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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|'''Kotomi:''' My name is Ichinose Kotomi. A senior in Class A.
'''Tomoya:''' And her weapon is the violin. It takes only 0.2 seconds before sound waves come out from the moment she takes position. The number of people she's felled is countless.
'''Kotomi:''' ''(after playing some more)'' I've never felled people with the violin.
'''Tomoya:''' Do you see us on the floor right now?!
|''[[Clannad (visual novel)|Clannad]]''}}
What a [[Lethal Chef]] is to food, a Dreadful Musician is to music. This is a character who plays music '''''badly'''''. Glass shatters, [[Animal Reaction Shot|animals scatter]], and [[Conan the Barbarian|women lament]]. Even worse, they [[Giftedly Bad|may not even realize how bad they are]], while everyone around them scrambles to halt the performance.
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[[Hollywood Tone Deaf]] is the lighter, and slightly more tolerable, version of this kind of musician. If they truly don't know how awful they are, then they're also [[Giftedly Bad]]. May overlap with [[Loud of War]], [[Lounge Lizard]].
Compare [[Suckiness Is Painful]]. Also compare [[Three Chords and
{{noreallife|some people actually count "noise" as a musical genre, and like it.}}
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Despite being a genius and depicted calmly playing the violin in the opening of ''[[Clannad (visual novel)|Clannad]]'', the terrible truth is revealed when Kotomi finally gets her hands on one: every time she plays, shockwaves emanate from the violin, glass cracks, light bulbs burst, and everyone in the school collapses to the ground in agony. ''She'' thinks her music is pretty. Ironically, though, she used to practice the violin when she was little, with pretty normal results. Probably because she [[Never Got to Say Goodbye]] to {{spoiler|her deceased parents}}. Or it could be similar to Tomoya in the movie, where he undergoes post traumatic stress disorder. This could also explain Kotomi's [[Cloudcuckoolander]] traits.
* In ''[[Key the Metal Idol]]'', Key goes to a concert and is instructed to show what she can do. She then proceeds to sing a ''very'' high note that [[Glass-Shattering Sound|shatters glass]], [[Brown Note|causes the audience to reel in pain]], and short-circuits the robot puppet.
* ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]''
** Jigglypuff is an inversion. Her lullaby is ''so'' good that any person or Pokémon that hears it falls asleep—which she doesn't appreciate at all and takes revenge on those who do by [[Face Doodling]]. For that, she [[Walking the Earth|wanders the world]] following the heroes, trying to find someone who can hear her entire song. She finds one later, but that's because the Pokémon that could hear her was immune to the effects of any sound-based techniques to begin with. At the end she tried to sing again to the Pokémon, but it fell unconscious from a battle it had just been in, and Jigglypuff thought he slept with the song too and left angry. [[Failure Is the Only Option|Oh well.]]
** Also done in the runaway ship episode of season 10 with Pikachu on cello, Buizel on saxophone, Turtwig on drums and Sudowoodo on piano. Needless to say Staravia wasn't a big fan of [http://www.filb.de/anime/dp/039 Pikachu's band]. (On the link you will have to click the link at the bottom 3 times to see Pikachu's band and Staravia's reaction to them.)
* Tokino in the original ''[[
* Kudo Shinichi/Edogawa Conan, from ''[[
* Yomi from ''[[
* Rie Tanaka seems to get cast that way a LOT, for whatever reason. See also Eriko in ''[[
* In the beginning of ''[[
* Mikuru Asahina from ''[[
* Konata from ''[[
* While Nishizawa from ''[[
* ''[[
* In ''[[
* ''[[
* Megumi in ''[[
* De Niro from ''[[
* In ''[[
* Akina in ''[[
* Part of the premise of ''[[
* In ''[[
* Kanata is not a particularly good bugler when ''[[
* Shinji from ''[[
* Aoi from ''[[
* In one episode of ''[[
* In ''[[
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* [[Meaningful Name|Cacofonix]] the bard from ''[[Asterix]]'' is an absolutely horrid musician. The entire village conspires to keep him from singing (primarily the blacksmith, Fulliautomatix, who tends to smack him with a sledgehammer), up to the point of [[Bound and Gagged|tying him up and gagging him]] whenever they have a celebration. Which they do at the end of every
** The "Normans" (Vikings) come to Gaul to learn the meaning of fear, a concept they cannot understand. Not even a severe beating from the super-strong Gauls teaches them to
** In ''The Mansions of the Gods'', {{spoiler|Asterix arranges for him to get an apartment in a [[Xanatos Gambit]] to drive the Romans out. The Roman civilians leave after Cacofonix bursts into song, but the legionaries move in. So it's back to good old brute force to finish the job.}}
** In ''Asterix Chez Rahazade'', a Fakir from India comes to request his assistance because his country has not had rain in all of its rainy season and only the bard's horrible singing voice can drive the sky to torrential downpour. {{spoiler|It works.}}
** The page image comes from ''Asterix and the Secret Weapon'' and was an attempt at heavy metal. It caused a near-apocalyptic storm that caused most of the animal population of the forest to run away.
** If Fulliautomatix doesn't shut him up, the gods themselves will with a [[Bolt of Divine Retribution]].
* Bianca Castafiore in the ''[[Tintin
* [[Gaston Lagaffe]] is an interesting example, as he's not bad at playing music ''per se''
* Peewit, in Peyo's ''Johan and Peewit''. His natural ability for inflicting musical pain [[It Got Worse|only gets worse]] when he accidentally obtains a magical six-holed flute of smurf origin that can [[Brown Note|force people to dance uncontrollably until they drop from exhaustion.]] He's so bad that at the beginning of the same album, when a traveling salesman comes to the castle and begins unloading musical instruments, the horrified king banishes him with threats of hanging.
* ''[[
* Preservers in ''[[
== [[Film]]s -- Animation ==
* ''[[Treasure of Swamp Castle]]'': The Baron's daughter drives the flute player to tears and he bends the flute out of grief.
* Scuttle from ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'' believes a smoking pipe is a musical instrument and tries to make music with that on a few occasions. Also when Sebastian tries to lead the sea creatures in a song to serenade Ariel and Eric, Scuttle tries to sing and Eric remarks that "someone should put that poor animal out of its misery".
* Peewit in ''[[The Smurfs and the Magic Flute]]''. It's only when he gets his hands on the magic flute that he ever plays a decent tune, and also at the end of the movie when {{spoiler|he has a fake copy of the magic flute}}.
* Warren T. Rat in ''[[An American Tail]]'' plays a very cringe-worthy rendition of "Beautiful Dreamer" on his violin during the sewer scene. He claims it's because "his nose keeps getting in the way". {{spoiler|Granted, this may be justified as he ''is'' wearing a fake rat nose.}}
* Garth from ''[[Alpha and Omega]]'' is a horrid howler (howling being like singing to the wolves), so much so a [[Running Gag]] is every time he sings, stunned birds drop out of the sky. While at first he seems to [[Giftedly Bad|think he's good at it]] but he later admits he knows how awful he is. {{spoiler|However, Lilly manages to teach him how to howl wonderfully, in the process causing her and him to fall in love.}}
== Films -- Live-Action ==
* Some versions of [[Sherlock Holmes]] make him a painfully bad violinist. In the original stories he's quite skilled. Although he tends to play ''endlessly'' when thinking or bored, to Watson's annoyance. The literary canon explains that Holmes is quite brilliantly talented, ''provided'' he can be motivated to attempt an actual tune. Most of the time he just listlessly scrapes away with the bow while his mind is elsewhere, and barely seems to realise he's doing it.
* The invaders in ''[[Mars Attacks
* A Japanese interactive film ''Super Voice World'' features the "player" character meeting various seiyuu on his way to becoming one himself. Too bad his singing evokes visions of two nerds (played by Yamaguchi Kappei and Matsumoto Yasunori) taking off each other's glasses and falling on the floor in each other's embrace (no, it doesn't really make sense in context, either), shatters glass, kills goldfish, makes flowers wither, sends producers to the hospital and causes bad emotional trauma to the three poor girls who asked him to sing in the first
* Brilliantly subverted in ''[[High Fidelity]]'' where Jack Black's character's band, Sonic Death Monkey, has been built up for the entire third act. They finally appear playing smooth R&B Standards, and sound great.
* Mark and the members of his garage band in ''[[Welcome to The Dollhouse]]''. Case in point is the infamous "Happy Anniversary" song...
* In ''Take the Money and Run'', this is the result of attempts to teach [[Woody Allen]]'s character to play the cello. As his instructor puts it, "He had no conception of the instrument. He was blowing into it." It doesn't help that he tries to play cello [[Crowning Moment of Funny|in a marching band]].
* In the 1985 comedy ''[[Water]]'', Billy Connolly plays a communist rebel who's sworn never to speak until his island nation is free, so he communicates by singing. Unfortunately he's not very good at it, so when it's time for him to address the United Nations they're unimpressed, until a cameo appearance by George Harrison and Ringo Starr with their band "The Singing Rebels" earn him a [[The Power of Rock|standing ovation]].
* The singers at the first wedding in ''[[Four Weddings and
* The Fat Lady, as played by Dawn French, in the film version of ''[[Harry Potter and
== [[Literature]] ==
* Alan Dean Foster's ''[[Spellsinger]]'' books:
** Jon-Tom, the eponymous Spellsinger, can work magic with his music... but has absolutely no vocal talents. And he still sings, because his magical abilities require singing to work.
** {{spoiler|The villain from the eighth book makes Jon-Tom sound like a multiple-Grammy winner.}}
* The entire Smythe-Smith family in Julia Quinn's ''Bridgerton'' series. An entire family of girls with no musical talent, and 3/4 of the family are in denial about it enough to insist that all of the eligible maidens play a musicale every year.
* ''[[
** In ''[[
** Christine in ''[[
** Death is likewise a terrible musician. He has tried to learn the violin and banjo at various points, but is inherently unable to be creative and always fails. Death at one point came close {{spoiler|to ''ending the universe'' in ''[[
** ''[[
** In ''[[
* ''[[Redwall]]''
** Dorothea Duckfontein Dillworthy: "To describe the haremaid's voice as being akin to a frog trapped beneath a hot stone [[Insult to Rocks|would have been a great insult, to both frog and stone]]." She also plays the "harecordion", which apparently sounds like a rusty hinge even before she accidentally soaks it in cider. Her two fanboys, Southpaw and Bobweave, apparently genuinely love her music, while everyone else flees at the mere suggestion that she's about to sing.
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* In ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]: The Austere Academy'', Vice Principal Nero forces the academy's students to listen to hours of his horrendous violin playing. Naturally it's a historical in-joke- mad Emperor Nero also inflicted his astounding lack of talent on his unfortunate subjects. In his case complaining about the racket meant death.
** There's even a song about it -- "When You Play the Violin" by The Gothic Archies.
* [[Jane Austen]]'s ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]'': Mary Bennet is quite the terrible singer. Her father has to pry her away from the pianoforte at Mr. Bingley's ball, to spare the other guests.
* The ''[[Heralds of Valdemar]]'' series has a song about a Countess whose singing was so terrible (and whose personality was so abusive) that the Count finally snapped and choked her with her own lute. As in shoving it down her throat: "Though no one could imagine why she tried to eat her lute." And '''everyone''' else in the castle volunteered alibis "proving" that he never had any opportunity to kill her.
* [[Alastair Reynolds]]' standalone Noir [[Alternate History]] novel ''Century Rain'' averts this trope: in an early scene the protagonist is walking into a superior's office while he plays a violin, as her [[Internal Monologue]] notes how grating and painful the music is. It is then revealed that she, along with a large portion of the rest of the human race, were infected with a designer-disease called "amusica", which prevented people from enjoying music, to ruin their side's morale.
* ''Disaster Area'' from ''[[The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy (
* "Two Kinds", a story from ''[[
* ''Tangled Webs'' (the second book of [[Forgotten Realms|Starlight and Shadows]]) has pirate [[Boisterous Bruiser|Hrolf the Unruly]] singing "with enormous gusto but little discernible talent". He knows this, too.
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* Ross's FX-heavy keyboard compositions ("The Sound") in the ''[[Friends]]'' episode "The One Where Chandler Crosses a Line" strike everyone this way. Everyone but Phoebe, who's a borderline case herself ([[Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant|she once wrote a Christmas carol about her mom dying]]). When he tries to play the bagpipes in "The One With Joey’s New Brain", the results are similar; everyone hates it except Phoebe.
* In ''[['Allo 'Allo!]]'', when Rene's wife Edith prepares to sing in the cafe, all the patrons pass round cotton wool (or cheese) to stuff in their ears.
* Colonel Klink of ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]'' is a horrendous violin player. This is a bit [[Irony as She Is Cast|ironic]], as his actor Werner Klemperer was apparently very talented at it.
* Lister from ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' is so bad at playing the guitar that he's only allowed to play it outside the ship. Please remember that the ''Red Dwarf'' is a '''spacecraft'''. This fact was once used as a plot point when Lister had an evil doppelganger. The false Lister played the guitar amazingly well, because it played as well as Lister ''thought'' he could, rather than as awfully as he ''actually'' could.
* Private Dobbs, the inept fort bugler from ''[[F Troop]]''.
* In the fourth wall-breaking ''[[Doctor Who]]'' special "Music of the Spheres", the Doctor tries composing a symphony inspired by planetary rotation synthesized into music through the TARDIS harmonics filters. Let's just say the universe makes better music than Ten. But at least we get the image of him conducting an orchestra with the sonic screwdriver.
* Lt. Kevin Thomas Riley's off-key rendition of "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen" from the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "The Naked Time."
{{quote|'''Riley:''' ONE MORE TIME!
'''Kirk:''' [[Oh, No, Not Again|Please, not again.]] }}
:: Although, to be fair to Riley, he was affected by an alien disease at the time.
* Nick Andolpolis, of ''[[Freaks and Geeks]]''. His audition in the "I'm with the Band" episode is at once one of the funniest and most painful [[Cringe Comedy]] moments on a show that's full of them.
* ''[[Kamen Rider Double]]'' had a one-off character named Jimmy Nakata, a street musician who invented a rock/rap fusion he calls called "spilk"
* Despite ''[[
* When Pierce in ''[[
** Britta herself has an atrocious singing voice, as demonstrated in the Christmas Glee Club episode.
* One sketch in ''Welcome Freshman'' parodied the Prohibition era with student gangsters making bathtub bubblegum. When caught by the teachers, they defeat them by producing violin cases, which they remove violins from, and then play very badly.
* Edith Bunker of ''[[
* ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'' and her two friends decide to form a band...except none of them knows how to play an instrument. Zelda checks on them during practice asking if someone was being strangled. Sabrina then has to resort to using Bottled Talent to make them better.
* Jimmy's band in ''[[True Jackson, VP
* ''[[
* Arnie Dogen on ''[[
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* The titular character of ''[[Andy Capp]]'' butchers [[The Beatles (band)|the Beatles]] [https://www.gocomics.com/andycapp/2021/03/23 here].
==
* [[
** Currently there is Jillian Hall who insists to be a great singer, despite commentators and other wrestler telling otherwise.
** And in the early 90's there was the theme song of The Mountie and The Quebecers which was sung by the wrestlers themselves badly.
** Every time the [[Evil Foreigner]] wants to sing his national anthem.
** Heck, even when it's supposed to be a good thing, you have people like Steve Austin, who by his own admission "can't sing worth a damn", singing ''America The Beautiful'' in a duet with Lillian Garcia (who ''can'' sing quite well).
** [[
== [[Radio]] ==
* Every time Jeremy Hardy appears on ''[[I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue]]''. After one particularly painful round of ''One Song to the Tune Of Another'', an audience member shouted "More!" Three others immediately replied "LESS!"
** Naturally, his character in the [[Spin-Off]] sitcom, ''You'll Have Had Your Tea'', is the only one with a singing role. Made funnier since his natural singing talents are combined with an excessivley posh accent and 90s pop songs by Atomic Kitten.
** This trait proves to be useful in "Inverurie Jones and the Thimble of Doom".
{{quote|
'''Dougal:''' Steady on! Steady on, Mrs Naughtie, there's only so much flesh and blood can stand! }}
* Jack Benny on ''[[
== [[Recorded and Stand Up Comedy]] ==
* [[Henny Youngman]].
* Similarly, the British comedian [[Les Dawson]] on the piano. He regularly managed the amazing feat of playing a tune, and not getting a single note right, but ''you could still tell what the tune was''. That's the sort of badness it takes real talent to achieve.
* [[Jack Benny]] was a Dreadful Violinist (in-character; he was a decent violinist in [[Real Life]] but seemed to be bad by trying to play pieces that were too difficult for him). There's a story about his visit to the White House: When he arrived, a Secret Service agent asked him what he was carrying in his violin case. Benny answered that [[Senseless Violins|he had a Thompson submachine gun in there, "the old Chicago typewriter"]]. The agent sighed and said "Thank God, I was afraid you had your violin in there!"
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The fan-made Cacophonic Bard [[Prestige Class]] is for [[Tabletop Games]] fans who want to try out this type of character in a ''[[
=== Card Games ===
* Harpies in ''[[Munchkin (game)|Munchkin]]''. "Their music is really, really bad."
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[
* The fourth boss in ''[[
* Don Mole of ''[[
* ''[[
** Potentially, the Protagonist in ''[[
** Aleph from ''[[
** In the original ''[[Persona (
* In arcade classic ''[[
* This is the entire point of Team Chaotix's Team Blast attack in ''[[
* The piano lady from ''[[Light Crusader]]''.
* Edy Nelson from ''[[
* In ''[[Mabinogi (
* Achmed Khan, in ''[[Backyard Sports
* The ''[[Doom (
** The "Never Gonna Give You Up"-playing boombox has also become part of a ''[[Half-Life (
* A [[Game Mod]] for ''[[
* In ''[[
* Harpy of the ''[[
* One of the Dark Brotherhood's targets in ''[[The Elder Scrolls V
===
* Phoenix Wright in ''[[Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney|Apollo Justice Ace Attorney]]'', who is a pianist who couldn't play a lick of piano {{spoiler|as a cover for his actual job as professional poker player}}. It's frequently mentioned by the main characters that calling him a pianist is an insullt to pianists everywhere, and examining the seat by the piano in the bar he works for will elicit a comment on how it's the most painful seat in the house.
== [[Web Animation]] ==
* Coach Z from ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' is most often portrayed as a Dreadful Musician (who [[Giftedly Bad|overestimates]] his talent or lack thereof), but his [[Piss-Take Rap|Piss Take Raps]] range from [[So Bad It's Good]] to [[Crowning Music of Awesome]], [[Depending on the Writer|depending on the short]].
== [[Web
* Elan from ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' isn't so much a bad musician as an annoying one, who insists on providing lyrics to his bardic music ("[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0041.html Con-cen-trate good times, come on!]"), often at inappropriate times ("[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0004.html Bluff, Bluff, Bluff, Bluff the stupid ogre!]").
* In ''[[Adventurers!]]'', Karn, listening to [[Spoony Bard|Gildward]] perform one of his songs, [https://web.archive.org/web/20130225181055/http://adventurers.keenspot.com/d/0135.html hypothesizes] that its [[Suckiness Is Painful]] enough to damage enemies in combat.
* ''[http://coralwerks.deviantart.com/art/Mersea-01-Warning-Siren-85345719 Mersea]'' #01 got a [[Our Mermaids Are Different|little siren]] whose singing abilities are... unsuitable for the traditional pastime of "luring sailors to their doom". But then, as the later pages show, she's pretty unlucky in general.
* ''[[The Non-Adventures of Wonderella]]''. Wonderita was kidnapped by Hitlerella. "[http://nonadventures.com/2006/10/14/enter-the-dragon-slayer/ ...and then she just ''let me go!'']" Wonderella later had a [http://nonadventures.com/2011/08/13/the-trill-is-gone/ deal] with [[The Little Mermaid|Sea Witch]] - voice for flight powers. She even started with asking "What's in it for ''you''?"... [http://nonadventures.com/2011/12/17/the-treason-for-the-season-part-1/ She can sing. Just need some postprocessing] to sound ''not'' like Michael McDonald.
== [[Web Original]] ==
* In ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'' [[Spin-Off]] ''The Program'', apparently Brigadier General David Adams is one of these, judging by a recent announcement where he randomly bursts into the Star Spangled Banner (the narration specifically states that he wasn't any good).
* While Lindsay can play the piano very well, [[The Nostalgia Chick]] is horrible at it. [[Todd in the Shadows]] was hurt enough by her playing that he gives in and does the crossover review she wanted to do with him.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[Ed, Edd 'n'
** In the episode "Pain in the Ed", Ed is forced to take violin lessons. Even for a beginner he's dreadful, and whenever he plays he produces a bark-peeling, stone-splitting cacophony enjoyed only by [[Cloudcuckoolander]] Johnny Two-By-Four. It's so bad that even the music notes come flying out and smack Eddy in the face. Ed is painfully aware of how bad he is, too.
{{quote|
'''Ed:''' In my mom's dreams, I can! }}
* Tucker Foley in ''[[
* ''[[The Smurfs (
* ''[[The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
* Squidward from ''[[
* Coop of ''[[
* ''[[
** The Robot Devil challenges Fry and Leela to a fiddle contest with a golden fiddle. Fry asks Leela if she can play the fiddle. She says, no, but she used to play drums, and it's pretty much the same. She then proceeds to play appallingly. After the Robot Devil tells her that she lost, she replies
** It's also ''inverted'' with the Robot Devil: Fry points out that a golden fiddle would be excessively heavy for a fiddle ''and;; sound terrible. The Robot Devil concedes that it's more of a style thing than anything else... then proceeds to perform superbly on that same golden fiddle.
** Also, Zapp Brannigan sings so badly that the glass covering the escape pod button shatters before the hand reaches it. He empties an entire restaurant this way in "Amazon Women in the Mood".
** Fry on the holophoner. To be fair, most people are if they don't have robot hands.
* [[Minion with an F In Evil|Señor Senior Jr.]] from ''[[Kim Possible]]'' wants nothing more than to be a pop star singer. Too bad his singing voice is more evil than anything even [[Evil Overlord|Shego]] can dish out.
* ''[[Daria]]'':
** Everyone in Mystik Spiral. Though if you exclude the silly lyrics, "Freakin' Friends" is actually rather competent.
** Jane has also proven to be as talented as her brother in the singing department. When she firsts meets Tom Sloane, she proceeds to purposefully torture him with a horrible rendition of "Old McDonald Had a Farm."
* ''[[
** Cartman's rendition of ''O Holy Night'' is [[Nightmare Fuel|nightmare-inducing]]. His version of ''Poker Face,'' however, is [[Crowning Music of Awesome|a different story.]]
** In the episode "Worldwide Recorder Concert", the kids' recorder playing sounds jumbled and clumsy in act one.
* Hen in the ''[[
* Ninki in the BBC kids' show ''Kerwhizz'' is an enthusiastic singer with a truly horrible singing voice.
{{quote|
'''Kit:''' ''(laughing)'' She's not ill, Boodle, she's singing! }}
* ''[[
* Eddie Storkowitz in an episode of ''[[
* In the ''[[
* Double-subverted by Spencer on ''[[
{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Characters As Device]]
[[Category:Character Flaw Index]]
[[Category:Music Tropes]]
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