A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays a number of different instruments.

Music written for symphony orchestra usually calls for a percussion section featuring a number of musicians who might each play a variety of different instruments during a performance. Orchestras will also often, but not always, call for several members of the woodwind section to be multi-instrumentalists. This is sometimes referred to as doubling. Typically, for example, one flute player in the orchestra will switch to playing the piccolo or alto flute when called to by the score. Similarly, clarinet players may double on bass clarinet, oboe players on cor anglais, and bassoon players on contrabassoon. Trumpet players may switch to piccolo trumpet for certain Baroque literature, and first trombone players may switch to alto trombone. Doubling elsewhere in the orchestra is rare.

The European Piffari, Stadtpfeifer and Waits were multi-instrumentalists, who played trumpet, sackbut, shawm, cornett, recorder and string-instruments. Musicians with an education of a Stadtpfeifer were Gottfried Reiche,Johann Joachim Quantz, Johann Christof Pezel and Sigmund Theophil Staden. Also many European church musicians of the 17th and 18th centuries were multi-instrumentalists, who played several instruments. Georg Philipp Telemann for example played violin, viola da gamba, recorder, flauto traverso, oboe, shawm, sackbut and double bass. A contemporary multi-instrumentalist is the German kantor Helmut Kickton who performs church music on organ, violin, viola, cello, double bass, recorder, euphonium, guitar and kettledrums. More recently, German violinst Julia Fischer has also been credited with and acclaimed for being an excellent pianist as well, which is demonstrated in her late recordings of several renowned classical piano pieces.

Man are a rock band from South Wales whose style is a mixture of West Coast psychedelia, progressive rock, blues and country-rock. Formed in 1968 as a reincarnation of Welsh rock harmony group ‘’The Bystanders’’, Man are renowned for the extended jams in their live performances, and having had numerous line up changes.

Man evolved out of The Bystanders, a successful close harmony pop group from Merthyr Tydfil who played numerous club residencies in Wales, often playing several clubs a night. The Bystanders issued eight singles, including "98.6" (#45 in UK Singles Chart, in February 1967) which featured in the 2009 film, The Boat That Rocked (although Keith's version was the bigger hit, reaching #24 in the UK) and "When Jesamine Goes", written by their manager Ronnie Scott and Marty Wilde under the pseudonyms of Frere Manston and Jack Gellar, which was later covered by The Casuals as "Jesamine" and got to #2 in the UK Chart. They also recorded sessions of cover versions for the BBC as rules restricting needle time required "live" performances between the records during the 1960s; becoming regulars on the ’’Jimmy Young Show’’, "The David Symonds Show" and others.

Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s. Among the array of instruments he plays are the flute; the sopranino, soprano, C-melody, F mezzo-soprano, E-flat alto, baritone, bass, and contrabass saxophones; and the E-flat, B-flat, and contrabass clarinets.

Braxton studied philosophy at Roosevelt University. He has taught at Mills College and as of 2012 is Professor of Music at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, teaching music composition, music history, and improvisation.

Early in his career, Braxton led a trio with violinist Leroy Jenkins and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and was involved with The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the "AACM", founded in Chicago, Braxton's birthplace.

In 1968, Braxton recorded the double LP For Alto. There had been occasional unaccompanied saxophone recordings previously (notably Coleman Hawkins' "Picasso"), but For Alto was the first full-length album for unaccompanied saxophone. The album's songs were dedicated to Cecil Taylor and John Cage, among others. The album influenced other artists like Steve Lacy (soprano sax) and George Lewis (trombone), who would go on to record their own acclaimed solo albums.