Listing to Port

3290 Musical Instruments
 -3290.1 Those that go parp
    –3290.11 Those that are supposed to go parp
       —3290.111 Those that can be played by melodramatic villains or their invisible henchpersons
       —3290.112 Those that do have other uses beside accompanying the purchase of the kitsch of their country of origin, honestly
    –3290.12 Those which are supposed to go parp, but not quite at that point
    –3290.13 Those out of which any parp at all is a surprise
    –3290.14 Those which would not have parped if they had had a more moderate lunch
 -3290.2 Those that go tinkle
    –3290.21 Those that can additionally be modified to launch small mice into space
    –3290.22 Those that can be played by fleeing animals
 -3290.3 Those that go eee-aw-eee-aw
    –3290.31 Those containing one or more donkeys
       —3290.311 Those in which donkeys are intentionally part of the musical apparatus
       —3290.312 Those which are intended to be powered by the effort of silent donkeys, but the donkeys had other ideas
    –3290.32 Those being practiced by small children
 -3290.4 Those that go squeak
    –3290.41 Instruments that are very small
       —3290.411 The legit world’s smallest violin
       —3290.412 Mouse choirs
    –3290.42 Instruments that are very full of helium
       —3290.421 Those that are being used to transport an insect orchestra to or from the Albert Hall
    –3290.43 Instruments that are very scared
       —3290.431 Those that have stage fright
       —3290.432 Those that are made of vegetables or ice and are about to be consumed by the audience that initially seemed so welcoming
 -3290.5 Those that go bong bong bong
    –3290.51 Those that can be lived in when not in musical use
    –3290.52 Those that are part of clocks
 -3290.6 Those that go twaaaang
    –3290.61 Those that go twaang four or more times and are then mercifully silent
    –3290.62 Those that you can both fire arrows from and use as a shield during the orchestra’s last stand
    –3290.63 Those that refuse to be put into a small car
       —3290.631 Those into which a small car can be inserted
          —3290.6311 Those that sound better after the insertion of a small car
 -3290.7 Those that go thnorp-thnorp-blaaagle-waaaah-sponggg
    –3290.71 Followed by ‘Sorry’
    –3290.72 Followed by 'Oh yeahhh!’
 -3290.8 Those that can be induced to make more than one of the above noises
 -3290.9 Other (unspecified)

Sanderson’s Surprise Organ
Devised for the jaded, sensation-seeking musical palates of the twenty-second century, Sanderson’s Surprise Organ resembles a standard, if over-ornate, pipe organ in nearly all respects. The organist is never informed beforehand if it is Sanderson’s instrument they are to play; its location is kept a closely-guarded secret and audiences are secretively prearranged. Charlotte Sanderson (later Dame Charlotte), the organ’s manufacturer, was a well-known sadist and Bach enthusiast. As well as the organ’s more usual features, she included a number of hidden functions, including: a hidden hammer which pops out and hits the organist on the knee; a pipe delivering a blast of cold water to the genital region; a retractable seat; a fire ant dispenser; and a compartment which can swing open to release a small and excitable dog. There exist a number of so-called ‘Sanderson scores’ wherein a second performer can operate the extra features from a safe distance at given points in the piece, to the amusement and delight of the audience. The rare organists who have survived a bout with Sanderson’s Organ to finish the piece originally started have won considerable fame and fortune, and are known collectively as the Sanderson Club. Their annual dinner, held at the floating gardens in New York, is a major press event.  

The New Earth Victorian Choir
Founded on the Venusian colony New Earth in 3830, the Victorian Choir consisted entirely of clones of Queen Victoria. This unusual situation came about after it was discovered that the colony’s vat birth centre director, having obtained a lock of Victoria’s hair and certain dreams and obsessions, had seeded the entirety of three years’ female clone stock with Victoria’s genes. The colony took the unusual step of supplying musical therapy to the little Victorias en masse, whereupon it turned out that they shared a fondness for singing in public. In later years, they formed a choir which was one of the foremost proponents of neo-Venusian soft punk, and undertook a solar system-wide tour which included the first live performance in Tokyo since the Great Sinking.

457XB Junker
For a small extra fee, prospectors seeking to scrap a solar-class or smaller size spaceship in the late 6700s can crash it into the geoengineered asteroid 457XB Junker, which lies in the second asteroid belt of HD 189733 A. The resulting sounds (consisting of various explosions as well as the highly resonant response of the asteroid’s surface) are beamed out into space via a powerful systemwide livelink and can be picked up by all sentient beings in the vicinity. Fans of the asteroid’s output usually make the tour out to listen and watch simultaneously in one of several nearby hotel space stations. Interestingly, in 6755 one of these space stations itself crashed into 457XB Junker, permanently damaging the surface but producing (according to aficionados of that sort of thing) the most amazing sound in the history of the Universe.

The Subliminal Noise Ensemble
The subliminal noise ensemble is a long-term project attributable to certain members of the global illuminati, needing (as it does) unparallelled access to global advertising and content creation and sophisticated location projection software to pull off.  The first performance (unknown to the participants) was scheduled for January 21st, 2440. For some three hundred years before that point, the ensemble’s secretive directors had been placing subliminal hints in various media sources aimed at the participants and their ancestors, with the aim of bringing together exactly the right people at the right time. In the last few years before the performance, the focus switched from ancestry and location to speech and sounds, with the aim of planting phrases, noises and exclamations of various sorts in the minds of the ensemble. On the day itself, the members of the ensemble fund themselves unconsciously drawn to central Almaty, where for thirty minutes, quite unaware, they made a series of utterances exquisitely timed and tuned to each other, which (to the audience of thirty listeners) represented the sublime culmination of centuries of work. Then they went home, with a vague sense that something important had happened, though they could not quite say what, and lived the rest of their lives under only the normal sort of subliminal influences. After this time, it is believed that the work of the subliminal noise ensemble continued with a focus on further performances, but with greater secrecy (perhaps due to a wider focus or more sophisticated methods?).