The Paranormal Piano Player
The other evening I was watching a Yamaha player piano performing by itself in a hotel foyer. For anyone unfamiliar with these marvels, a player piano is an automated real piano with a mechanism to work the keys and pedals. Watching it play happily to itself, it's quite easy to imagine an invisible pianist on the ivories, giving it big licks. Quite easy, but what makes the illusion not wholly convincing is the impassive appearance of the piano stool. Shouldn't there be a buttock-shaped indent on the stool? And shouldn't it also be animated, rolling slightly to the right as our phantom player reaches for the top octave, or leftward for bass passages? Shouldn't the thigh dents mirror the pedal work? And finally, performance over, shouldn't the indent level out as our maestro gets up to take his bow? Did I say 'his'? While not wishing to be indelicate, surely the stool could be programmed to mimic the imprint and movement of male or female bums of different si