The five musical instruments that just plain suck the most
by James Roy []
Published on 11/5/07 in Music
Number 5: THE RECORDER. Let's start at the very beginning – it's a very good place to start. The only reason Maria didn't hand out recorders to the von Trapp kids is because they were at war, and all the recorder ration stamps had been given to poor children, to punish them. But it's a shame, really, because the recorder is where we begin with do re mi, etc.I remember learning to play the recorder in Second Grade. Every member of Mr Carlton's class was given a wooden recorder (these days they're plastic, but this was back in the seventies, before cutting down ebony forests was wrong). Then Mr Carlton taught us how to play songs. Sorry, how to "play" songs. Sorry, how to "play" "songs". Kum ba ya was the first, I think. Then Go tell Aunt Rhody, whoever the fuck she was. What were we meant to be telling her, anyway? "Aunt Rhody, your eardrums are bleeding."
Oh man, it was tragic. We played in an assembly one time. Parents were in tears at the end of it. I thought my mother was crying 'cos she was proud. No. She was in pain. And I can't blame her. It truly was breathtakingly awful.
Personally, I blame the law of averages. Playing a recorder well requires a couple of things. First of all, a parallel universe where recorders sound good. But second of all, they also require confident fingering, like a good Catholic schoolgirl. Yeah, that's right - if you get your fingering just a little bit off, your recorder kind of squeals. More than normal. Unlike a good Catholic schoo... never mind. Moving on...
So, imagine thirty kids, thirty recorders, one song. I know, it hurts, but do it, for me. Anyway. At any given moment, at least five of those kids will have lost their place, so they'll be playing the wrong note anyway, or just tootling along, hoping to work out where they're up to. Another three or four will have dodgy fingering, as discussed above. So their notes will be wrong. Another handful will be confidently playing entirely the wrong notes, completely and utterly oblivious. Which leaves about half the class playing the right thing. On recorders. One of which sounds atrocious. So fifteen of them is at least fifteen times as atrocious. Plus the ones that are wrong. You get the idea.
I once knew a guy who was a recorder virtuoso. He didn't have any friends.
Number 4: THE HARPSICHORD. Seriously. It's like the piano's retarded older brother. And before I get my butt handed back to me in a sling by any precious classical music types out there, get over yourselves. I mean, fuck, man, what the hell? The harpsichord is a seriously suck-hole piece of work. And I'm not talking visuals here, althought I could. I mean, who paints a provincial French scene on the lid of an instrument? Talk about Euro-arrogant! These days we can change the skins of our iPods, our cellphones, even our Smart cars (although technically I wouldn't call that piece of automated Lego a car, per se.) But to paint a mural on the lid? It's like saying, "The things we think are cool, elegant, trendy, very now (i.e. 1688) will always be cool, elegant, trendy." Well you know what, Jean-Pierre? You're wrong. No one dresses like that anymore, no one has furniture like that anymore, and no one paints a picture on their instrument anymore. Sure, Chris Isaak painted his name on his guitar with Tippex, but he's a borderline fucktard anyway, so he doesn't get a vote.And on visual, how about this one: black keys instead of white. Oh yeah, that's so edgy and alternative. I actually suspect that they swapped the keys because they didn't think "regular folk" would be able to tell the difference between a piano and a harpsichord based on sound alone. Oh, please. We might drive Smart cars and pay fifteen clams to change the colour of our phone, but we're not completely fucking stupid.
On the differences between the piano and this piece of shit: the piano can sound mellow, percussive, delicate, thunderous, simple or complex. The harpsichord has one speed at which it works at any level – flat out. It's like a kid jazzed on Ritalin – even when he's moving slow, you can just tell that he's stinging to bust free and start freewheeling. But you also know that when he does, it's going to be all highly-strung and kinda pointless.
How can I put this? The harpsichord has no ... guts. And before I start sounding like I give two shits, I really, really don't. In fact, when I think about it, I suspect a harpsichord would make exceptionally good kindling, despite the lead-based paint on the lid. Yeah, that's what it is – it's kindling. The kindling to the pipe organ's slow-burning log ...
Number 3: did he say PIPE ORGAN? Yes, I did say pipe organ. And yes, I know it's a classic. Like the harpsicord. Big freakin' deal. I say that anything requiring the player to read the music and press the keys a full two seconds before the sound emerges is just plain retarded. Get it?But seriously, what is with that? It takes longer to coax a note out of a pipe organ than it does to get the CNN African correspondent to reply to a studio question from the other side of the freakin' world, and the organ's right there on the wall in front of you.
Plus there's the portability. Sigh. I have a friend who plays the double bass, and he had to replace his car when he bought his bass, just to get it to gigs and back. And in my opinion, replacing your car because of your chosen instrument is getting close to oddball obsessive. Harpists are pushing the friendship as well, especially since most harpists are penniless music-major students who don't own a car and rely entirely on friends, most of whom are penniless journalism-major students whose tools-in-trade are a Spirax notebook and sometimes an iBook, and who own a clapped out Toyota Corolla at best. So the harp goes on the roof, tied down with a spider-web of cheap nylon rope, and a requisite stop every couple of miles to make sure that the harp's still on the fucking roof. You get the idea.
Pianists kind of accept that they can't take their instrument with them, but that acceptance is tempered by the knowledge that there are plenty of pianos around. Mind you, most are in scout halls, and they are all, according to even the most average of pianists, always out of tune. "It's hard to play a fugue on something so out of tune." No, it's hard to play a fugue period, you pretentious fuck.
But pipe organs? If you want to move one of those bastards, you'll need a team of riggers, a couple of semi-trailers, a resident physio to pop those slipped discs back into place, and a couple of old women to urge you to "watch the timberwork." Timberwork be fucked, I say. This is not only the second most irritating instrument going around, but the second-most outmoded going around as well. Or not going around. In this age of modern electronics that can do everything except accurately replicate the sound of a violin or classical guitar, why does anyone even need a pipe organ? You can buy a Casiotone from Sears fo $150, and you can actually move it and turn the volume down. And it sounds just as bad, at literally one thousandth of the cost.
Big organs (settle, children) are useful in one circumstance, and one circumstance alone: Funerals. The organ is a dirgy instrument. It should be used exclusively in dirgy situations. Funerals, and maybe preceding a three hour graduation ceremony, simply to get the audience into the mood. Despite what organists believe, organs are not – and are in fact incapable of sounding – joyous, exhuberant, celebrational. They just aren't. Sorry – we know you mean well, but they just plain aren't.
That's right. If you want some quiet background music while you ponder on grandma's amazing life now ended, get someone on the Conn. Outside that, get a string quartet. Or a harpist – they can always use the work.
Number 2: the bagpipes. You might be surprised to find this one at Number 2, since you probably already had the pipes firmed in as the grand-daddy of irritating instruments. And while I think your opinion is wrong, I will defend to the death your right to have it.What I won't defend to the death, however, is your right to play the bagpipes. I will, in fact, go as close to turning completely fucking homicidal if you should fire up a set of these bad boys anywhere near me. Especially as a joke. While I'm sleeping. You know who you are.
But seriously, pipes are mutha-fucking loud. They have to be. They had to be heard over the sound of rutting stags in the Scottish highlands, which is admirable, since stags make a noise like a dozen rutting bagpipes. Hence the volume of the pipes. Confusing? It helps to be Scottish, I guess.
What blows my tiny freaking mind is the pride the Scots have for this bizarre collection of tartan and recycled chair legs. Especially when they're being played by guys in skirts, and hats the size of a newborn grizzly. You can be walking along a city street, minding your own business, and you suddenly hear a set of pipes whining into life nearby. Watch the reaction of those around you. It's similar to the look penny-farthing riders must get. Sort of "What the fuck is that?" followed by "Aw, wow! Hey kids! It's been so long since I've seen one of those!" followed by "That is very odd, really, when you think about it" followed ultimately by "Come on kids, keep walking." Because it's natural to protect our kids. Totally.
The one thing worse than a set of bagpipes? I have four words for you: "massed pipes and drums." The sound of twenty or thirty pipers squeezing the living shit out of their wheezy tartan lungfish is ... well, I dunno what it's like. There is no sound like it. None. Except maybe twenty or thirty rutting stags.
By the way, to all – or should I say both – you fans of the uilleann pipes and the musette de cour, you needn't be so goddamn smug, either. I'm only picking on the Scottish pipes because they're an obvious target, like those letter-jocks in high school. You Irish and French pipers are the nerds of the pipe world, and just because you're quieter and less abrasive doesn't mean we don't hate you. You're just not worth the effort.
And finally, we come to the ultimately annoying so-called "instrument":
1. The hurdy gurdy. A French medieval instrument of torture, the hurdy gurdy (or wheel fiddle) is the bastard child of a sitar and a hand-cranked Singer sewing machine. It takes the most annoying elements of a number of other slightly less annoying instruments and combines them into a cacophonous melange of ear-splitting noise which far exceeds the sum of its hideous parts. It features a drone, like the bagpipes, which the "player" operates thanks to a hand-crank in the ass-end of the thing. Only in this case the drone is a string, sometimes several, and as such adds a certain strident quality to the "music" coming from the stumpy little hobbit-organ, as a I prefer to call it.Apparently the hurdy gurdy used to be pretty popular in medieval French and Hungarian monasteries. I suspect that we've just stumbled upon the real reason many monastic orders chose the vow of silence as their defining trait.
Look, I do know what I'm talking about, OK? I was once trapped in a crowded room of an old pub for several hours while a woman in period dress cranked away at one of these things like she was churning Amish butter. I'm pretty sure that the puffy sleeves on her peasant undershirt were hiding biceps the size of George Foreman's. To make it worse, she was accompanied by a man on a set of French bagpipes. Another drone instrument. With a differently-pitched drone. You can imagine.
The hurdy gurdy inspires some people to pick daisies, remove shoes, join hands and frolick in the nearest meadow. It inspires me to slam someone's head in a car door. This may sound harsh, but so does the hurdy gurdy. If you've never heard one, thank the good Lord Jesus. Just don't overdo the gratitude and go joining a monastery. You'll quite possibly find a roomful of them waiting for you.
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