July 31 Marks Uncommon Musical Instrument Awareness Day
On July 31, the world celebrates a fascinating cultural holiday — Uncommon Musical Instrument Awareness Day. This day is dedicated to honoring the rare, unusual, and sometimes downright bizarre instruments that bring unique color to the musical landscape.
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org by Dorokhov Kirill, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Russian ethnic musician-huslyar
Music, from the Greek word musike (literally “the art of the muses”), is a form of art that expresses emotions and ideas through organized sound. Humanity has engaged with music since ancient times — archaeological findings show that musical instruments were used in China over two thousand years ago during the Han Dynasty.
It’s no surprise, as music plays a powerful aesthetic and emotional role in human life. It transcends time, language, and culture. Musical instruments — divided into categories such as percussion, string, wind, keyboard, reed, and electronic — are as varied as the cultures that use them. Some, like the guitar, piano, violin, saxophone, organ, and drums, are instantly recognizable even to non-musicians.
Among all instruments, the flute is considered one of the oldest. Scientists estimate its age to be around 40,000 years, based on flutes discovered in a German cave made from bird bones and mammoth ivory. Yet for every widely known instrument, there are dozens of rare and remarkable ones that rarely make it into the mainstream. Uncommon Musical Instrument Awareness Day is devoted to them.
These include instruments like the clavichord, jaw harp (vargan), guitarrón, recorder, hang drum, hurdy-gurdy, gusli, and tongue drum (glukophon). Some are truly peculiar — such as the cat piano from 19th-century illustrations, which depicted a row of cats with tails tied to piano keys so that their meows created a melody when the keys were pressed. Or the hydraulophone, which produces sound through water vibration. There’s also the massive Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ in Atlantic City with over 33,000 pipes, and the bonang of Indonesia — bronze gongs arranged on a wooden rack with clay hemispheres suspended above them as resonators.
Other unique sounds can be heard from the Zimbabwean mbira, the Indian conch shell horn, and the African tanbur. In shamanic rituals, the tambourine and jaw harp are used to “open the gates to the spirit world.” There are also modified traditional instruments — from cheese drums to vegetable flutes, and countless experimental variations of harps, organs, guitars, and wind instruments.
Although this holiday has no official status, it is enthusiastically celebrated around the world. It invites people to discover new sounds, instruments, and musical traditions, enriching their understanding of global musical heritage.
The date celebrates not only rare and historical instruments but also experimental inventions and the creativity behind them. Whether you’re a seasoned musician or simply someone who appreciates art and culture, today offers a chance to expand your musical horizons and perhaps even craft your own unique instrument. For many, music is a source of joy, inspiration, and discovery — and on July 31, that spirit is celebrated in its most uncommon forms.
