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The French horn is an amazingly versatile instrument, which can easily sound noble, martial, playful, mournful, sweet, and downright wrathful - and if you don't believe that last, I invite you to listen to the Light Cavalry overture where the horns echo the trumpets' opening fanfare. A good horn section is a mighty musical force.

On the other hand, and speaking as a clarinetist, tympani are hell of fun to play.

(I'd say full chorus, symphony orchestra, etc. but that's cheating a bit too much.)

Stylophone.

Seriously though, the guitar. It's the instrument that utterly captured my imagination and thrust me into music. You can have delicate but atmospheric acoustic interludes, throaty humbucker roar, weeping slide tones, full-out screaming and everything in between.

I also love the sound of pan pipes, violin, saxophone, piano and the tremolo harmonica. I'm also beginning to take up recorder again, to have an extra instrument for my songs. Wooden recorders especially have a very pure, whistling sound, which I quite fancy.

Voice. Because no other instrument even comes close to the influence and effect that vocal music has. Solo, choir, small ensemble, whatever. Voice wins.

However, as an oboe player, I have to add the obligatory self-congratulating. Oboes have all the cool sad solos. And if the oboe doesn't have it, the english horn does, and guess who gets to play the english horn? The oboist. Yeah, we're pretty awesome.

I going to have to second voice, especially those in foreign tounges.

I loved choir, and the foreign pieces we did were amazing. Vivaldi's Gloria (in latin) and Selig sind die Toten (German, lit. Blessed are the Dead) by Heinrich Schutz come to mind.

No particular order: Bagpipes. Trumpet. Strings.

I would like to hear a Thermin in action as well, but I haven't found any recordings.

Piano. It's got a complexity and versatility that's hard to find among other instruments. It's also self-sufficient: other instruments need a piano to accompany them, but the piano obviously doesn't I also think that the classical repertoire of solo piano music is more extensive and generally better than solo stuff for any other instrument, but I might be wrong.

I played the trumpet once upon a time, and now I can't understand how anyone can play an instrument which can only play one note at a time, and not get horribly bored. It's the piano for me, thanks.

I've played the trombone since I was eight, so I'm a bit biased. I also really like the theremin, and hope to one day own one.

I'm partial to the haunting tones of a glass armonica.

Actually I like piano and acoustic guitar best, but since I have to choose one and only one, I'll take a piano.

Wish I could play.