I had a Russian guy over today.  He is 17 and plays piano (classical)
in Russia, and just a few days ago he participated in an international
competition in England in which he took second place.  It's a long
story, but he's here in my city and he came for dinner to my house
tonight.

I put "Flight Of The Bumblebee", QRS 7956, into the piano.  He had no
idea what I was doing.  He didn't know why the piano had a hole in it,
nor why I was putting a funny paper object in.

I have an electric pump in the piano, and when I flicked the switch
his eyes almost popped out of his head!  He had NEVER seen nor heard
of a player piano before!!  He has never seen any disk-operated piano.
He had NO idea that there was technology for a piano to play itself!

You understand Russia used to be Communist, thus there was no mass
manufacture of player pianos for a country which hardly had food.
With never being exposed to that much media from the West, either,
he had never seen one in film or TV.  I then put in "The Charleston"
and I played along with it.  He was in awe.

It was a great experience.

Damon Atchison
Damon66@juno.com