Things I Find Fascinating: Slightly Bizarre Instrumental Solos

Did you ever hear an entire song played on timpani – you know, those big booming drums in the back of the orchestra which are most often used to signal impending doom? Well, neither have I. But now you can!

What follows are links to videos of instrumental solos being played on musical instruments you don't normally expect to hear instrumental solos played on. But maybe they should be used more often, because for the most part, they sound great! I'm way too busy, tired, and justifiably lazy to comment a whole lot on these, so just watch them for yourself and see how you like them. Hope you enjoy!

1)  Timpani  (this gets old after about a minute, but it's still pretty fascinating to watch)

2)  Glockenspiel  (the "Last of the Mohicans" theme song has never sounded better)

3)  Metallophone  (which is actually a bunch of wrenches of different sizes laying on top of two metal pipes)

4)  Flugelhorn  (the "Titanic" theme song – how can you go wrong with that?)

5)  Kazoo  (okay, so technically this is a quartet, but they're all playing kazoos – except that one guy doing the human beatbox – anyway, enjoy!)

6)  Didgeridoo  (it has a nice beat, and you can dance to it – but why would you want to?)

7)  Theremin  (This goes out to all you old-school video-gamers out there – "The Legend Of Zelda" theme song played on the world's earliest electronic instrument – how does this thing even work, anyway?)

8)  Balalaika  (okay, so I'll concede the fact that in some parts of the world, it's probably quite common to hear a balalaika solo – but as an American, I've personally never seen or heard one of these before – plus, I like the word "balalaika" and needed an excuse to include this somewhere, at some time, and for some reason in a blog post, and this was it)

9)  Sitar  (this is the craziest-looking stringed instrument I've ever seen – oh yeah, I want one!)

10)  Bassoon  (I've never thought of the bassoon as a particularly beautiful-sounding instrument – a nice complementary sound in an orchestra, sure – but this video has changed my mind – this was awesome!)