Instruments that are Overlooked and/or have Bad Reputation

So... anyone know of any instruments with bad reps or that are overlooked?

While not maligned so much as unfairly obscure, the heckelphone, sarrusophone, contrabassoon, serpent, rackett and ophicleide are all really interesting instruments that aren't used enough, either because they have either fallen out of fashion or become rare with time.

For more well-known instruments that tend to get ignored, the trombone and the oboe deserve more love.

edited 11th Jul '12 9:58:06 AM by JHM

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Ah, the serpent and the ophicleide. I especially love the serpent's ingenious design, as well as the ophicleide's sound (I remember it from an organ which had an insanely powerful stop called the Grand Ophicleide, which ran on 100" of wind pressure).

The oboe does deserve more love... oboes are notoriously tricky to play right, and they are the de facto standard of tuning in orchestras. However there is one other instrument so maligned, so detested, (which by the way nearly died out) that I dare not mention its name for fear of people looking at me funny, as I happen to play such instrument.

Well the classic bad rap instruments are the banjo and the accordion, both of which can rock in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing.

True that, Cthulboohoo... I love the banjo and the accordion actually. Banjos need not be associated with backwater/hillbilly country, and accordions do not deserve their stigmatizing reputation. I always associated the accordion with romance in Paris and Italy actually.

But then, nothing outdoes the most maligned instrument of all, with such a bad rap that some claim it was created by the devil himself.

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The recorder.

edited 11th Jul '12 10:52:22 AM by ArgentumUranium

Bagpipes.

Also, there are dozens of varieties of saxophone, but only 3-4 ever get played or seen.

"She was the kind of dame they write similes about." —Pterodactyl Jones

Bass sax, baby, bass sax.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Already been beaten to the ones I was thinking of (accordion, banjo, bagpipes, oboe). The oboe is probably my favorite wind instrument ever and I think its reputation as sounding "comedic" is wholly undeserved. It sounds like sadness under a veneer of happiness (in a good way).

Somehow you know that the time is right.

This, so much. There is a smooth yet detailed feel to the timbre of the oboe, a texture that I find incredibly alluring. The bassoon is similarly subtly sophisticated, but it has a better standing in the popular consciousness than the oboe (and its relatives, the cor anglais and the heckelphone) for reasons that I do not fully understand.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned the horrible stigma associated with the recorder... usually whenever the name is mentioned, bad memories come flooding back.

HOT. CROSS. BUNS. HOT. CROSS. BUNS. No wonder some claim it to have been created by the devil....

An instrument I legitimately hate: The saw. God, that sound...

Violas. I can sort of play it (I can't read alto clef though), but like nobody knows what it is outside of orchestra people. Also, I can kind of see why the recorder has a rep. I know very few people who played it willingly.

edited 12th Jul '12 10:41:47 AM by wuggles

Perhaps the rarest instrument in the world is the so-called flauti d'echo, or echo flute. It is essentially a pair of alto recorders joined together so that both are played by the same person. Only one piece of music has ever called for the use of echo flutes: Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major calls for two flauti d'echo. It is so rare that only THREE examples survive today.

Keyboards in metal tend to have a bad reputation for being "fruity" or "cheesy" mostly due to overpowering the guitars in certain symphonic/power/black metal bands as well as due to not being as traditional metal instrument.

edited 12th Jul '12 9:10:37 PM by StillbirthMachine

Only Death Is Real

I take it you’re not referring to a double recorder.

Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883!

Bodhran. A very flexible drum in the hands of one who can play it

Also, bass. As in, an upright bass. They sound amazing, but I haven't heard one in forever.

Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-

The only bands I can name that regularly use stand-up bass in a "modern rock" context (as opposed to, say, rockabilly) would be The Living End and Wicked Whiskey.

edited 13th Jul '12 12:51:57 AM by MikeK

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

x3 The echo flute looks different: the two recorders aren't fused together, but instead are connected at head AND foot◊. Yes, the head connection is a hinge. Odd-looking device, huh? And scratch my previous post, only TWO echo flutes exist today, both held in Leipzig, Germany.

edited 13th Jul '12 1:25:03 AM by ArgentumUranium

Contrabass sax, my man.

"She was the kind of dame they write similes about." —Pterodactyl Jones

I've seen those before. They really are extraordinary.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

On the other end of the spectrum: Sopranino sax!

And how about a sopranino and bass sax together?

Or the exquisitely rare Conn™ C Melody Sax, tuned to C instead of B-flat or E-flat like most saxes. Little used because, apart from its rarity, it seems to have intonation problems (which you can kind of hear in this video).

edited 13th Jul '12 12:26:42 PM by Bananaquit

Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883!

that looks heavy

You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!

Not that obscure I guess, but I doubt that many people can tell you what the difference is between a clavichord and a harpsichord.

edited 13th Jul '12 1:37:57 PM by Yachar

'It's gonna rain!'

My wife actually has a vintage C Melody sax, inherited from her great-uncle. We keep meaning to restore and display it one day. Don't believe it's a Conn, though.

edited 13th Jul '12 5:45:00 PM by Jhimmibhob

"She was the kind of dame they write similes about." —Pterodactyl Jones

Alarmingly, these guys actually make the recorder sound good:

Granted though, it's a recorder quartet, featuring some of the lesser-known members of the recorder family (and if you look carefully in the background, you can see some large relatives on the floor).