MUSIC

The GUE's musical heritage goes back to the very earliest years of the Great Underground Empire. Zilbo III, the last ruler of the Entharion Dynasty, who is most known for his invention of the card game Double Fanucci, is also the inventor of the brass Trombuoy, and wrote several sonatas for Trombuoy and Danvictorhorn.

For the royal elite, classical styles of music were in vogue. In 732 GUE the Frobozz Philharmonic Orchestra was formed. Because of the woeful lack of orchestral music in existence, the FPO usually settled for playing baroque versions of old folk tunes and popular dance numbers. Seven years later, the FPO performed their first symphony. The piece was notable because of the age of its author, a precocious eleven-year-old named Johann Sebastian Flathead.

As the years went by, the history of the FPO, and of classical music itself, became more and more entwined with the life of Johann himself. The public attendance of the FPO mysteriously declined as Johann's symphonies increased in length. Now considered to be the definitive piece in classical music, his Symphony #981, the so-called Infinite Symphony, contained over 60,000 movements; over the course of its only performance, several members of the orchestra retired and were replaced by their children or grandchildren.

The most famous of his works is the "Toccata and Fugue and Theme and Variations, Opus No. 69105", commissioned by his cousin, Lord Dimwit the Excessive. The piece was only performed once in its entirety, in 787. Legend has it that several members of the 98,000-piece royal orchestra, chorus, corps de ballet, artillery battery, fireworks brigade, and smoke effects crew failed to survive the eighty-seven day ordeal.

Eventually, classical music moved out of the concert hall and into nature. Johann spent his later years composing music for ever more grandiose instruments, such as his Concerto for Woodwinds and Waterfalls. Johann was killed in 789 when a mishap during a rehearsal of his Minuet for Violin and Volcano. Fatalities like this probably explain the general decline in popularity of classical music.

[[SPEAK ABOUT CONSERVATORY, ETC]]



ROCK MUSIC
The most popular music among the masses of the Great Underground Empire was a type known as rock music, so-called because it was produced by banging together rocks (which were left lying all over the place following the construction of the caverns and tunnels of the Great Underground Empire) and also because listeners frequently stuffed rocks in their ears due to the loud volumes involved.

The origins of the Great Underground Empire's rock music can be traced to the legendary singer Elvis Flathead, whose first concert in 841 propelled him to stardom. For years following this concert, fans would flock to see "the King" sway back and forth to smash hits such as "You Ain't Nothing But a Hellhound," and "Love Is Blind."

However, the most famous rock musicians were undoubtedly Sgt. Duffy's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Their songs include "I Get By With a Little Hint From My Friends" ("Would you be mad if I showed you a bug/Would you stand up and log out on me?") and "Sandy Cave" ("Sandy Cave is in my ears and in my eyes/There beneath the Frigid River skies").

A later addition to the Great Underground Empire's rock music scene was a group called Men at Zork, whose hit song "Down Under" revitalized interest in the medium ("So you come from a land down under/Where trolls kill and thieves plunder").

Another popular rock artist was Billy Troll. Other important rock musicians of the Great Underground Empire were a group named Jefferson Bucket (later re-named Jefferson Balloon) and a cute robot named Pink Floyd.

Naturally, Elvis imitators still abound today; and those aspiring stars who cannot sing quite as well as Elvis did can be found in Borphee every winter, where the hills come alive with the sounds of the most dreadful singers in the Kingdom. This event, aptly named The From Bad to Worst Songfest, allows those truly terrible singers to gain recognition while vying for the much-coveted prize of a pair of 18K gold earplugs.

The following is a list of several holiday tunes likely to be performed during
that Songfest:






"GUE Rag"

Flathead Five
Elvis Flathead


The four other instruments of Zork - the Verni, the Oomba, the Bass Chokophone, and the Piano - are not considered part of the Frobozz Philharmonic Orchestra. However, these instruments are popular within the Empire's alternative music scene, which includes such groups as "The Cruel Puppets", "Grue in Chains", "Curse Day" and "Sounddungeon."  "Stung"


SOURCE(S): X