February 22, 2006
The Cat Piano
I find this funny but cruel.. of course only more than 350 yrs ago... so old.. although interesting use of cats as primitive technology in music...
snagged from Gizmodo: The Cat Piano:
Chill out, PETA. The cat piano was the work of a German scholar over 350 years ago. Athanasius Kircher designed the cat piano and documented it in the Musurgia Universalis in 1650. The piano was designed to raise the spirits of an Italian prince who was too stressed out. The musician would select cats whose voices were at different pitches then arrange them in the pens accordingly. The piano delivered sharp pokes into the tails of the cats. Cruel? Definitely. Funny? Yeah, a little bit.
The Cat Piano [We-make-money]
Posted by Boult at February 22, 2006 9:20 AM
