Ester K.
(Alias "Hot Hands," not to be confused with “Hot Hand,”
which refers to a completely different student)

When the subject of listing the great masters of keyboard improvisation comes up, inevitably the name Ester K. rises immediately to the top. Her latest composition, "Rendition of Berloiz's Requiem Mass for Solo Piano,” has won her the highest possible marks from even the most critical of reviewers. This fantastically capable young lady has successfully performed all eight sections of the Berlioz piece, managing to bring out each and every nuance of the difficult original score for full orchestra and chorus, massed timpani, and four brass choirs. In order to accomplish all of this, she had to squeeze every last ounce of performance out of her personally designed, unique meta‑piano technique (more about this incredible instrument augmenting technique later).

As a youngster, this musically gifted girl arrived in the mind‑bending Creative Expressions class presided over by the Legendary Mr. Christopherson in the fall of 1993. It was to be a real eye opening experience for Ms. K. She began the class as an already talented and accomplished young pianist who rightly felt that her two years of lessons had prepared her for a brilliant future playing the instrument. She knew she had reached the pinnacle of perfection and there was no further room for improvement. She soon found she was wrong! New horizons were pointed out to her by the Legendary Mr. Christopherson, who also happened to be an exceptionally gifted musician, composer, and accomplished performer on the two hundred or so most com­monly used musical instruments of the world, as well as some not so well known, such as the twenty‑five foot long telescoping nose flute, the fifty‑stringed rubber band banjo, and the electronic kaleidoscopic kazoo.

There were two comments, made over the course of the class by the great educator, which led to Ms. K.'s setting out on the path to develop the meta‑piano technique. First, the Legendary Mr. Christopherson happened to mention one day, after hearing Kim play an almost technically perfect rendering of Beethoven's Hammer‑Klavier Sonata, that if only she had a few more fingers she wouldn't have dropped the two hundred thirty‑sixth and seventh eighth notes in the left hand part. This acute, accurate observation of her playing came from the fact that this memorable teacher had memorized the complete score of the work and had, in fact, performed it himself numerous times, by popular demand in one or another of the high‑brow pizza parlors in the Parkland, Washington area.

The second comment came one day during a typically stirring, informative class discussion on Robert Schumann, the German composer of the early 19th century. The Legendary Mr. Christopherson admitted to his attentive young audience that he too had experimented with various mechanical devices attached to his fingers designed to give increased playing strength, but that, unlike the unfortunate Schumann, he didn't end up going crazy after breaking his little finger when the machine went wild (though some might argue about this ‘not having gone crazy’ part of the statement, as genius is so often seen by the common masses as merely eccentric behavior).

At any rate, the young Ester began to play around mentally with those two ideas until she had worked out enough of the details in her well‑ordered mind to actually begin construction of various hand‑enhancing mechanisms. Her first design was similar to the Schumann apparatus, though much more successful, allowing her to perform Beethoven's sonatas with ease. She created a complex array of levers, pulleys, and wires which could give her fingers a tenfold increase in playing strength. This early invention of hers is still used today, having been accepted by most piano tuners as a means to gauge the quality of any given piano. Playing a few chords, using the Kim Finger‑Booster, soon weeds out the poorly constructed instruments, leaving them with broken keys scattered about the room, and requiring the tuner to charge an additional $1,000-plus to correct.

Over the next several years, Ms. K.'s diligent efforts have finally led her to the magnificent meta‑piano device. This wonderful advancement beyond common piano playing allows Ester to perform works such as the Berlioz Requiem, as mentioned above. It consists of a considerably more complex arrangement of levers, pulleys, and wires than is found in the "Finger‑Booster," allowing Ms. K. to not only use all her fingers, and toes as well, but to additionally play up to sixteen individual parts per finger or toe. This greatly enhanced versatility has required the construction of a new kind of piano with twenty‑three keyboards placed over each other so as to be in reach of the incredible Kim "Hand‑and‑Foot‑Booster." An additional recent improvement now allows Ester to add accents to the music using a special, intricate newly designed mechanism called a "Nose‑Booster." We can only wonder--what will this fantastic, creative young musician come up with next?