Inventor Discovers his Invention is Already Invented

One of the funniest things that ever happened to me when I was teaching a piano lesson was a couple of years ago when Hayden as a dreamy, inventive ten year old said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if somebody made a piano that had a machine on it, that you could put in a disk and punch a button then it would play by itself, and the keys would go down with every note that would play?” I was incredulous at my good fortune. “You mean like this?” I turned a machine under my piano on, pushed in a disk, punched a button, the piano started to play itself and the keys went down with every note that played. Hayden’s expression at my response to his far-out imaginative flight was elevating! I don’t usually find myself laughing at students, but this was too much for me, and he was too astonished to laugh with me at first!