Cat organ

A cat piano or organ Cats is a musical instrument that was probably designed by Athanasius Kircher. Originally it was in this "instrument" probably only a satire. It is doubtful whether it has ever actually existed.

The Cat Piano is a series of fixed in a frame cats whose tails are tied up with a keyboard. At the bottom of each key, a nail is fixed, so the cats meow in despair, when the buttons are pressed. The cats are arranged according to their natural tone. The cries of the cats was also called "cat music ".

The purpose of the instrument was, according to a description by Johann Christian Reil (1759-1813) the treatment of patients who find it difficult to concentrate. Reil believed that the attention of a patient who is being forced to watch the cats piano and hear is necessarily directed to the instrument and it is thus cured (Richards, 1998).

The Cat Piano has also been described by the French writer Jean -Baptiste Weckerlin in his book Musiciana, extraits d' ouvrages rare ou bizarre ( Musiciana, descriptions of rare or bizarre inventions ):

" When the king of Spain Felipe II his brother Charles V visited in 1549 in Brussels, they rejoiced together whether a unique march. First and foremost step a huge bull with flaming horns, between which sat a little devil. Behind the Bulls rode a boy sewn into a bearskin on a horse whose ears and tail had been cut off. Then the Archangel Michael came in shining clothes, carrying a balance in his hand. "

" The weirdest came with a chariot, wearing the most extraordinary music with them that you can imagine. On it was a bear that played the organ; instead of whistling but saw sixteen cats hid her body, only their heads were visible. The tails stretched out and were arrested as the strings of a piano. By pressing a button was pulled hard on the tail, so that the cat was a pitiful meow from him. The historian Juan Christoval Calvete wrote that the cats were arranged according to their level of sound, so that ascending notes of an octave could be played ( chromatic, I think). "

"This abominable orchestra was soon in a theater along with monkeys, wolves, deer and other animals that danced to the infernal music. "