The ocarina, a wind instrument with a sound slightly airier and thicker than a flute’s, has its fifteen seconds of fame in that 60s hit Wild Thing. (Wild thing / You make my heart swing / You make everything / Groovy!). The Troggs’s song, kept alive by appearances in movie soundtracks and discotheque-friendliness as a result of its lyrics, has a short, fun ocarina solo that fits the context and feel of the song perfectly. 

It’s when a really big band uses such instruments that a mark is made on public consciousness (apart from getting band geeks salivating at the prospect of trivia). With the Beatles’ skiffle roots (The Quarry Men), instances abound of them and their contemporaries such as the Rolling Stones experimenting with their arrangement so as to get that texture exactly right, and studios such as Abbey Road have often heard a marimba here and a clavioline there. Led Zeppelin was another band that never shied away from unusual, sometimes elaborate arrangements (such as in Kashmir). The haunting acoustic guitar introduction to Stairway To Heaven is accompanied by the wafer-thin notes of a Recorder, which can prove to be a bit of a misnomer today as it sounds like an electronic instrument of some kind, but is actually a woodwind similiar to a flute. Many of Zep’s live performances of Whole Lotta Love have Jimmy Page flailing in the direction of a Theremin, this time an electronic instrument, and one that works in a most curious way: the "performer" is at a distance from the instrument, and the notes produced are purely determined by the movements of his hands in thin air (or legs if he wants to get really creative).  

An instrument whose name was its biggest draw for me, the Kazoo, is a wonderfully simple device that can be made out of a comb and a piece of paper. It basically adds a buzz to the voice when you sing into it. Eric Clapton uses this on a very relaxed, upbeat version of San Francisco Bay Blues on his universally popular Unplugged album. With the small, indulgent audience cheering him on, a distorted verse has never sounded this good!  

Musicians have always been adventurous in using congas and bongos in consonance with the drums as they try to add a little colour to their rhythm section. Latin and African percussion instruments have often been used in popular music, but the focus here is usually on the fusion and on the marriage of the different styles rather than on the instruments themselves. 

While the instances aren’t as many, we still see 90s-and-after bands use the odd curio in their songs. Give It Away, one of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ most popular, features a Jew’s Harp (which doesn’t have too much to do with the original harp, and nothing to do with a Jew), a one-stringed device positioned between the teeth and plucked with a finger. The wide wah on the notes makes the Jew’s Harp sound closer to a guitar on effects but in reality is a most basic instrument that has existed for ages. The delightful out-of-placedness of the image of one of the Chili Peppers at a typically hyperadrenalinized, moshpit-fuelled concert tooth-picking a wee little acoustic instrument like the Jew’s Harp is just incredibly endearing.  

Even those flag-bearers of that broad category of British alt-rock, Radiohead, surprisingly step away from their gadgetry and use a glockenspiel in their 1997 Ok Computer album. This tuned percussive instrument used on the song No Surprises adds a chiming layer to the melancholic intonation of the music.  

Many of these instruments were made with skill applied to creating and achieving a specific sound and timbre. With all-powerful synthesizers almost replacing entire bands, there is now lesser incentive for musicians to explore this aspect of their musical roots. What we lose as a result is not just the authenticity of sound (anybody even only slightly tuned in can tell if something is ’synth’ in a few seconds) but also a way of paying tribute to the history and artisanship associated with it. By giving it the reach that it wouldn’t have got if not for it being used in popular music, featuring such instruments in popular song is a hat-tip to the musical creation and to those who kept it alive. Apart from this, we also lose something a little more undefinable. The quaint beauty of the image of a musician picking up an ocarina and playing it, maybe.