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Sometimes you can’t help wondering why so many people continue to pick up the violin<\/a><\/strong> and piano when they could be learning the hurdy gurdy or the hydraulophone. The musical world is a vast and fascinating place, and there are many bizarre instruments in it, some of which will take you to sonic places you never knew existed. Here are ten of the weirdest musical instruments in the musical pantheon. <\/p> The theremin<\/strong><\/a> is the quintessence of \u2018weird\u2019, known, as it is, for its contactless playing technique, its use in science fiction films… and the fact that it sounds like a descending UFO.<\/p> It was invented in 1920 by the Russian Soviet-era scientist Leon Theremin, who, as a 23-year-old man working at the Physical Technical Institute in Petrograd, noticed that something strange happened when he connected audio circuits to an electrical device called an oscillator in a certain way.<\/p> The oscillator produced an audible tone when he held his hands near it, and he could shift the tone just by waving his hands about. He saw its potential as a musical instrument and delivered the first concert with it soon afterwards.<\/p> Over the years composers such as Bohuslav Martin\u016f<\/a><\/strong>, Percy Grainger<\/a><\/strong>, Edgard Var\u00e8se and Dmitri Shostakovich<\/a><\/strong> have all written for the theremin. In recent years, meanwhile, the German-Sorbian virtuoso Carolina Eyck has done much to glamourise the instrument. But still, the theremin continues to occupy a particular niche in the musical world, with a select (if devoted) group of followers.<\/p>Weirdest musical instruments<\/h2>
1. Theremin<\/h3>