Simply put, a character has an instrument in place of their voice. When they speak, you hear the twang of a guitar, or the wah-wah of a trumpet, or even perhaps the simplistic bleep of a synth. Oftentimes the other characters can understand them just fine, leaving only the audience in the dark about what they said.
This may be done for a variety of reasons, ranging from making characters seem unintelligible and ethereal to not having a proper voice actor for the character. If it's justified, it's usually because the character is robotic and the instrument is a synth of some sort.
If the character is speaking in instrument sounds because an actual instrument got crammed down their throat, that's the subtrope iSophagus.
Warning: May cause Vocal Dissonance when instruments are assigned carelessly.
Sister trope to Voice Grunting and Speaking Simlish. Not to be confused with Everything Is an Instrument.
Examples:
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Films - Live-Action
- R2-D2 from Star Wars communicates exclusively in randomly arranged compositions of synthetic whistles and blips, which are subsequently translated by his companion C-3PO.
Music
- In Peter and the Wolf, each character is represented by a different set of instruments (a string quartet for Peter, a bassoon for his grandfather, a flute for the bird, an oboe for the duck, a clarinet for the cat, winds, bass drums, and timpani for the hunters, and a French horn for the wolf), which provides aural cues for not only their presence and actions but also their dialogue, which the narrator translates.
- Jim's Big Ego: In "Stress", the protagonist exchanges pleasantries with someone whose voice is depicted only with trumpet sounds.
- In David Lee Roth's song "Yankee Rose
" from 1986, guitarist Steve Vai uses the whammy bar and a wah-wah pedal to simulate a conversation with Roth at the beginning of the song.
Guitar: David?Roth: What?Guitar: Where are you going?Roth: Well, let me roll up on to the sidewalk and take a look, yes.Roth: Whoa!Guitar: Whoa!Roth: She's beautiful!Guitar: (wolf whistle)Roth: I'm talking about a Yankee Rose!Guitar and Roth: (laughter)
Mythology
- The manticore of Greek Classical Mythology is said to have the voice of a trumpet.
Theatre
- Albert Herring begins with Florence's dusting and tidying work being twice interrupted by Lady Billows calling her from upstairs. While Florence goes upstairs to listen to her mistress's instructions, an instrument plays an ornamental solo (a flute the first time, a violin the second), whose last few notes are echoed by Lady Billows' voice as Florence comes back.
- Hornsmoke: A Horse Opera by Peter Schickele is a Western where the musicians play all the characters. There are a few recitative-like passages that suggest dialogue, and the score specifies actual words (e.g. "Can I marry him?") that are not supposed to be spoken, just used as indications for acting and musical performance.
- In The King and I, musical instruments are used to represent the sounds of the Siamese language. The actual instruments heard depend on what the subject is as well as who the speaker is.
- In A Little Night Music, during Fredrik's song "Now", his Brainless Beauty wife Anne is babbling in the background (about what earrings to wear to the party they're going to, the neighbors, the servants) in between his melodic lines. He isn't paying attention to any of it. Anne begins the song speaking, but after the first verse, when Fredrik is paying even less attention, her voice is replaced by an oboe, which the actress playing Anne lipsyncs to, as though she's still chattering on. (This is averted on the original cast recording, where Anne just goes on chattering.)
Video Games
- Friday Night Funkin' Game Mods:
- VS Whitty was the first popular Friday Night Funkin' mod to use this trope, with Whitmore's electric guitar voice. Many others would soon follow this formula.
- literally every fnf mod ever: Zig-zagged by Little Man, who frequently switches between a theremin voice and several other vocal sets, including (but certainly not limited to) the voice of Tankman from Tank Men, the "Vine boom" sound effect, and clips of CalebCity videos.
- Vs Sonic.exe: Majin Sonic and R3DGLOVE both use default Sega Genesis instrument presets. Interestingly, Majin lost this trait in the “Encore” remix of his song.
- In Don't Starve, every character is voiced by a musical instrument. For example, Willow is voiced by a flute, Wolfgang is voiced by a tuba, and WX-78 sounds like a synthesizer.
- Oxygen Not Included: All of the Replicants are voiced by a theremin.
- The Travelers in Journey communicate via one-note shouts, which are basically short notes played on various string instruments that are always in tune with the ambient music.
Web Video
- Played straight and inverted in "If instruments were voices and voices were instruments" by CalebCity.
Guitar: Now-now-now-now-now, now-now-now-now-now, YES!Bespectacled Caleb: [guitar sounds]
- Two More Eggs: In the sub-series Trauncles, all the on-screen cast speak with synth-tuba sounds. The Interactive Narrator is the only one who speaks intelligible English, and he often indirectly translates everyone else's lines for the audience.
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball: Gumball’s classmate Juke has a boom box for a head and communicates entirely in beatboxing noises. “The Boombox” reveals that this is because there’s a switch on his back that allows him to speak normally, but it’s stuck in the beatboxing position and he can’t reach it himself, but since nobody can understand him, he can’t get anyone to flip it.
- The Looney Tunes short "For Scent-imental Reasons" has a scene where Pepe Le Pew tries to speak to his love from behind a sheet of glass, and his dialogue is represented by a violin.
- In the Peanuts TV specials, the voices of all adults are heard (at least, by the viewers) as the sound of muted trumpets.
- Ruby Gloom: Doom Kitty only "speaks" in violin chords.
- In the Silly Symphonies short "Music Land", the characters are anthropomorphic instruments (such as cellos and saxophones) who speak this way.
