Instruments that are Overlooked and/or have Bad Reputation

I'm a bit surprised no one's brought up cowbell yet. It might not be an instrument you can do much with or one that takes lots of talent to play, but I love its sound. I've loved a number of songs that use it, such as The Speed of Light by Iron Maiden, Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N' Roses, and of course, "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult.

Can't go wrong with the cowbell.

Also, why do people hate the banjo?

Extended range guitars/bass guitars in general seem to be pretty hated.

It’s actually a Synthaxe™, a specially-modified guitar synthesizer designed to overcome problems of previous guitar synthesizers (mainly latency issues). Futureman just modified it to use it for drum sounds, which is extremely creative if you ask me. I love it when people use something for its non-intended purpose like that!

The Synthaxe! I didn't know that was still around. Like many other folks, I only know of it because Allan Holdsworth kept trying to make it a thing c. 1986. (Spoiler: he did not succeed.)

Because I have a contrarian streak, I am going to start with percussion, and not even rare percussion.

Cymbals that are not crash cymbals do not see a lot of use in rock or pop music. Sure, the ride cymbal is a favourite in jazz for that dark, resonant sound, and some genres of metal make rather brash use of the crash-ride, but these are fairly narrow uses; and then you have splashes and china crashes and other strange, "novelty" cymbals which are treated like one-trick ponies in oversized, underused prog kits—otherwise known as "oh wow look at me compensating" kits—but basically ignored otherwise. More interesting still are those intrepid drummers who substitute the usual crash-like cymbals in the hi-hat with more exotic slabs of metal, such as Deerhoof's Greg Saunier.

Runners-up include the floor tom and the piccolo snare.

In the melodic/harmonic instrument department, there are so many great instruments that could see wider use in more different contexts than they normally appear. Among others: Xylophones at large; the bass banjo; the oboe family, particularly the cor anglais and haeckelphone; the melodica; the jaw harp; the viol family, in all registers; and the ondes martinot.

Jumping in here, I'd say Theremins.

Hard to learn and after learning, hard to use *well*; I can think of maybe a few recent-ish songs that make use of them.

I'd expand that to include non-drumming percussionists in general. They seldom fail to make the music more interesting, regardless of genre, but tend to get treated as the dictionary definition of "inessential."

This seems counterintuitive, but maybe it's because there's such a wide range of things that percussionists can do, once you rule out the drum kit. They inherently lack a firm role in a band, precisely because they qualify for so many. Intra-band dynamics and public tastes can be unkind to Sixth Rangers and Red Mages.

edited 11th Dec '15 9:29:07 AM by Jhimmibhob

In Western pop and rock, certainly.

But a lot of popular Latin American genres have plenty of love for the dozen or so percussionists in the band. Ditto (I think) for the African genres that influenced those.

Yup. A non-drumming percussionist has a lot more respect (and even work to do) in places like, for example, Brazil, due to its massive range of genres where various percussion instruments play an important role. Here's one of the best and more famous examples (including in the West).

edited 11th Dec '15 3:34:41 PM by Quag15

A 24-string bass!

What can you do with it? …What can't you do?

The zanzithophone, obviously. (yes the term was created to describe the instrument used on that album)

I don't think that people necessarily hate seven-strings at this point, but eight-strings still definitely have the stigma of being for deathcore kids who want to play siqq chugs and djent kids who want to play stolen Fredrik Thordendal/Tosin Abasi riffs and annoyingly over-processed treacly atmospheric noodling. There are plenty of great eight-string users as well (Morean, Danny Tunker, the dudes from Katalepsy, the dudes from Black Crown Initiate, Joel Guernsey, etc.), but yeah, there are definitely still lots of bad players out there who adhere to the stereotypes.

It's kind of funny how most of the people who gravitate towards an instrument with such a huge range would be so utterly uncreative in their intentions for it.

Ladies and gentlemen, enter the pedal steel guitar… Love the sound of it. <3

Apart from many country records, the best use of a pedal steel guitar was probably in The KLF's Chill Out album.

edited 17th Apr '17 8:52:27 AM by Quag15

The pedal steel is a nice instrument that I wish more non-Country musicians would use.

I like Mazzy Star's and Thayer Sarrano's use of it in a Dream Pop context.

What about Swans?

Kristof Hahn, guys.

I thought Jaga Jazzist used a pedal steel as well (in a post-rock / jazz / electronic fusion context) but watching some videos of live performances showed it was really just slide guitar that sounded like pedal steel.

Not exactly the same, but TJ Childers from Inter Arma plays a lap steel on numerous tracks in the studio.

Robert Randolph and the Family Band. I heard them play on Sawyer Brown's "Mission Temple Fireworks Stand" and was stunned that that was a freaking pedal steel. It sounded just like an electric guitar.

^Yes, the whole Sacred Steel genre. Gospel/soul with pedal steel as the main instrument instead of organ or guitar. That's good stuff.

Tape loops! I love em. They can sound so cool when used in the right ways.

Or it could sound like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aBSxjeBaCQ

Heh

Copyright block…

Oh.

https://vimeo.com/13361163

heres a better link