Every time I go to the piano to practice, I soon sense a presence on the other side of the music desk. Daisy, our eleven month old kitten, peers over the top of the desk, waiting for me to begin playing.

As soon as the music starts, she begins attacking the dampers and strings, trying to “catch” the notes. The effect of these inside the piano exertions is noticeable. Indeed, it makes everything I play, even baroque preludes, sound far more ultramodern: Bach morphs into something akin to Henry Cowell’s “The Banshee!”