"Is that the family axe? And you've turned it into a... lute?"
Someone: Tchaikovsky, cannons are not instruments.
Tchaikovsky (probably): Yes they are and I'm going to use 21 of them.
Tchaikovsky (probably): Yes they are and I'm going to use 21 of them.
The inverse of Instrument of Murder and Musical Assassin, Instrumental Weapon is where someone uses their weapon as if it were a musical instrument. In rock music, the guitar is nicknamed the "axe", so this idea has some foundation. In a comedy, it may be Played for Laughs.
Compare Air Guitar. If you pack your weapon as if it were an instrument, that's Senseless Violins. If your weapon is an instrument, you're an Improbable Weapon User or using an Improvised Weapon. Sub-Trope of Everything Is an Instrument.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- From SD Gundam World Sangoku Soketsuden, both Da Qiao Gundam Artemie and Xiao Qiao GN Archer wield guqins (Which is a plucked seven-string instrument of Chinese origin) that double as rifles.
- Brook from One Piece uses his sword as a bow for his violin.
Fan Works
- Remnant's Blonde Bard: Jaune uses the strap of Gambol Shroud as an improvised string instrument to play a Discordant song.
Films — Animation
- A technical example, Shaw from Open Season often plays Air Guitar with his gun Lorraine.
- During the Climax of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, in The "Goofy Goober Rock" song, Spongebob becomes armed with a guitar that shoots lasers that destroy Plankton's Mind Control Helmets, freeing everyone.
Films — Live Action
- A common trope in 90s Wuxia films, for some reason...
- The Magic Crane have two sisters who owns magical weapons, respectively a flute and a pipa, which can cause explosions and disorientate opponents. The sister with the flute notably kills the Big Bad by overwhelming him with its powers and blowing him into pieces.
- Deadful Melody: The MacGuffin of the movie is a magic lyre, whose powers are finally unveiled in the final battle... to being able to create exploding waves as powerful as grenade launchers, which the main character uses to wipe out an entire courtyard of enemies, killing maybe hundreds in one fell swoop.
- Kung Fu Hustle have the musicians, a pair of Musical Assassins whose harps can decapitate their opponents and summon skeleton warriors.
Literature
- In The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany, Lo Lobey has a machete which has been modified to work as a flute.
- In War of the Spider Queen, Hallistra Melarn loots a sword from a priestess of nature. The hilt of which is basically a flute. Hallistra, being a bard, uses this power to the fullest.
Live-Action TV
- Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger/Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers:
- The Green Ranger calls his Dragonzord using his sword as a flute.
- One episode has a monster defeated by Tommy playing his dagger and Kim playing on her bow (with extra strings to turn it into a makeshift harp).
- Horrible Histories: During the musical number "Literally", two of the Vikings are playing guitars that are really axes.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In "Playing God," the proprietor of the Klingon restaurant on the Promenade serenades Dax and Arjin while playing the "Klingon concertina." We don't see this on screen, but production sketches indicated that, in typical Klingon fashion, the concertina doubles as a weapon.
- Ultra Fight Victory features the debut of the Knight Timbre, a flute-sword powered by Victorium crystals, which serves as Ultraman Victory's deadliest weapon.
Music
- Ludwig van Beethoven's overture "Wellington's Victory" calls for a battery of artillery sound effects including muskets to be fired during the performance, representing the Battle of Vittoria rather literally.
- Jackyl's "The Lumberjack" uses a chainsaw as an instrument.
- Sabaton uses the sound of a .50 caliber machine gun firing in place of drum beats on The Lost Battalion.
- The 1812 Overture by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was written to be performed with live artillery as part of the music. It is possible to see this done today as more than a few orchestras will occasionally partner with military units or military reinactors to perform the piece as intended.
- Vocaloid: Kamui Gakupo has a katana which makes music when it is swung.
- Walk Off the Earth: One of the earlier videos uses a cocked handgun as a beat in the drum loop.
Video Games
- The Shadow Axe from The Bard's Tale can be played like an electric guitar in lieu of one of the eponymous Bard's equipped instrument to summon helpers. The Ego Sword can be used in a similar fashion, only by singing instead of being played.
- In Battleborn, Rath's "The Artist" taunt has him play one of his two main swords like a violin via using the other sword as its bow.
- Dota 2:
- During "Shredding the Lute Invisible", when Taunt Button is used, Nature's Prophet flips his Magic Staff around and pretends to play on it. As it was in the first batch of released taunts, it features an outdated design where the hero actually needs to stand in one place to play out the animation and doesn't emit any sound that would pull the enemy's attention, making the taunter easily missed on the huge map. If a tree taunts in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make anyone mad?
- Depends on the equipped cosmetics — with "In It for the Lute", Hoodwink strums on her arbalest as if it was a guitar for a moment, but by wielding The Strings of Suradan
that comes in a set with this taunt it's no longer pretending, it's a lyre crossed with a crossbow.
- The bard epic weapon in EverQuest is a sword that "sings". The graphic literally has notes coming out of it.
- In Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn; Archers/Bards use their bows as instruments to "play" their various song buffs; however, the Relic weapon Artemis Bow has an actual harp built in, and Heavensward introduces Berimbau and the Anima weapon Gandiva, both of which look less like bows that can be used as harps and more like harps that can be used as bows.
- There's at least one Guitar Hero game where you can unlock Frostmourne and use it as a guitar.
- There's a glitch in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time that allows Link to play his sword as an ocarina. This can be applied to any item used while back-flipping after dropping and recapturing a fish.
- In LEGO Star Wars II, when infiltrating Jabba's palace, you can build several stereos throughout the level that blast a rock version of the Imperial March theme, to which the Gamorrean guards will drop their fighting and rock out, playing their battle axes like guitars. The guards are also playable and you can do the same thing with the press of a button.
- Team Fortress 2:
- The Pyro plays almost all of his melee loadout items like a guitar (usually making up guitar sounds with his own mask-muffled voice, but "electric" weapons like the Neon Annihilator [a ripped out neon sign] or the Zeerust Third Degree inexplicably add electric guitar/bass sounds) when you taunt with the melee item out.
- Medic pretends to play violin on most of his melee weapons, in particular the bonesaw from his stock loadout. Using the unlockable Amputator bonesaw grants healing effects in an aura around him.
- Warframe: The Temple Warframe's Idle Animation with primary weapon has them playing it like a guitar.
- World of Warcraft has the rare (and no longer available) Arcanite Ripper item which is an axe in both senses of the word. The handle is a spinal column attached to the skull in the middle of the blade, and has a use ability that turns you into a member of the Elite Tauren Chieftains, where you play a short solo.
Western Animation
- Wile E. Coyote of Looney Tunes fame once played a bow and arrow like a harp while trying to figure out why it wouldn't fire. Of course, the plucking eventually did cause it fire at the worst possible moment.
- In Adventure Time, Marceline plays an Axe-Bass, which is a war axe converted into an electric bass guitar.
- In "Californy'er Bust", an old Goofy cartoon, some Indians start playing their bows like string instruments when they notice the sounds they make when firing.
- In Insektors, Flynn/Fulgor carries his own personal guitar. After Godfrey/Pyro reconfigured it into a weapon, it shoots out pollen when played. If a Krud/Yuk gets hit, they'll turn colourful and act silly. It can also launch out and burst like a firework.
- In the first episode of Storm Hawks, Ravess uses an arrow to mime playing on her bowstring as if it were a violin while the actual music comes from her violin-playing henchman.
Real Life
- Bows were used this way quite often; in fact, there is an entire class of instruments called 'Musical Bows', mostly found in Africa, which come from this.
- "Gunstep" or "gunsync" is the idea of creating songs (mainly the percussion) by firing weapons. This is mainly done in video games.
- At least one German folk song uses the cracking of whips.
- Circus performer "Jacques ze Whipper" is famous on TikTok for videos in which he sings popular songs while accompanying himself by cracking bullwhips in rhythm.
