[Vanessa20]

Does anyone here know of any musical compositions, from any genre, that use a standard symphonic instrument in an unusual way?

I need to write a paper on three pieces of music that use standard instruments unusually, but I can't think of any.

Please help. I'd really appreciate it.

[Beagle On Stage]

Peter and the Wolf uses instruments for various special effects, like making a duck noise on oboe. Everyone will use this one, but you can sure get a few pages out of it.

[Patch]

[Tez a Roni]

How unusual is unusual, I wonder?

For instance, you might say that the Vaughan Williams tuba concerto is unusual, since you hardly ever see a tuba as a featured soloist.

Or, you could look into extended techniques for pretty much any instrument.. one piece that comes to mind immediately is Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, which has tons of extended string technique, or Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, which uses sprechtstimme (where the singer half sings- half speaks the words..)

So basically if you search extended technique for x instrument, you'll be able to dig up a bunch of stuff. Good luck!

[le_moofin]

Richard Meyers' Rosin Eating Zombies from Outer Space is just silly. And unusual - the instruments (stringed) are used in a variety of ways to sound like zombie stuff.

[kozafluitmusique]

The Monster that Devoured Cleveland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QomYJ2pPew

It involves the bassoons in an interesting way.

[Tenalto]

Greg Pattillo, the beat-boxing flautist. He's in a group called The Project that involves him, a cellist, and a double-bass player. Here's a link to him performing "Flight of the Bumblebee." There are a bunch of other links out there -- it's fascinating stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8_K0l12A5E&feature=related

[Tez a Roni]

What did you end up going with? Sounds like an interesting assignment!

[Vanessa20]

Thanks so much, everyone. I ended up going with Vaughan Williams' tuba concerto, a brass rendition of "Marietta's Lied" from the opera "Die Tote Stadt" (unusual because it was originally written for voice), and Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music."