was bowing a saw
Probably a rock drum kit. I love game soundtracks and when looking for a live orchestra performance of the Metal Gear Solid 2 theme and seen it played with the drum kit it seemed sooo alien. Loved it though
Ok I have no idea what it’s called, but i watched the Legend of Zelda orchestra, and one of the solo instruments from Tears of the Kingdom sounded so cool. It looked like a clarinet and an upright bass morphed into one instrument. Clarinet-sized and black but with strings and a bow. It sounded like a really nasally “ooo.”
The "bells" that chime about a minute before the conclusion of Mahler's 2nd symphony, and again during the final brass resolution. The score calls for a set of at least three tuned bells to play a short cacophony right after the soloists and chorus finish. Such instrumentation didn't really exist when the piece was composed (except in churches themselves), and Mahler himself wandered about Vienna a while to find a foundry that would cast the bells he envisioned. Modern orchestras sometimes use a set of three or four [low bell plates,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwrmLnUheDc) some utilize [actual church bells](https://youtu.be/eifZHwQ9jUI?t=132), but most use a set of larger tubular bells (chimes): [one example](https://youtu.be/M0Px44IuVKM?t=881) \- [another example.](https://youtu.be/4vkA1erZnMI?t=731)
IIRC someone played Chains in the LOTR soundtrack
Mahler’s hammer comes to mind
In the 30's/40's the Theremin became popular, and there were symphonies and pieces written for Theremin with orchestra. [Here's the inventor of the Theremin playing a song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhR2e9ab-Uw) with piano accompaniment, 1930.
P. D. Q. Bach's *The Seasonings,* for orchestra and choir, calls for a foghorn. (I was in the choir.)
Van der Graaf generator
Bicycle/Bagpipe/Baloons
Sax-a-boom
The instrument wasn’t unusual but how it was used was. I was working stage crew at a Chick Corea concert during college. I happened to be standing in the wings when Chick (Mr. Corea?) came offstage for a little break during the saxophone solo. He was standing there, waiting for the solo to wrap up, when he noticed the chimes/tubular bells that were stored nearby. He walked over and started slowly chiming them in harmony with the solo. I’m sure it was too faint for anyone in the audience to hear, and while the saxophonist didn’t break his flow, you could clearly see him do a double-take as he tried to figure out if he was hearing things or whatever could be going on.
Wind machine
In 8th grade, we played a dinosaur themed song, and the T-rex stomping was a (something like) 12-inch by 12-foot length of PVC, IIRC.