Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Sibelius On A Dinner Plate

create a fully functioning micro orchestra
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Tiny replica muscial instruments already exist, but they can't really be played. The idea is to construct the smallest set of fully functioning orchestra instruments possible, but connect them to a variety of pumps, and motors that enable them to be actually played by their respective musicians.

Acheiving this requires the gearing down of the air lines and levers that deliver the movement and power appropriate to each instrument from their human players. The resulting sound is then amplified back up to full orchestra volume.

The extreme version is The Orchestra In A Matchbox.

The irony of the idea is that although the orchestra may now be contained within a dinner plate, an area the size of the Albert hall is now needed to encircle the stage to house the machinery and operator musicians.

xenzag, Aug 21 2021

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       Well spotted
xenzag, Aug 21 2021
  

       So, piezoelectric earphones?
RayfordSteele, Aug 21 2021
  

       No - the whole idea is that real musicians play the instruments via intermedia controls, then the tiny sound is enlarged in the opposite direction from the scaling down.
xenzag, Aug 21 2021
  

       [+] for whimsy. in principle this miniaturization and remote operation could be achieved much more easily with electronic equipment, but that would be much less whimsical.
sninctown, Aug 21 2021
  

       Amplification would not help the fact that they would be inaudibly ultrasonic.   

       Also I think they would sound awful, because musical instrument functioning components scale at different rates; strings scale linearly, soundboards and vibrating membranes scale as the square of length, and enclosed airspaces and masses scale as the cube of the linear rate. Or the other way round <scratches head with pen, realises can't read equasions written on own scalp>
pocmloc, Aug 21 2021
  
      
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