Most boring:
The prize here might go to the John Cage composition 4’33, which consists of no notes, not played for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. But at least it’s over quickly. The longest musical composition is Vexations, by Erik Satie, which consists of an 180-note passage repeated 840 times, for a total duration of 18 hours 40 minutes. When it was first performed in New York in 1963 by a relay team of 10 pianists, only six members of the audience stayed until the end: one stood up and demanded “Encore!”
Epic anthems:
The longest national anthem in the world is the Greek anthem, with 158 verses, while the shortest is the Japanese anthem, just four lines long. The longest performance of a national anthem was Britain’s God Save the King, which was played 17 times in a row by a German military band on a train platform in 1909, as the visiting King Edward VII struggled to change into a ceremonial uniform inside his train carriage.
Early electronica:
One of the earliest electronic instruments, developed by Russian inventor Léon Theremin in 1919, the Theremin remains one of the strangest. The performer plays without touching the instrument, but by moving their arms and hands between its two radio antennas. The twangy, twisting sound became popular as a “futuristic” effect in sci-fi movies, and Jimmy Page used a Theremin in several Led Zeppelin songs.
Goat pipes:
Today bagpipes are associated with Scotland, but it’s thought they originated in the Middle East: A 2,000 year old set of bagpipes was recently unearthed in Greece. In parts of south-eastern Europe, bagpipes may still be found in the form of gaida, which are made from the skin of a goat or a sheep – often with the hooves and head of the unfortunate animal still attached.
Real rock music:
The largest musical instrument in the world is the Great Stalacpipe Organ, which covers several square kilometres of limestone caverns in the US state of Virginia. The stalactites of the caverns resonate when stuck by rubber-tipped mallets, which are controlled electronically by a central keyboard and console. First played in the 1950s, the Stalacpipe Organ was restored in 2011.