No instrument is irreplaceable - it will just turn the music into something else which is not necessarily a bad thing. People often consider the electric guitar the defining rock instrument, but I know rock bands with no guitar...

Also, sometimes the lack of crucial instruments can force the musicians to think more creatively, and thus to make more original music. Here is a band from Kinshasa which I discovered some time ago. They couldn't afford any instruments, so they decided to build some themselves of things they found on the street:

TCat wrote: Specialized instruments for certain bands can be irreplaceable.  For example, the signature violin sound from Robby Steinhardt of Kansas (yes I know they replaced Robby with David Ragsdale, but it just wasn't the same and it was apparent in their loss of popularity) or (even more so) the trademark sound of Ian Anderson's flute in Jethro Tull.

 

Yeah, this would be as close as I'm willing to come to irreplaceable. Even in the case of folk music, you can still play those melodies and such on more universal instruments. 

Really no instrument is irreplaceable.  Music can be made with any combination of instruments.  

I mean the people behind the instrument. If you hit a middle C on a piano, it will sound the same if you get 5 piano players.. Guitarists can bend, etc... With drums, its how you hit it, where on the drum you hit it, as well as time, etc etc.. But its hard to replace a vocal.

 

I'm talking context. If you take 5 drummers to do the same thing, it would probably vary. Vocals, even more.

Argo2112 wrote: In some situations keyboard players can cover the bass parts ( It's still better to have a real bass player)

In case of the Doors, the lack of a bass player is a key element of their sound - at least live - but then, they often used a session musician on bass on their studio recordings.

 

Sure anyone can play middle C on the piano and it will sound the same.  That is exactly like saying strum a G Chord on the guitar and it will sound the same no matter who it is.  It's all about the technique and the talent, the use of dynamics, the expression and so on.  It's all about what goes on around the C note that makes a difference.  Also, not just anyone can improvise on the keyboards, the same as not just anyone can improvise on a guitar, bass, drums, voice or anything else. 

 

In the end, though, no instrument is irreplaceable.  But it is a lot more difficult to replace some artists and get the same sound.

 

 

Guldbamsen wrote: Another fine example is Arthur Brown’s Kingdom Come and their wonderful Journey. An album where the drummer decided to replace himself with one of those oldschool drumming machines (y’know Ole Erling style), which really when you think about it seems like a downright horrendous idea. Psychedelic hard rock with a quirky jittery and impossibly fake sounding tju-tju of machined beats...but man does it ever work!

I am listening to the album now. It almost seems a bit comic, but it kind of works in its own quirky way. Interesting listening experience in any case.

Recently, ni's Pantophobie has two tracks, a short intro (Phonophobie) and outro (Apéirophobie), that are just silence. This is on the CD version.

So, who needs instruments?

progaardvark wrote: There is always John Cage's 4'33" (true there are instruments present during the performance, but the performers are instructed to not play). I suppose one could argue that the environment is the instrument.

Definitely, I believe that was his intent, I would also postulate that the brain becomes one of the instruments as well.