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Andrew Bird’s new album Break It Yourself is out this week, and while we’ve never been huge fans of the whistlin’ violin-totin’ Midwesterner, we certainly appreciate the diversity of his talents. Bird is one of the most impressive multi-instrumentalists in music today, and with both he and another musician who can apparently play pretty much anything he picks up — namely Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood — releasing new music this week, we thought it’d be a fine time to survey a selection of similarly outrageous talents. We’ve tended to focus on contemporary musicians here — after all, it gets a little tiresome to hear about Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, and John Paul Jones all the time — so let us know if you have any other suggestions.

Sufjan Stevens

Stevens’ talents cover pretty much every seat in the orchestra. He plays stringed instruments (guitar, bass, banjo), along with piano, a range of wind and brass, drums and anything else he can get his hands on — the liner notes for Michigan credit him for over 20 instruments, including something called “dramatic cymbal swells.” Because, y’know, what record doesn’t need some dramatic cymbal swells?