Is there any particular instrument that makes you cringe,? or reach for the off button the moment you hear it?

I have a particular dislike for the xylophone....the moment I hear one I know I'm in territory I would rather not be - it is either bang-crash music  , jazz    or awful American "show" music  ...all of which I find difficult to enjoy.

How about you ?

x Jan x

Not an instrument as such and vital of course in the normal "supporting" role but I do tend to groan inwardly at the phrase "percussion concerto".

Just as coffee never tastes as good as it smells (to me, anyway) I always think the tuba is a disappointment. It looks so powerful and yet the sound does not live up to the promise.

These horrible zingy things, whatever they are



[Later: Oh, a 'mark tree' is that what they are. Thanks for that autoharp. I fear I can't share your enthusiasm though. Horrible things. I regard every use of them as an admission of failure. It's not only in classical music. They have become the ubiquitous curse of jazz too. Just IMHO of course ]

Bizarre, I know, but ... I really hate the flute.  I can't imagine a circumstance in which I'd write a solo (C) flute piece.  Alto flute, fine.  Piccolo, fine.  Transverse flute, fine.  But ordinary, modern C flutes grate on my last nerve.

I was verging on adding the orchestral (C) flute yesterday, but I feared the recriminations of gangs of leather-jacketed flautists in dark cobbled alleys.

The facility the flute has with scales and arpeggios seems to have inspired composers to write nothing else for it.  Conversely it might be that composers have simply realised this is all that flautists can actually play?

Whenever I hear those endless up-and-down flute arpeggios in Philip Glass's music, I quietly think "that's a paybackfor playing them non-stop in the orchestra dressing-room before concerts whilst other people were trying to tune their instruments".

I just skimmed my eye over the first 5-6 shelves of cds in the "frequently played" section of my collection, and realised that I don't have a single cd of flute music.... 

I exclude the piccolo, as it at least has some practical use for adding the shrill squeak needed in Verdian fortissimos

"Is there any particular instrument that makes you cringe? or reach for the off button the moment you hear it?" asks a Member.

We have always considered the guitar an abomination, and we do indeed switch it off whenever it comes on. Perhaps it is the plucking and the strumming for the idea of which we do not care.

For the flute, on the other hand, we harbour no dislike. In fact Bach's series of flute sonatas with harpsichord or basso continuo are a pleasure from beginning to end and the instrument sounds superb. . . . As it can too (when well played) in the Finale of Brahms' unmatched Fourth Symphony, even.

We should add that the flute has a role of the utmost importance in both the Matthew Passion and the Missa Solemnis. It is used by both composers to produce otherworldly mystical fluttering sounds at the most intense moments.

Stravinsky said he disliked the sound of the vibraphone in Berg's "Lulu", which he described as urinating in his ear.

My own least favourite instrument is the ocarina, a pointless abomination.