Kircher’s Cat Piano
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.
From one of our favorite books, with several chapters on Kircher’s inventions, Instruments and the Imagination, by Thomas Hankins and Robert Silverman.
February 21st, 2006 at 10:14 am
In the same idea there is the Intelligent MIDI Sequencing with Hamster Control
http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/eceprojectsland/STUDENTPROJ/2002to2003/lil2/
This blog aggregates experiments in art and organisms :
http://works.music.columbia.edu/organism
I’m personnaly developping different projects of toys that combines organisms ( plants ) and electric machines, if you are developing such projects, don’t hesitate to contact me.
Cheers,
j*b
February 21st, 2006 at 11:40 am
[...] Arthur Ewing and his Musical Mice kennt ja jeder, Arthur Ewing and his Musical Cats aber nicht! [...]
February 21st, 2006 at 12:04 pm
[...] The Cat Piano [...]
February 21st, 2006 at 12:08 pm
[...] Se qualcuno realizza un Cat Piano me lo dica, per cortesia. 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. (The Kircher Society) [...]
February 21st, 2006 at 1:33 pm
Heh, good find. Now we have some idea as to where the Monty Python team got the idea for the ‘mouse organ’ sketch…
VelcroCityTouristBoard
February 21st, 2006 at 1:37 pm
[...] Aquí se puede ver un piano que usaba gatos para emitir las notas, cruelmente. me recordó automáticamente a Monty Python y su sketch de el “Ratones Musicales”, uno de sus mejores (video-remix del sketch aquí). [via] [...]
February 21st, 2006 at 6:48 pm
[...] information [...]
February 21st, 2006 at 6:49 pm
[...] entertainment [...]
February 21st, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Anyone who thinks this is amusing is a piece of garbage who genitals should be mangled.
February 21st, 2006 at 9:38 pm
[...] The Athanasius Kircher Society, chartered to explorethe wondrous, the singular, the esoteric, the obsessive, the arcane, and the sometimes hazy frontier between the plausible and the implausible, brings news of the Cat Piano: [...]
February 22nd, 2006 at 5:12 am
[...] Kaviar-Doping • HomePub • Bierdeckel-KunstEndlos-Zoom • GorillaPod • künstliche KatzenkralleKatzen-Klavier • Music Animation Machine • Pedal for the MedalES-Fan-Board (privat) [...]
February 22nd, 2006 at 8:05 am
[...] blueproject.net Kircher’s Cat PianoThe concept is so cruel, yet strangely funny. Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society » Blog Archive » Kircher’s Cat Piano [...]
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:21 am
>>Anyone who thinks this is amusing is a piece of garbage who genitals should be mangled.
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:30 am
[...] – to tide you over for the next month: a cat piano (via), Pugs in Hats (via), a monkey song, the growing Wall Ball menace, the travels of Nate the Sock Monkey, a zombie donkey in shirt form, a site that will smash your heart into wee little pieces, famous monkeys through history, and a Lego boom-stick wielder — ration that out, people. It has to last you a month – [...]
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:11 pm
what the hell were these people thinking? is it not more funny to see a man get kicked in the balls while blindfolded? tisk, tisk, tisk.
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Very Interesting and quite cruel. Humans can sure be a disgusting species.
February 22nd, 2006 at 5:27 pm
[...] The Cat Piano 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. [...]
February 23rd, 2006 at 5:50 pm
[...] Music in the key of Cat-sharp [...]
February 24th, 2006 at 2:16 am
Anyone who would mangle a person’s genitals is far more reprehensible.
February 24th, 2006 at 4:09 am
[...] Katzenjammer [...]
February 24th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Westerners in the early modern period liked to torture cats, for historically contingent reasons — see Robert Darnton’s _The Great Cat Massacre_, in which French artisans dressed cats as monks and then burned them. They thought it was hilarious (the artisans, that is). Times have changed, and perhaps there is such a thing as progress.
February 25th, 2006 at 4:17 am
For all those comments regarding how “displeased” they are with the idea… get over it. i am sick of hearing people whine and get angry over something when it involves a cute animal. i don’t see enough people complain about the many social injustices of the world but when it involves a furry creature all hell breaks loose in these people’s mind. jeesh!
February 25th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
>
Yes indeed…thus the premise and success of American Idol.
February 25th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
“Humans can sure be a disgusting species.”…was supposed to preface my above comment:
Yes indeed….thus the premise and success of American Idol.
February 26th, 2006 at 12:55 am
Anyone who would mangle a person’s genitals is far more reprehensible.
Right, Dr. Frist! Because cats are, you know, defenseless, and it’s far less reprehensible to torture defenseless animals than to hurt a poor widdle torturer-man’s genitals. A man who, by the way, has opposable thumbs, and can fire a gun, swing an ax, throw a punch, etc. He is clearly deserving more consideration, care, and concern than any evil devil-cats, who prey on young children, stealing their breath while they sleep! Spikes in their tails, all of them! Ha ha ha! And a hanging in the morning for anyone caught mangling the genitals of the sweet, kind, morally sound, right-thinking kitty-torturer!
February 26th, 2006 at 1:05 am
i don’t see enough people complain about the many social injustices of the world but when it involves a furry creature all hell breaks loose in these people’s mind. jeesh!
Yeah, I’ve never heard anybody complain about social injustice! What a novel idea! You know, somebody ought to start a political party or something. We could call it the “Green Party” or somesuch. Hell, Ralph Nader’s not really doing anything anymore (the seat belt thing is pretty much over) - I bet he’d run for office on the party ticket! Maybe even for PRESIDENT!
Hell, college campuses would be a perfect petri dish for this daring experiment in complaining! It will be difficult at first, because (as you all know) college students are known for quick, decisive action, and do not typically just sit around and complain about “the world” as if it is out of their control and out of their reach. We need to CONVINCE them that the best course of action is definitely the LATTER! Direct action never accomplished anything. Complaining, on the other hand… well, I don’t think I need to tell you how DEVESTATINGLY EFFECTIVE sitting around and carping can be!
I think what the world needs now is more people complaining about social injustice, as everyone knows that complaining is all that is required to solve the complex and often horrifying consequences of emerging globalized free markets. So get to it people! Maybe some of you should start BLOGS dedicated to this complaining! God, I should get a Nobel Peace Prize or a Pulitzer or a Peabody or something.
February 26th, 2006 at 6:03 pm
miau!
February 27th, 2006 at 11:25 am
I doubt the veracity of this story. Firstly, the engraving pictured is from the 1800s (women playing instruments was frowned upon until the early 1800s, and feminine hands would be an unlikely choice in an illustration prior to the early 19th century. - also, woodcuts of this type were not widely practiced or in vogue until the 1800s). Secondly, the piano was not invented until the mid 18th century. The word ‘piano’ did not come around until Mozart’s time, some 100+ years after the indicated date of this writing. The first keyed instrument related to what we know as a ‘piano’ wasn’t seen until 1700 in the menagerie of the Medicis.
So there.
February 27th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Well, which was it? Either the quote attributed above to the year 1650 used the term “piano” - or it didn’t. So the story is either bogus - or not. Surely an Italian is not capable of such savagery. . . the Italians invented Nutella, you know. . .
February 27th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
[...] http://www.kirchersociety.org/blog/?p=116 [...]
February 28th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
What history truly needs is an Italian Prince piano where, with a sharp poke in the asses of certain italian princes, we can hear them recite their notions of how to achieve power and wealth.
February 28th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
It really is a sick thing to even imagine, not funny at all. It doesn’t matter if they’re cute kitties or horrible disfigured savage reptile beasts, it’s just a cruel idea to torture a living thing purely for entertainment. I actually think that most people would agree that this is a sick and upsetting idea. There’s no need to even bring the treatment of humans into the discussion, this is purely a matter of what boundaries you set with respect to the humane treatment of animals.
February 28th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
I think we should line up the scumbags in power — all around the world — and put them in a similar contraption. I’m sure they’d make some really fascinating sounds.
Seriously, who’s the lame-brain who says that there’s only moral outrage when it comes to fuzzy animals? That’s pathetic. Wake up & read a book.
I’m usually more partial to animals than people. People give animals a bad name, being warm-blooded and all.
Dr. Filth is disgusted with all of you.
February 28th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
[...] “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.” [...]
February 28th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
dude this is f’in awesome! we got three cats at my house na dwe are gonna try and rig this up but not with spikes of course we gotta figure out way to do it where they dobn’t get hurt too much
February 28th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Kircher is actually getting his facts (slightly) wrong. He is describing a section of the tavelogue about Spanish Prince Philip II’s journeys in the Netherlands and Italy in 1548-49, published by his chronicler Juan Christoval Calvete in 1552. Prince Philip II was famous for being melancholy, and upon seeing a festival procession in Italy where a performer had a “Cat Organ” (aka. “Cat Piano”) he is said to have laughed and had his melancholia lift.
[The source is: Juan Christoval Calvete de Estrella, El Felicissimo Viaje d'el Muy Alto y Muy Poderoso Principe Don Phelippe ... (Antwerp: Martin Nucio, 1552).]
February 28th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
“dude this is f’in awesome! we got three cats at my house na dwe are gonna try and rig this up but not with spikes of course we gotta figure out way to do it where they dobn’t get hurt too much”
I know it’s a troll but, dude, join the year 2006. Get an ipod or a tape recorder or something, people have been doing this for years. http://www.jinglecats.com/
February 28th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
NO DUDE YOU GET AN IPOD
CATS FOREVER
February 28th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
How cruel! It’s sad to know people are mean. Then again, we know what people do to each other. Unfortunately, cruel to animals is not a thing of the past.
February 28th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
[...] Even though we have enough for half a scale, I’m not sure this is a good use of our cats [via].  It seems rather cruel. [...]
February 28th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
A 1922 essay on the history of the ‘cat organ’ in its various incarnations from the 16th century onwards.
“Either the quote attributed above to the year 1650 used the term “piano” - or it didn’t.”
Or, y’know, it was in Latin and badly translated.
February 28th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
[...] Read more here. [...]
February 28th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Hey Christina, are you suggesting that cruelty to humans /is/ a thing of the past? I think you better pick up a newspaper. Better yet, take a good look at where your tax dollars are being spent.
February 28th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Well anyone I would see do ANYTHING harmful to a cat would be harmed himself by me. If you think this is funny, you should check into a therapist’s office as you have probably been raped and or sodimized by your father as a child.
February 28th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
LOL look @ that cat ont he end he’s just like WTF
February 28th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Anyone who thinks this is funny is SICK. If I see anyone harming a cat, I WILL personally attack that person and dedicate my various resources to inflict serious harm onto that person. Come knock on my door and let’s talk about this if you think you can hang being mean to cats, come be mean to me in person. Gary
February 28th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
“if you think you can hang being mean to cats”
OK maverick, get brutal on my ass… waste me
February 28th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Oh, for goodness sakes get over yourselves.
It’s funnneeeeeeee.
Funny, funny, funnnnneeeeeeeeeee.
dammit
February 28th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Anyone have a schematic for that?
February 28th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
I have been allergic to cats since the day I was born. Hell I’ve spent time in the hospital in an oxygen tent I’m so allergic to the critters. I’ve been known to say that “cats and microwave ovens are made for each other.” Do I actually believe that? No. Would I actually ever hurt a cat? No. That’d be cruel, and disturbing. However it doesn’t keep the the cat piano from being funny. It is such a bizzare concept - and in truth it’s highly unlikely anyone anywhere actually built one of the things - that you can’t help but laugh at it. If you find it offensive, surf on to something else. The real sign of sickness here is to threaten people with physical violence because they don’t share your sense of humour. So please relax, perhaps go rent “The Aristocrats” (not -cats).
February 28th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
[...] http://www.kirchersociety.org/blog/?p=116 [...]
February 28th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
[...] Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society » Blog Archive » Kircher’s Cat Piano 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. [...]
February 28th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
In my attempts to recreate this i have shot several cats in the head with a 22 rifle. While very satisfying, not very musical.
February 28th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
‘Anyone who thinks this is amusing is a piece of garbage who genitals should be mangled.’
Dearest Fury,
Shut the hell up, would you? That would be tres perfect. Im sure the people in the time of the no-photographs and monarchies, I’m really sure that they feel bad and don’t want bad karma to get their balls mangled.
Kisses
Catcher
February 28th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
‘Anyone who thinks this is amusing is a piece of garbage who genitals should be mangled.’
Dearest Fury,
Shut the hell up, would you? That would be tres perfect. Im sure the people in the time of the no-photographs and monarchies, I’m really sure that they feel bad and don’t want bad karma to get their balls mangled.
February 28th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
February 28th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
What a bunch of pussies.
February 28th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
I agree that the spike is utterly inhumane. Anyone employing such a method should be scowled at mercilessly by the assorted loonies expressing their outrage above. We should henceforth devote out energies to the discussion of more humane implementations.
Personally I think the spike is too percussive an “actuator”. One would lose the ability to voice subtle tonic variations. I suggest some sort of suppository with a continuously variable insertion, and maybe ribbing (for tremolo).
I wonder if I could get an IgNoble award for researching this?
February 28th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
unhumane? cool, theyre not human
February 28th, 2006 at 8:33 pm
And what’s more, cats are so ineducated they can’t even spell,
inlike some of us
February 28th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
You think this is cruel, you should see the tuning process.
February 28th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
Anyone know if the blueprints for this are still around? Seems like a fun weekend project.
February 28th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
If you’re more worried about people harming animals that people harming people, you’re a bit crazy in the head. I’m not condoning the harming of animals; I have two dogs that I love. Anyone who harms animals for the fun of it is a maladjusted individual, but honestly, it is the sheer impracticality of a cat piano that makes it funny, not the fact that cats are getting spiked in the tails. Have some sense and perspective, and maybe, just maybe, a sense of humor.
February 28th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
I have to agree with dosher….
February 28th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
[...] …my conscious says no, but my love of music says yes! Filed under: Uncategorized Comments: [...]
February 28th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
Yes, I’ll believe that a “cat organ” brought Prince Philip II of Spain out of his melancoly. This is the same Philip II (the dates are right) who ordered auto-da-fes, though he always left after the sermon and before the human bonfires. He was a melancoly Hapsburg with a fair amount of insanity in the family.
Like my dear Senator Frist, he went from cruelty to cats to cruelty to people easily enough.
February 28th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Last I checked, cats were not defenseless. In fact, they have these really sharp claws and teeth. If they bite you, you can even get a nasty infection and die! They also can carry a variety of diseases, which can be harmful to humans and/or other animals. So taking that into consideration, I don’t really see how mutilating genitals is better than harming a cat. If the cat’s genitals were also mutilated, like if the spike was driven into their vagina or testicles, I think there may be some sort of a decent argument there.
I think it’s hilarious that everyone gets all excited about this mistreatment of cats, which occurred nearly FOUR CENTURIES ago. Who really cares if the cats died because of their participation in the cat piano? I mean the cats themselves would already be dead anyways by now. Unless, of course, the cats were in possesion of mystical healing powers and the ability to never die! In fact, something like 40 generations of cats would have been dead by now. Pouting about the cat piano will never change the fact that it already existed. It’s not like some guy just thought this up recently and is now intending to attempt to create it!
Plus, what is the actual purpose of the cat in our world? Feral Cats rarely contribute positively to their environment, since they are usually not native to it. I would think that the cat’s inherent purpose is to provide entertainment to us human beings, either by actual possession of them as pets or by observation of their cuteness (or whatever you’d like to call it). Considering this, human beings devote a lot of energy and resources to the maintenance of these furry little creatures. But the cats themselves do not really apply themselves in returning the favor. The cat spends its life eating, sleeping, licking itself, killing small animals, and pooping indoors. The cat, it seems, could care less about us, as long as it’s basic necessities are provided for. Consider then, does it make any difference to the world if a cat dies of old age as a pet or is part of an innovative musical instrument? Does it even make a difference if the cat is mercilessly slaughtered? I do condone animal cruelty, but I suppose what I am trying to say is that cats do not really contribute much to society. The cat does not think up new inventions. For example, a cat would never be able to think of a “human piano” in a similar fashion. It does not discover new scientific secrets. The cat’s inherent poor mental capacity limits it from achieving such things. It is essentially limited to understanding only its basic needs, and reacting due to its instincts. Yet, on the other hand, Humans are capable of complex mental interactions and also are capable of delivering at least the amount of love that cats do.
Therefore, I think that anyone who argues that they would kill, or in any way harm, someone who hurt a cat is very ignorant. In fact, I would even go so far as to assume that a large number of people who say such things have no problem consuming meat. We slaughter millions of animals in a similar fashion to the cat piano, by driving spikes through their skulls (as opposed to just their tails, which most animals can live without anyways). As such, I encourage these people (who want to hurt humans for hurting animals) to stick to their own beliefs and kill themselves, since they have no problem eating animals were which “cruelly” killed. I also would not like to hear the argument that cows, pigs, etc. are dumb, because certainly they possess much more brainpower than cats. If you do not eat meat and possess this opinion, I appreciate that you are consistent in your thoughts.
March 1st, 2006 at 12:24 am
[...] 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.” How MEAN! (tags: cats) [...]
March 1st, 2006 at 12:52 am
[...] thats right, a cat piano. Not a piano to be played by cats, but rather a piano that utilizes cats in order to play. I’m not much of a cat person, so I think this is hilarious… but apparently so did the italian prince for whom it was built [...]
March 1st, 2006 at 1:29 am
soooo…. we should eat cats? is that what your saying because i think thats what your saying. Im going to go eat a cat
March 1st, 2006 at 7:11 am
[...] Eigentlich ist das schon ganz schön grausam, aber es gefällt mir trotzdem, das Cat Piano [via Kantel]… vielleicht kann man so die vielen Vogelgrippe-kranken Miezekatzen noch einer sinnvollen Verwendung zuführen. Ob es tatsächlich Menschen gibt, die solche Musikinstrumente bauen oder sogar spielen? Bin für jeden Hinweis auf entsprechende mp3-Dateien dankbar. Naja, heutzutage müsste man die Miez ja bloß samplen und pitchen, aber das Original ist schon cooler. [...]
March 1st, 2006 at 8:01 am
Que viejo mas hijueputa!!! A quien se le ocurre hacer semejante crueldad con los inocentes gatitos!?!?! Por que putas no se puso el mismo en la jaula para que le pincharan su culo? Y todo por entretener al principe imbecil, quizas el muy bastardo no tenia inteligencia suficiente para entretenerse con otras cosas.
March 1st, 2006 at 8:09 am
If only they were bonzai kittens.
March 1st, 2006 at 8:46 am
haha stupid cats get what they deserve
March 1st, 2006 at 8:56 am
They should make one of these with babies in it. That’d be cool.
March 1st, 2006 at 10:28 am
Um…yeah. It might be inhumane and cruel…IF IT WERE TRUE. This is clearly a joke. Maybe a modern one, perhaps not. There’s like 30 keys on the piano and only 7 cats. This couldn’t work. Besides, by the looks of it, the cats could just hop out and claw the eyes out of the hapless keyboardist. Come on, people, look how the artist made the cats to look like sad, innocent sweeties and not the conniving, scratching, sneeze-inducing terrors they are. I would bet any amount of money that this is fictional. You know, humor has been around for a long time. Even dark humor.
March 1st, 2006 at 11:28 am
Blah, blah blah. True or not, anyone who recieves joy in the dicomfort or TORTURE of another being is no better than the toilet paper we use! These type of people are usually the ‘Rapists’ and ‘Criminals’ of our twisted society.
March 1st, 2006 at 11:30 am
sick bastards
March 1st, 2006 at 11:34 am
Make one with puppies… haha not really i just know it will piss a lot more people off if its puppies. i would get into the whole dog vs cats argument but that pretty much a pointless arguement baised on mine and everyone elses personal baises.
well as per the one guy who brought intelegence into the issue. I can’t wait tilll the hyper intelegent space people come and start torchering us for fun!! not that I belive in hyper intelegent space people but ya never know.
The reason why this pisses me off is the growing “cats are stupid” thing the more this grows the more sick people are going to start torchering cats. i know people who swerve to hit cats. and the meat arguement yes i eat meat but i am still against people getting sick enjoyment out of causining pain to any of these “food” animals too.
really i admit the idea in and of it self is funny. i woulden’t mind this if there weren’t so many sick demented people out there but there are, and this only encourages em. I am scared to let my cat outside do to these people.
so anybody who would actually practice something like this to get there jollies off deserves to have there testicals mangled so that they may not reproduce and create more little psychopaths.
March 1st, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Anybody that sees this article as a chance to preach about animal cruelty needs to shoot themselves in the face. I hope you slip in a puddle of aids. I wish we could make a PETA organ. Or better yet a PETA string instrument where we could take a bow made baby kitten guts and drag it across your filthy hippie faces. I hope your dreadlocks get caught in a meat grinder and part of your carcass ends up in my sandwich you unkempt tree hugging fags.
March 1st, 2006 at 12:20 pm
Quote: “Blah, blah blah. True or not, anyone who recieves joy in the dicomfort or TORTURE of another being is no better than the toilet paper we use! These type of people are usually the ‘Rapists’ and ‘Criminals’ of our twisted society.”
This isn’t really the issue being debated here. Granted, torture-prone individuals are messed up, but please, THIS IS A JOKE. It’s a humorous drawing, drawing humor from impossible situations and devices that probably never existed, and never will.
That being said, why doesn’t our government use the logic of PETA and its supporters against the military personnel who used torture against Iraqi and other Arab inmates at military prisons? Heck, let’s just photoshop cats in the place of detainees in the Abu Grahib pictures and see what kind of reaction we get from the animal activists.
March 1st, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Will the AS be printing T-shirts of this? This is absolutely hilarious.
(this pic on the front)
(Kircher Engraving: “the AS society: new ideas from the last Renaissance man”)
March 1st, 2006 at 12:34 pm
“Who could not help but laugh at such music? ”
Thank you, each and every one of you. You have made me laugh and laugh.
March 1st, 2006 at 2:00 pm
in response to the person who speaks of replier’s lack of humor: i have a great sense of humor and there is nothing funny about this to me. it would be funny if the cat’s were made to meow, but without being maliciously harmed. i’m not a fucking hippie and i don’t actually care that much about animal rights or peta or whatever. i simply don’t think this is right, and i think that most people would agree to myself, sir ’slip in a puddle of aids.’ jesus, what is wrong with people? it’s like -the whole world gone mad-…
March 1st, 2006 at 2:25 pm
[...] Kircher’s Cat Piano I wrote a paper about Kircher for math class junior year, and I remember thinking the cat piano was funny. The paper was about computational music composition. (tags: music math humor) [...]
March 1st, 2006 at 2:37 pm
i had this same idea last year, but could not find the ivory for the keys.
March 1st, 2006 at 3:09 pm
I am so hoping that most of you Sicko’s are saying anything to get a response….Or just pushing the buttons of the humanitarians and animal activists. To think many of you wrote of delight and made comparisons with other living creatures, some of you were willing to offer up human babies….. To inflict pain is wrong, emotionally or physically.
Grow Up! Get Real! Only then will this world be a better place.
March 1st, 2006 at 3:34 pm
i don’t think people who think this is funny care what you have to say. i would just as soon let a black babysit my kids, as i would take advice about how to make the world a better place from someone who uses cats in a screen name. i hope your uncle touched you when you were a kid and that you get ass cancer. the next time you want to “take a stand” why don’t you do it on a roller coaster.
March 1st, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Yes, we should eat cats! I love them so much. It is the ultimate sign of compassion to devour their entrails in a mighty sacrifice! Cats can also be a good source of protein and they taste similar to chicken. But what’s the fun in eating store-bought chicken when you can use the cat piano to slaughter cats and then eat them?
March 1st, 2006 at 7:12 pm
It’s funny as an abstract concept - funny in the “Holy crap, that’s just wrong” way, like dead baby jokes.
Yeah, I’ve laughed at dead baby jokes. Mind you, if I knew of someone who made floats with two scoops ice cream, one scoop dead baby, I would be disgusted and a proponent of harsh punishment. But it’s a joke, just like this. It’s hilariously wrong, and that’s why I laugh.
That said, as a cat owner, I would venture to guess that cats drive sharp spikes into humans far more often than vice versa. I’ve never stabbed my cat with anything, but sometimes if he wants something, he’ll just take a swipe at my leg as I’m walking by. With *4* sharp spikes.
Let the furry little bastards get what’s coming to them.
March 1st, 2006 at 7:46 pm
the horror!
March 2nd, 2006 at 12:29 am
[...] Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society » Blog Archive » Kircher’s Cat Piano Remember the Monty Python Mouse Organist sketch? Aparently this one was real, but using cats! (tags: history music) [...]
March 2nd, 2006 at 10:14 am
“For all those comments regarding how “displeased” they are with the idea… get over it. i am sick of hearing people whine and get angry over something when it involves a cute animal. i don’t see enough people complain about the many social injustices of the world but when it involves a furry creature all hell breaks loose in these people’s mind. jeesh!”
I would like to take a sharp object and ram it in your anus without lube just to hear the different pitches of your pitiful screams. Rot in hell, you bitch.
March 2nd, 2006 at 10:41 am
It think this is just soooo cruel … I can’t believe it … Being a piano player myself, I am glad piano technique has become more civilized since 1650.
March 2nd, 2006 at 4:02 pm
I would like it better if it made the cats meow by tickling them.
March 2nd, 2006 at 4:49 pm
[...] Here [...]
March 2nd, 2006 at 8:41 pm
I have a cat piano, too. I make sure I park my warm truck next to the cold barn and run out first thing in the morning to start it up before all the little shits can get out of the warm engine compartment. Not a piano necassarily, just an instrument. I tune it by revving my truck up. Sometimes the kittens trapped inside take up a more percussion based type of music. ThumpthumpthumpROWRR.
March 2nd, 2006 at 9:00 pm
[...] Cool Stuff: Bionic sharks - Apparently we can put a chip in a shark’s head and control them! Imagine the fun you could have at the beach with one of these babies! “I’m gonna get ya….gonna get ya….gonna PSYCHE!” Or you could get together an unholy army of the night and send ‘em at submarines to scare people. Or you could get a bunch of them together and choreograph a huge West Side Story style synchronized swimming routine. Enter the bastards into the Olympics! Man! This is the best thing to ever happen to science! Cat Piano - I love music, and I hate cats (mostly because I’m allergic). So I love the Cat Piano, since you can make beautiful music by poking cats with sharp things. This kinda reminds me of that Monty Python sketch where the guy laid out all those tuned mice and hit them with mallets. Hilarious. Ziggy Lives! - A little known fact is that before singing Magic Dance as the Goblin King, David Bowie was an intergalactic crime fighter. Something this incredibly awesome could only be true. [...]
March 2nd, 2006 at 10:14 pm
hehe, quirky stuff. might have to grab a copy of that book…
March 3rd, 2006 at 8:30 am
How come there are only seven cats for the cat piano? Wouldn’t you need at least 8 to get the full range? Or would you possible just put in two spikes to get an octave higher?
I wonder if pulling out the whiskers would produce a different sound altogether. However, that would make the piano a bit cumbersome with the extra contraption to pull out the whiskers.
Also, those baskets don’t look very confining. My cat would never sit in that long enough for a spike to be rammed into her. I’m sure of it. She would probably not even sit in there more than a second. You would definitely need to add more cage.
What am I saying? This is probably one of those humane cat pianos that allow the cats to leave if they want to. Thereby making the pain purely voluntary. Yeah, I’ve heard about them. The sound is much fuller than the other kind, and healthier for the human ear. Not to mention that it eliminates the other noises of the cat trying to get away.
Is that a picture of Kircher at the top of the page? Shouldn’t he be wearing a truckstop hat of some sort instead of the beanie? And date Demi Moore?
March 3rd, 2006 at 9:39 am
[...] Kitty Piano - lol at the one on the end. [...]
March 3rd, 2006 at 9:55 am
God bless us, every cat!
LOL, LMFAO.
March 3rd, 2006 at 10:03 am
Sampling saved the kitties.
http://www.jinglecats.com/
March 3rd, 2006 at 12:10 pm
The Cat Organ was a form of anti-depressant.
You think that pharma anti-depressants aren’t tested on legions of furry animals in novel and cruel ways? Spikes are the least of it.
Nobody wants this kind of testing: not the government (waste of time); not the animal rights activites (cruel man!); not the pharma companies either (long, expensive and morally repugnant process).
But so the legal system demands…
March 3rd, 2006 at 3:52 pm
yeah, we should give novel pharmaceuticals with a million possible toxic effects directly to patients. volunteers?
March 3rd, 2006 at 6:00 pm
[...] Antiquarianism: The Athanasius Kircher Society is like BoingBoing for historians. Named for a 17th-century Jesuit priest (and doesn’t it often seem that all the interesting people of the 17th century were Jesuits?), the Kircher Society recently concluded a week devoted to visionary architecture, featuring some of the most incredible buildings and monuments you’re ever likely to see. Also check out Father Kircher’s original cat piano. Someone call PETA right away: 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? [...]
March 3rd, 2006 at 6:51 pm
It’s a good idea to use kittens for those hard to reach notes.
March 5th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
[...] En el siglo XVII un jesuita alemán llamado Athanasius Kircher fabricaba el primer piano de gatos. El invento era descrito en 1650 en el libro Musurgia Universalis, en dos volúmenes publicados en Roma. [...]
March 8th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
[...] Ladies and Gentlemen: Das Katzenpiano! Published by JabberDabbadu March 8th, 2006 in Beurteilung ausstehend [...]
March 9th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Dear Mr Kircher, Thank you for proving to everyone that even as far back as in your day there have been individuals that will do anything to get attention, talent and genius aside.
Thanks, buddy!
March 13th, 2006 at 12:47 am
i wonder if the piano still plays good music….. lol….. or if the cats meow represents each different key… saying all cats are different just like all keys… just like all humans… i could go on for days on many different interpretations… haha… but this is just retarded… he smoked to much weed the day he though of this…lol
March 13th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
Get over yourselves, those who are offended by this. It is a piece of artwork and a story from 1650, for chrissake! I am sure that it cannot be proven whether someone actually MADE this thing and put real cats in it. But the idea is amusing, if you can take it as fictional humor.
Just relax people. There are plenty of people out there doing nasty things to animals that we SHOULD be worrying about, rather than posting hateful messages to other human beings for getting a laugh out of a funny IDEA. Watch some Animal Planet Heroes, volunteer at your local shelter, get out in the community and be aware of your neighbors treatment of their pets. DO something, don’t just say something.
March 15th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
[...] Rok-C says these are the keyboards du jour…. [...]
March 22nd, 2006 at 5:30 pm
[...] One of the great instruments of the 17th Century, the cat piano has largely fallen out of use. [...]
March 27th, 2006 at 5:04 am
[...] Link! [...]
April 6th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
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April 9th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
Hmmm, didn’t Mikey Moorcock do this with humans in one of his books. Elric I think.
April 23rd, 2006 at 4:28 pm
[...] 17th Century Renaissance man Athanasius Kircher, inventor, philosopher and creator of the CAT PIANO!!! Yes, the Cat Piano. [...]
April 25th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
I have known about this wonderful instrument for many years. I have built 3 of them. You can actually play simple tunes like “Silent Night”. The only problem I had was the need to keep replacing putting in new kittens as the music generation kittens did not last long.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
I found that using 33 mm syringes worked best. The holes poked in the kiddies tales are too small to cause much bleeding. You can also rotate the poking position to length the length of the song enjoyment. The thing which took the most effort was to find kittens at different tone ranges. I probably had to test 100 kittens to find the deep baritone kitten. However, since I am a animal shelter directory there are always plenty of kittens to test.
George
May 1st, 2006 at 12:52 am
[...] And now I will play The Bells of St. Marys [...]
May 8th, 2006 at 4:22 am
my 2 cents:
by this time (post 123) no one is reading this, but what the hell.
The fundamental mistake that everyone has made here is that they are interpreting this concept in the 2006 mindset. Regardless of whether it was 19th or 17th century, it was in antiquity. Up until the last 50 years or so in world history, such treatment would be germane compared to what surrounded the average person of the day. When half your siblings died of cholera, diptheria, maleria, tuberculosis, and what not, and you were most likely witness to lynchings, public execution, war, starvation, gross deformity, authoritarianism and lawlessness, poking a cat in the tail is the least of your humanitarian concerns. Thus was the likely mindset of your average 17th-19th century person. As in many things historical, we tend to look at events in the past through the lens of the present, which any history professor (i’m not one) can tell you is a grave mistake.
June 16th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
The term ‘amusing’ actually in its oldest forms implies a deception. Quite literally ‘not to think about’ and though in our time this is not PC, this strange piece of history fits that term perfectly. And yes, I do find it interesting that they found it amusing.
July 5th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
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July 23rd, 2006 at 9:07 am
[...] En 1650 una publicación, Musurgia Universalis, trajo a la luz el invento de un Jesuita Alemán, de nombre Athanasius Kircher -casi eh- quien se dedicó a seleccionar gatos cuyos maullidos y aullidos poseyeran diferentes tonos y grados de agudeza. Ordenándolos según esta característica los dispuso en una estructura con forma de piano. El singular sistema entonces entraba en su macabro funcionamiento dotado de una afilada aguja que pinchaba la cola del gato al presionar una tecla. A medida que avanzaba la melodía la desesperación de los gatos aumentaba incrementando así el nivel de maullido de estos. Las obras eran confeccionadas en base a esta característica, y su propósito era sacar de la depresión a un príncipe. [...]
July 23rd, 2006 at 11:01 am
[…] En 1650 una publicación, Musurgia Universalis, trajo a la luz el invento de un Jesuita Alemán, de nombre Athanasius Kircher -casi eh- quien se dedicó a seleccionar gatos cuyos maullidos y aullidos poseyeran diferentes tonos y grados de agudeza. Ordenándolos según esta característica los dispuso en una estructura con forma de piano. El singular sistema entonces entraba en su macabro funcionamiento dotado de una afilada aguja que pinchaba la cola del gato al presionar una tecla. A medida que avanzaba la melodía la desesperación de los gatos aumentaba incrementando así el nivel de maullido de estos. Las obras eran confeccionadas en base a esta característica, y su propósito era sacar de la depresión a un príncipe. […]
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November 5th, 2006 at 4:50 am
quelle torture pour ces pauvres animaux,
et quelle folie chez le concepteur de ce piano et son commanditaire !
pour parler du site, félicitations très intéressant
cordialement
December 9th, 2006 at 11:20 am
Sounds very cruel. Might as well put some humans and hammer the head of the one that was supposed to sing.
THAT would be funny.
December 19th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
HAHAHAHAHAHA, oh how could I have missed this?!
December 19th, 2006 at 11:47 pm
Another account of the cat piano appears in one of Donald Barthelme’s early short stories, “A Shower of Gold.” A copy of the story can be found on line, with numerous typographical errors, but still rather interesting:
http://www.jessamyn.com/barth/gold.html
February 14th, 2007 at 5:29 am
All about nutrizione
March 4th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I have read parts of Kircher’s book and quote a bit of it on my website; I can easily look it up in the original as it’s in a local library. Anybody have a reference to the exact place where this instrument is described? (It’s a huge book and my Latin isn’t that great).
May 1st, 2007 at 12:10 am
“in order to raise the spirits of blah blah blah who could not help but laugh at such music”
Who could laugh?
May 11th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
I can laugh at it just fine, thank you very much. It’s only a very absurd and abstract concept from some 350 years ago. It doesn’t make me a criminal or a rapist or other such human dreg. The humor derived from reductio ad absurdam, and from a scientific perspective on the subject, human laughter is often the result of a shock of some sort, or a sudden turn. If you’re going to get so offended, you’re actually getting worked up or issuing broad threats, then I suggest you focus your ire and your action appropriately on thigns that are actually current and have a tangible effect today, please. This is an amusing trifle, and a mere bit of whimsy and fluff, as it was clearly intended to be. I take it as it was intended, and it’s a pity so many people can’t be bothered to think that far, blinded as they are by an irrational rage. Maybe that’s just the state they live in every day.
Or maybe conceptual humor is a simply dying thing in these times when people seem altogether too willing to find things to be offended by.
Personally, I find this item, and this entire site, to be a fine monument to wonder and weirdness and all those fun and strange things that can make this world such a fascinating place.
May 14th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
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May 18th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
#67
I’m glad you could enlighten us on the limited thought processes of an ignorant individual. A cat is defenseless before the complexity of the human mind, as you had made so clear.
I’m sure that, even though you were quick to attack the intelligence of the cat, you failed to comprehend the fact that a feline is incapable of “sensing” the human intent to harm. They are domestic house pets - and as such, are very defenseless. It’s ridiculous that you would compare the teeth and claws of a domestic house cat to that of any humans brute strength. If this were a tiger I might be inclined to agree.
And please, don’t dare insult anyone with your pathetic comparison of the consumption of meat to the brutal treatment of a small animal incapable of defending itself. “Burning cats and slashing off their legs is totally OK - after all, you eat cows LOL” I don’t even know how to address this level of stupidity - truly.
If a human being must lower themselves to the point of inflicting harm on an animal that, however selfish and unknowing, has no way of possibly defending itself in a myriad of situations, what makes the human worth defending? The individual is obviously suffering from one of countless mental conditions. Many of these conditions cannot be forgiven.
To be honest, I’m indifferent to one man’s will to inflict pain onto another based on such an act. If someone is going to, say, light a cat on fire he has essentially redirected popular discontent towards himself on purpose.
The life span of a cat is irrelevant - we are considering the cruel treatment of what we deem a lesser animal. A human on fair terms can do much more to defend themselves than a cat 1/20th your size.
What is in the past is in the past - but it does not mean that the unfair treatment of these animals should be acceptable given today’s standards.
May 31st, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Pretty nice site, wants to see much more on it! :)r
August 5th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
[...] Athanasius Kircher’s Cat Piano (via Robotbrain) [...]
September 19th, 2007 at 10:59 am
To “I HEART CATS” (#67):
John, above, has made some excellent points. However, I would like to introduce, as a complement to his argument, the question of supposedly lower and higher forms of intelligence in human beings. When do you believe that human rights begin to apply to humans? Do you believe that they are inalienable? If one human is less productive, less ‘intelligent’ (supposedly) than another, does that mean that he is inherently less valuable or deserves cruel treatment? Would you condone the mistreatment of mentally disabled ones because they don’t contribute to society in a way that you find satisfactory? Children are ungrateful non-contributors up to a certain age- are they deserving of any punishment we can dish out? (I know that might not be the best of arguments, judging from the amount of dead baby jokes that have already been dished out on this forum.)
To bring up another part of your argument, what about our antecedents’ treatment of slaves? It must not matter how our ancestors treated other human beings since it was SUCH a long time ago and these people would be dead by now anyway, right? Who cares if someone was lynched in the Jim Crow South instead of dying of old age? They’d be dead by now, anyway. You people are all just TOO SENSITIVE.
Good work, I HEART CATS. I can’t believe no one replied to you sooner.
September 21st, 2007 at 2:22 pm
[...] Our final session challenged four leading interactive designers to present the work of another designer who had inspired them. Nat Hunter presented the work of Yugo Nakamura, from his earliest web toys to his engagingly toy-like work for clothes store Uniqlo. Tom Roope discussed the work of Hans Bernhard, a digital design interventionist whose work embraces the concept that design might not be about appearances, but ideas. Berhard has created interventions such as voteauction.com (no longer around, it seems), which hit news headlines and challenged ideas about the sponsorship of political campaigns in the States. Eva Rucki from Troika talked about the need to re-introduce subjectivity into technology if we want to engage people, with examples like the Newton Virus and the Cat Piano. Finally, Malcolm Garrett presented the work of Cogapp for the MoMA gallery: not a flashy piece of work, but exhibiting real genius when it comes to information design and recognition of what users really want and need when they approach a gallery site. [...]
September 21st, 2007 at 2:39 pm
[...] Our final session challenged four leading interactive designers to present the work of another designer who had inspired them. Nat Hunter presented the work of Yugo Nakamura, from his earliest web toys to his engagingly toy-like work for clothes store Uniqlo. Tom Roope discussed the work of Hans Bernhard, a digital design interventionist whose work embraces the concept that design might not be about appearances, but ideas. Berhard has created interventions such as voteauction.com (no longer around, it seems), which hit news headlines and challenged ideas about the sponsorship of political campaigns in the States. Eva Rucki from Troika talked about the need to re-introduce subjectivity into technology if we want to engage people, with examples like the Newton Virus and the Cat Piano. Finally, Malcolm Garrett presented the work of Cogapp for the MoMA gallery: not a flashy piece of work, but exhibiting real genius when it comes to information design and recognition of what users really want and need when they approach a gallery site. [...]
September 25th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Who could not help but laugh at such music?
Indeed, who could not hep but laugh hearing a choir of painful and frightened screams? I`m buried deeper and deeper in my melancholy.
I don`t understand why such barbarisms are publicized again - they`d better stay forgotten.
I`m nauseated.
October 10th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
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