Multi-instrumentalist - Rock and Pop Music

Rock and Pop Music

Often, multi-instrumentalists are solo artists who overdub several tracks themselves, rather than hiring session musicians, but they can also be found within bands or working under various monikers. However, when playing live, most multi-instrumentalists will concentrate on their main instrument and/or vocals, and hire or recruit backing musicians (or use a sequencer) to play the other instruments, thus benefiting from economies of scope.

In most cases, a multi-instrumentalist will play several types of keyboard and plucked string instruments, such as piano, synthesizer, organ, guitar, bass and mandolin, and perhaps also percussion and drums. They may also play brass and woodwind instruments, although this is fairly rare within popular music. The voice is sometimes, albeit rarely, listed amongst a multi-instrumentalist's instrumental repertoire. One of the pioneers of this style of recording was Mike Oldfield on his LP Tubular Bells, where he played multiple instruments, such as organ, guitar, honky-tonk piano, bass, drums, glockenspiel, the tubular bells themselves, and more.

Some musicians have pushed the limits of human musical skill on different instruments. The British entertainer Roy Castle once set a world record by playing the same tune on 43 different instruments in four minutes. Anton Newcombe, frontman for The Brian Jonestown Massacre, has claimed to be able to play 80 different instruments.

Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones was one of the first pop musicians to be a prolific multi-instrumentalist, popularizing diverse instrumentation in rock music and promoting an important influence on multi-instrumentalists, World Music. Stevie Wonder is known to be skilled in several instruments; on his 1972 hit "Superstition" he played all instruments except horns and guitar. Widely considered to be one of the most critically acclaimed multi-instrumentalists of all-time, Todd Rundgren wrote, played, sang, engineered, and produced the landmark album Something/Anything? in 1972. Rundgren's overall talent, eclecticism, and body of work between the late 1960s and late 1970s would have a profound impact on the artist who is arguably the most famous pop multi-instrumentalist of all-time, Prince. Paul McCartney performed the entire McCartney album by himself, all instruments and voices (except a few backing vocals done by his first wife Linda McCartney).

Multi-instrumentalist Yuri Landman not only plays several string instruments, but also creates several new instruments with alternative scalings, constructions and string combinations to reach new playing techniques. His work is mainly based on resonance, string pitching and overtones.

There are a number of artists in pop, rock and electronic music that are known for their proficiency on many instruments. Some lesser known multi-instrumentalists include John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Jon Foreman of the rock band Switchfoot, singer/songwriter/producer Bruno Mars, Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas, French singer Sébastien Tellier, AJ McLean of Backstreet Boys fame, actor Hugh Laurie, singer-songwriter Rozalind MacPhail, and Serj Tankian of the music group System of a Down. Michael Mercer covers for Kings of Leon. He uses an Epiphone Supernova, a Gibson EB-180, A Parlor Vintage '64 Bass, and a custom made instrument called a strumpini. A strumpini is a 30-string instrument with no frets but it is marked. It is always a semi-hollow. It is often confused with a tripled ten-string mandolin. Also, the Red Hot Chili Peppers Bass Player Flea is proficient in the piano and often performs on the trumpet.