Rock / Metal bands usually consist of a singer, a bassist, a drummer, and one or two guitarists.
But what happens when some bands decide to incorporate a different and highly unconventional musical instrument into their melodies?
The answer comes of course from the musicians themselves …
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix in “Crosstown Traffic” played a riff not only with his guitar but with a comb and a tissue like a primitive kazoo!
The kazoo is a monophonic musical instrument that was often used in folk / acoustic blues and jazz songs in the 1920s.
Those who know the history of Hendrix are not surprised by the experimentation he did in his melodies!
Metallica
Personally from Metallica, I expect everything, so I was not at all impressed that they used a musical instrument like Hurdy Gurdy in their sound.
It’s a strange combination of violin and keyboard in a box that has to crank-turned to play.
Orphaned Land
The Israeli Orphaned Land uses bouzouki, woodpecker, and various types of lutes in many of their melodies.
Korn
Although they belong to Nu Metal music, so we are talking about aggressive riffs and rapping, however, Jonathan Davis goes one step further and very often uses bagpipes in Korn songs.
Negura Bunget
Negura Bunget incorporated a plethora of folk instruments, such as nai (a kind of flute), tulnic, kaval (wind musical instrument), flute, xylophone, and much more.
Agalloch
Agalloch, instead of the world-famous musical instruments, create hollow percussion sounds by beating a deer skull.
Rivers Of Nihil
Theoretically, from a band of technical death metal, you don’t expect to hear a saxophone in their melodies.
And yet, in 2018, Rivers Of Nihil were not “afraid” to include it in their album “Where Owls Know My Name“.
Botanist
Botanist is a black metal band that does not use guitars!
Using Hammered Dulcimer (a simple cord that sounds like hammers), they have managed not to show the lack of guitar.
In other words, everything for a musician is not to be afraid to experiment …
And especially not to stay in the well-known stereotypes!