Posted on 01/04/2006 2:24:35 PM PST by Lathspell
Dan Menendez - he made a million bucks with that trick, and it's only a sequencer. (He doesn't have to hit the correct key to play the correct note - the whole keyboard is only one button.)
the one with the guy playing the piano by "juggling" balls into the keys? that's a hoax?
Oh, okay, thanks. I thought it was a little too amazing to be true.
It's not a hoax in the sense that he really does juggle the balls by bouncing them, but then again, bounce-juggling five balls is no rarity amongst jugglers. (The world record for bounce juggling is ~10, and adding each additional object is far, far more difficult than the last.)
On the other hand, what looks like a piano keyboard is actually just a sequencer, meaning, he can hit anywhere on the keyboard and the thing will play the next note of whatever song is programmed in. He can certainly move the pattern towards higher and lower notes to give the appearance of playing correct notes, but that is just for effect.
On the other hand, it's a great trick, he has great marketing, his act is entertaining, and as I said he's banked >$1M from that trick, so he's a good juggler in the sense that his act has market value (far beyond essentially all other jugglers). Professional jugglers are in it to make money, and that he most certainly does. It's a gimmick - but a clever, indeed, brilliant gimmick.
Incidentally, there have been juggling acts in which jugglers actually hit the correct notes of, say, a xylophone, to play music - The Flying Karamazov Brothers, for example.
Republicans: "Neat trick and entertaining too- Thanks for the laffs."
Dumbocrats: "There should be a congressional investigation into this"
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