Awesome Musical Instruments

Composer and artist Sky Macklay shows off her Harmonitree, a wonderfully inventive musical instrument that plays harmonicas. It uses a tree-shaped inflatable airbag to push air through its harmonicas and can be left to make music on its own, but it is best when given a big hug for interactive sounds. She’s also built one that triggers with motion sensors.

There’s nothing inherently dangerous about playing a tuba. Sure, you might run out of breath, but that’s about it. YouTuber and maker MasterMilo has created the most dangerous brass instrument we’ve ever seen. His flamethrower tuba is powered by a chainsaw engine and spews a stream of flaming propane out of its bell.

This unique musical instrument combines a synthesizer, a looper, and a MIDI controller. It has 12 capacitive sensing pads, a bridge for strumming and tapping notes, as well as an accelerometer and gyroscope for gesture-based input. It has drum, bass, chord, and lead modes, and a built-in speaker and 3.5mm audio jack lets you play without external equipment.

Musician Nicolas Bras is known for inventing some truly unique musical instruments from off-the-shelf parts. In this video, he shows us how to build a simple string instrument from metal cans, wood, an electric guitar string, and a little water. You can grab blueprints to make your own aquatic harp on Patreon or download digital sound samples from Soundpaint.

Electronic instrument maker Elias Jarzombek created this unique synthesizer that looks like an abacus. The otherworldly sounds it makes are controlled by sliding and spinning its triangular “beads” on metal bars, along with turning its side dials. Read more about the Abacusynth on Elias’ website.

Burls Art creates guitars from unusual materials. This time, he made an lap steel guitar from aluminum $1 coins that were once good for a discount at RadioShack. He started by making a sand mold, melted the coins to cast its body, then anodized it in red. We were hoping he would have embedded some unmelted coins though.

With so many nooks and crannies and moving parts, pianos require regular cleaning and maintenance. Josiah Jackson, aka The Piano Doctor volunteered his services to clean a vintage piano with decades of dust and grime. After finishing the laborious task of removing dirt from under its wires, he gave it a full tune-up.

Steelpan drums are made from the bottom of an oil drum. Filmmaker Chas Sheppard met artist Jimi Phillip to see how they’re made. He starts by pounding a concave shape, then sketches each pan and hammers them before heating, tempering, and tuning by ear. This BTS footage from Sounds Like Steel stands on its own.

Player pianos have been around since the 1890s. Modern models use electronics and servos, but vintage ones use a pedal-powered pneumatic system that forces air through holes in the music roll, actuating pushrods that move its hammers. Chris Plaola shows off an example of this Victorian-era engineering genius.

Inspired by that commercial where the guy plays drums on his Pringles cans, Eric and Tony G from EMCproductions made their own set of drums out of potato crisp (and Gatorade) cans. They replaced the plastic lids with balloons as drum heads and used their metal bottoms as “cymbals.”

As we’ve seen before, inventor Nicolas Bras loves to make unique musical instruments. His latest instrument is one of the sillier ones we’ve seen. He created an improvised bagpipe by attaching his PVC pipe clarinets and a kid-sized duck pool float. It doesn’t sound much like the traditional Scottish instrument, nor does it quack like a duck.

This short video from Instrument Maniac is less about music and more about the size of his instrument collection. In the next two minutes, you’ll hear how the same 7-note sequence sounds on more than 90 different musical instruments, from harp to flute to flugelhorn to cowbell. Which instruments do you play?

For the 2022 Great Guitar Build Off, artist Uri Tuchman set out to create a unique musical instrument that looks like the iconic Les Paul electric guitar, but it’s emerging from a solid rectangle of wood. In keeping with the motif, he made custom square brass knobs for the dials. We love the engraved details on the pick guard too.

A harpsichord requires a similar skill set to a piano, but it does need some additional knowledge to become an expert player. Vinhetiero has been playing the baroque keyboard for a long time, and he shows us the progression one might experience from the day they play their first note until they master the instrument.

Here’s a silly video that reminds us of the simpler days of the internet. A couple of University of Wisconsin sousaphone players realized their brass instruments make a sound that’s a whole lot like the lightsabers from Star Wars, so they staged a duel. We loved the guy who chimed in with, “why are you filming vertically?”

What do Kenny G and bagpipes have in common? Well if you watch this video by science and nature vlogger Charlie Engleman, you’ll find out. Along the way, you’ll also learn how to make your own bagpipes from a latex glove, two straws, and some appropriately Scotch tape.

Known for its graphical and sound abilities, the Commodore 64 personal computer was home to some of the best games of the 8-bit era. Engineer Linus Åkesson took advantage of its audio capabilities to build this unique accordion which consists of two C64 computers connected by bellows made out of floppy disks and tape.

There’s a good reason that guitars are only playable from one side. But that didn’t stop musician Rob Scallon from giving this unusual double-sided guitar a try. This strange string instrument is configured as a regular guitar on one side and a bass guitar on the other. It’s super tricky to play both sides at the same time.

The Flairdrum is an unusual percussive instrument that uses PET water bottles filled with varying amounts of compressed air. The air pressure changes the surface tension of each bottle, resulting in different notes when struck. Daniel Bornmann performed this ear-soothing rendition of his track Am Anfang ist Klang.

Builder Tim Sway dusted off an old drum kit he found in the trash and gave it a whole new life. What makes these drums really special is that he crafted their bodies by recycling hollow core closet doors. He then reused the old hardware and added new Remo drumheads. Tim has previously made guitars from a similar material.

We’ve seen a lot of cool custom guitar builds over the years, but we’re particularly enchanted by this one. Woodworker Ray Whitby created this beautiful and unique electric guitar from layers of wood and epoxy resin, cut into chevron shapes, assembled and shaped into the guitar’s face, and backlit with LED lighting.

The sound of popping bubble wrap might be music to your ears, but Simone Giertz and her friends came up with a way to turn those pops into actual music. The machine she built uses a spinning drum and rubber feet to squish the bubbles and harnesses the air they release to play a pan flute. Zamfir, eat your heart out!

A typical electric guitar body measures just under 2″ thick. Burls Art wanted to build the thinnest guitar he could out of wood. He used black limba wood for the body, which he cut and planed down to about half the regular thickness. He had to use special low-profile pickups due to the height limitations.