Musical innovation and uniqueness is what tends to set great artists apart from their contemporaries. Especially when it comes to the use of creative, unorthodox, or perhaps odd, instruments. Or ...

A mysterious group of prehistoric hunter-gatherers who once inhabited the southern Texas coast may have created music in a hauntingly unconventional way—by transforming human bones into instruments.

Movies set in the past often rely on music to tell us just where we are. Most, but not all, of the composers of this year’s period pieces felt the obligation to reflect time and place. For Ridley ...