Dec. 11 (UPI) — A Swedish musician spent six months working to accomplish the “worst” and “coolest” thing he has ever done: teaching an octopus to play piano.
Mattias Krantz, a YouTuber whose content usually revolves around musical instruments he modifies and plays, posted a video to the platform detailing how he taught an octopus, named Takoyaki, to play piano.
Krantz told The Washington Post that he bought Takoyaki, or Tako for short, from a Portuguese fishery in March, despite a scene in his video where he browses a Korean seafood market for a musical mollusk.
Krantz said it took time to earn Tako’s trust, and longer still until he could entice the octopus into using the keyboard he designed with levers for the cephalopod to pull with his tentacles.
He said Tako started to plateau with only playing one or two notes at a time, using bubbles to interest him in the instrument, but a breakthrough came in August when Krantz installed a “crab elevator” in the tank. The device would lower a crab — Tako’s favorite treat — a small amount in a tube for every note the octopus played.
Krantz started playing his guitar to accompany Tako’s work on the piano, and he was even able to teach the octopus to play the note progression of “Baby Shark,” although he admitted the result was off-tempo.
“It was probably the worst thing I’ve ever done, and maybe the coolest thing, but also the worst ever,” Krantz told The Post. “I never pushed myself to such limits.”
Krantz said he and Tako play together about every other day.
“I can’t believe I sit here and play with an octopus,” he said.
Marine scientist Jenny Hofmeister cautioned Tako’s fans that the animal is likely not playing music for enjoyment of the artform, but rather performing a trick for the promised treat.
“The octopus is not perceiving rhythm,” Hofmeister said. “It’s not perceiving, you know, tempo. It wants to do the steps it has to do to get the crab.”
