A Month For Weirdos
Pisces/Idiophones, week 1
Welcome to our Musical Zodiac, in which we arbitrarily match instruments to personality types and use that as an excuse to talk about our favorite musickers.
Pisces is the 12th sign of the zodiac, considered to run from about February 19 to about March 20. I did a lot of deep, scientific research to find the right match-up of sign to instrument…and my sources were all over the map. From flutes to low brass, or the clarinet (which felt a little too close to last month’s saxophone for my taste), everybody seems to have a different notion of what makes a good instrument for the Pisces. The only thing they seemed to agree on was that Pisces are “said to be artistic and their interests often lie in the mystical,” and they are “dreamy and have a deep empathy.”
So, I decided to reach for something a little more “out there” ... by way of our first suggestion!
‘Way back when I proposed this Musical Zodiac series, I asked for suggestions for sign/instrument matchups, and one of the two people to answer with a musical instrument was
who suggested the “daxophone”:The instrument is too new and niche to be featured in many recordings, but I was so enamored of the weirdness of it, that I decided to use it to introduce a month of off-the-wall idiophones. Idiophones are any instruments that create sound by vibrating the instrument itself—as opposed to vibrating a string or vibrating air in a resonating chamber.
In the process, I found some other examples of idiophones in some unexpected places, so we’ll talk about a few of them. Here are a couple of examples, just to get you in the mood.
Blue Man Group
The easiest example of artists using a lot of different idiophones, the Blue Man Group is a performance art company that was formed in 1987. Its performers are painted blue and are mute during shows, in which they always appear in groups of three.
The Blue Mans entertain with an array of instruments that are semi-idiophones—their famous Thongophone (PVS pipes struck with rubber paddles) is technically an aerophone. The Drumbone is a similar construction, but arguably, the pipe itself is generating the sound, which puts it in idiophone territory:
Lionel Hampton
Perhaps the most common examples of idiophones that most people are familiar with are the marimba and xylophone. These can be found in most orchestras, big bands, and marching bands. And if there is one name you should associate with a mastery of the instrument, it is Lionel Hampton.
Here he is with a performance on Ed Sullivan in 1959, showing off his piano chops before he starts cooking on the marimba and vibes.
And here he is on David Letterman in 1987, showing us why he was a legend with his Boogie Woogie.
If nothing else, you will remember the joy of banging on noisy things this month!