List of fictional musical instruments

In the Dune universe, the baliset is a very long nine-stringed zither. In the 1984 film Dune, the baliset role is filled by a cosmetically altered Chapman stick.[1]

The Gaffophone is an instrument invented by Gaston Lagaffe in André Franquin's eponymous comics series. It looks like a giant harp with a large horn attached to it and is known for making atrocious noise that makes people and animals run away and buildings collapse. Franquin used it in numerous gags.[2]

In the Redwall series of fantasy books, the harolina is a type of stringed instrument played by the anthropomorphic hares of the series.[3]

In the animated series Futurama, the holophonor, played by Fry, is based on the Visi-Sonor and appears in episodes "Parasites Lost" and "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings"

In the Star Trek universe, the ressikan flute is a musical instrument played by Captain Picard. The instrument is an artifact discovered on a probe sent out by the former residents of Kataan.[4]

The Visi-Sonor appears in the Isaac Asimov book Foundation and Empire. The fictional musical instrument stimulates brain cells and causes imagined lights, sounds and emotions directly:

"His long fingers caressed softly and slowly, pressing lightly on contacts with a rippling motion, resting themselves momentarily on one key then another – and in the air before them there was a soft glowing rosiness, just inside the range of vision."

With the Mule's great power, the Visi-Sonor became a killing device later in the book.[5]