John_Stone Report This Comment
Date: March 01, 2006 03:40AM


Athanasius Kircher first described the cat piano in his landmark 1650 work Musurgia Universalis.

In order to raise the spirits of an Italian prince burdened by the cares of his position, a musician created for him a cat piano. The musician selected cats whose natural voices were at different pitches and arranged them in cages side by side, so that when a key on the piano was depressed, a mechanism drove a sharp spike into the appropriate cat’s tail. The result was a melody of meows that became more vigorous as the cats became more desperate. Who could not help but laugh at such music? Thus was the prince raised from his melancholy.

cesiuminjector Report This Comment
Date: March 01, 2006 04:37AM

awesome - i need to learn to play this instrument

Anonymous Report This Comment
Date: March 01, 2006 08:19AM

What a cunt

Anonymous Report This Comment
Date: March 01, 2006 12:11PM

John Stone... MASTER OF OBSCURE INFORMATION

John_Stone Report This Comment
Date: March 01, 2006 04:39PM

The world (and universe) is much weirder that you or I can possibly imagine.

Anonymous Report This Comment
Date: March 01, 2006 05:08PM

indeed