What's the wackiest stringed instrument you've ever seen?

[Headless horse]

Steve Vai's Hydra guitar is pretty weird:

View attachment 4864737

I think it's a 6 string neck, 12 string neck (upper half being fretless), headless bass (with the 2 lower strings fretless), a harp thing, and a bunch of weird midi triggers.

Absolutely - too much pickups.

 

[Headless horse]

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Freak show!

 

[Stinsok]

Not the wackiest but odd. I inherited this 70"s Applause from my father in law. It has an aluminum fretboard and composite neck. No truss rod!

 

[Headless horse]

Always great to see this beast.

Here's an acoustic, piccolo Mini-It, the viola da Terceira (specifically, the 18-string/6-course version thereof):

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Viola da Terceira - Wikipedia

Somebody likes to play acoustics.

 

[Headless horse]

I don't believe it's him.

 

[Jazz Ad]

I love experimentation so I know about and heard many wacky string instruments.
I think Jay Wasco's Fractal Harp takes the cake though.
It looks surreal and the way the guy plays it is even crazier.

 

[Headless horse]

View attachment 4865159

If you like - then you like !!!!

 

[B-Mac]

Linda Manzer's "Picasso":

Isn't this Pat Matheny's?

 

[FilterFunk]

This guy "played the theater" with his giant-stringed "Earth Harp" on AGT years ago:

 

[Headless horse]

Not the wackiest but odd. I inherited this 70"s Applause from my father in law. It has an aluminum fretboard and composite neck. No truss rod!
View attachment 4865328

Could be liked by someone.

 

[B-Mac]

I saw Wu Man play the Pipa at Elizabethtown College. The Pipa is a traditional Chinese stringed instrument.

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[B-Mac]

I saw some pretty cool Japanese stringed instruments played by the band 'Hiroshima' at the Valley Forge Music Fair in the late 80's.

The Koto was played on stage alongside western instruments. The band was a Fusion Jazz band.

Bigger than you realize as seen below

 

[B-Mac]

And this band incorporating a trad Japanese instrument into funk

 

[bholder]

Then there's That 1 Guy and his strung-up a mic'ed plumbing fixtures:

 

[megarat]

Linda Manzer's "Picasso":

Didn’t H.P. Lovecraft write a story about this thing?

“What ravening terrors that hideous alien geometry inflicts upon man’s sanity!”

 

[Blue Moose]

My double neck cigar box guitar. My best bud made it for me so it's kinda special.

 

[B-Mac]

And no thread like this would be complete without Davie504 playing something obscene.
Prat Godzilla 24 string bass
Bass Bench: Designing a 24-String Bass
https://www.pratbasses.com/

 

[LBS-bass]

I'm fairly sure Pat Metheney had/has one of these.

He owns it. I saw him play it a few years back.

 

[MichelD]

A single string bowed banjo-type instrument with a gourd-based body played by a blind beggar in central Africa in 1972.

 

[ardgedee]

I like the erhu. Two strings, no fingerboard, and the bow hairs are threaded between the strings.