I love it when people find unusual ways to do “usual” things.  Sometimes that means writing an odd song, playing a rare instrument, or designing your own instrument.

Sometimes it’s taking a very common instrument, and looking at it differently.

Being a guitar player, I love it when people think outside the box when it comes to how to play a guitar.  In the past I’ve looked at creative guitar players such as Erik Mongrain, KT Tunstall, or Andy McKee.   But today I’m going to look at a different idea.

A guitar is obviously typically a one person instrument, made to be played with two hands.

But is that a rule of thumb that can be broken?

Apparently!  Check out this video:

I like when people think differently about things and aren’t limited to the conventional use of a particular instrument.

I am a big big fan of people who find creative ways to express themselves, and I’m going to show off a couple examples that I’ve found on YouTube today.

I talk a lot about writing and creating your own songs, which is what I assume most of you reading this blog are into. But because of YouTube I’ve really started to learn that there are a lot of ways to be musically creative without creating a new piece of music, but rather altering an existing piece.

I’m actually not talking about simple covers, although there are a lot of great and creative covers on YouTube. (and now that I think about it, maybe I’ll post about them in the next week or so… maybe even sooner)

I’m actually talking about taking two pieces of music and combining them into one song.

There are two primary ways of doing this. The first way we’ll talk about is the “mashup”.

I’m actually really impressed with Mash-ups. Maybe I give them too much credit… I don’t know because I’ve never tried to make one… but I think it takes a good ear for music to hear two songs that can fit together well, and I think it takes some musical creativity to pull it off well.

My favorite mashup is a mix of an acoustic version of “Times Like These” by the Foo Fighters (one of my favorite bands), and “Sweet Child o’ Mine” by Guns N Roses. Check out the video:

I love that version of those songs. I listen to it often. Whoever made that video might not have picked up an instrument or written a completely new piece, but he was creative in putting two things together and made a song that is very enjoyable.

The second example is completely different. The guy in the video didn’t write a new song, but he took two separate songs (the theme song to The Simpsons and the theme song to the original Star Trek series) and put them together… by performing the new piece himself.

I love this video for a lot of reasons!

First of all, I love Star Trek, and I love The Simpsons.

Second of all, I love the fact that he was creative enough to blend the two songs in a very clever way.

And thirdly, I love his instrumentation: A keyboard, a theremin, and a funnel (yep, a funnel). I am a big fan of unusual instrumentation, no matter how “unprofessional” it may seem.

Check out the video:

These two songs are great examples of figuring out ways to express musical creativity.  It’s not always about writing or creating something brand new.  Sometimes it’s about looking at existing things in new ways.

Wine Glass Player

As you know, I’m very interested in the idea of finding unusual ways to make music.

I’ve heard of people playing wine glasses before, so this isn’t a completely new idea to me, but I thought I’d share this video with you anyway. I’m impressed that people take ordinary things like glasses of liquid and turn them into musical instruments.

If that’s not what “creative music” is all about, I don’t know what is.

… and just in case that really grabbed you, here’s an eHow article on how to get started making Wine Glass Music.

How to Play Wine Glasses

I am intrigued by odd and rare instruments and the people who play them.

Here is another video I found on YouTube of a woman playing something that’s listed as a “Glass Armonica”  It’s an interesting instrument that I’ve never seen before.

Can you play more than one thing at a time?

This is a video of Greg Pattillo.  He plays the flute and beat-boxes at the same time.  I’ve heard other people do that before… not to say that it doesn’t take talent, of course.  But in this video, Greg took things one step further.  By using a piano with a sustain pedal, he added in some simple held out chords that filled out his sound immensely.

You don’t need an instrument to play music

One of the Google searches that seems to bring people to this site is “how do I make music without knowing how to play an instrument”.

There are lots of interesting ideas out there on the internet when it comes to topics like this.  Given time, we’ll hopefully explore a lot of them in this blog.

One of them that may seem more obvious is “Body Music”… simply, making sounds with your body.

Here’s a video I found on Youtube that demonstrates several techniques.  This video is done as more of a demonstration.  If you are interested in stuff like this, listen closely to what he talks about, because he mentions several techniques that you can look into.

A friend of mine posted this on facebook, and I immediately had to come here and share it.

This is a prime example of being creative with music.  These people made a song completely out of noises from their Jeep.

That’s cool enough in itself, but I’ve seen similar things done in the past.  What makes this one extremely awesome… they performed it LIVE on video!

Check this out.

Wow.  Who needs to be able to play a musical instrument to write a cool song?

I love YouTube. I can spend a bit too much time on there rather easily.

Tonight I got into watching Hang Drum players. If you haven’t seen, or heard more importantly, people play hang drums, you’re missing out. It has a very cool melodic percussive sound.

Here’s a video of a guy playing one.

Very interesting sound.  If they weren’t well over $2,000, I might think of adding one to my collection! 

I love it when I come across someone who is looking at the world as one big musical inspiration.

The guy that made the video below saw a picture of a bunch of birds sitting on some power lines. He decided to map out where those birds were sitting on a musical staff and turn it into a song.

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

Is it the most amazing song musically in the world?  No, but I love where the inspiration came from, and to me, that was more of the point anyway.

Erik Mongrain: A Creative Approach to Guitar

Here’s another video example of someone who has taken a traditional instrument (an acoustic guitar), and learned to play it in a totally unconventional way.

This guy’s name is Erik Mongrain. When he plays the guitar, it doesn’t even really sound like a guitar…. but it does sound amazing.