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Welcome to the 2009 edition of the NAMM Oddities

Having suffered a knee injury in December, I was wondering how I was going to pull off the multi-day death march that's required for researching the NAMM Oddities. With the aid of a knee brace, I was able to soldier on.

You'll find that the Oddities are a little smaller this year. There are two reasons for this. The first is that I intended to be a little more selective this year in what I covered. The other is that the show had slightly fewer exhibitors. This was most apparent in the treasure trove of Oddities, Hall E. I suspect that the economic downturn had a direct effect on some startups that may have decided on a wait-and-see strategy.

All that aside, there were still substantial servings of Oddities to be consumed, digested, and presented here for your viewing pleasure.

-Barry

Oddity of the Year

In conjunction with the Museum of Making Music, the NAMM Oddities are pleased to present the Oddity of the Year.

This year's winner is the innovative guitar neck produced by True Temperament AB in Sweden.

You can read more about them here.

A brief history of the NAMM Oddities…

After attending the Winter NAMM show for a number of years, I'd noticed that the exhibitors seem to fall into two categories: the established company showing its new (and sometimes vaporous) products and the independent start-up company looking to be noticed by distributors, music stores, potential investors and the music press.

It seemed that every year I spent more of my NAMM time checking out the various small companies that got stashed in some dark corner of the show. Many of the products from these companies were never seen by the average visitor, sometimes because they only appealed to a small market, or because most people simply couldn't figure out what the hell they were supposed to do.

That isn't to say that these products are ill-conceived or poorly executed. It's just that sometimes they're, well, a little odd. This situation made me think that there ought to be a place for people to come to marvel and wonder at all of these products. Thus, the NAMM Oddities were born.