He bought an octopus at a South Korean market but decided to teach it how to play the piano instead

If you search the internet to see whether an octopus can play the piano, several sources will say yes. That’s because musician Mattias Krantz’s (@mattiayoutube) 6-month hard work paid off. When he got his octopus, Takoyaki, from a market in South Korea, he could only hope for the best, per The Washington Post's report on December 9. However, he was determined to teach the sea creature to play, and months later, he saw his effort come to fruition. Amazingly, the duo knew just what they wanted to play, and everything about this story has us stunned and impressed.

Krantz shared his journey from the time he brought Takoyaki into his home. “Instead of throwing him into a frying pan, I threw him into an aquarium,” he remarked. It took the octopus some time to trust him, but eventually it came through. Once it got comfortable, the musician decided to introduce it to a piano key, quite literally — just a single key. Takoyaki stared at it for a couple of days, even touched it, but never really pushed or played with it. It was only later that Krantz realized that the mechanism wasn’t quite natural for him. So he worked dedicatedly to create model after model until he revamped the piano key into a toggle-like system. 

That’s when the octopus finally interacted with it. “It was probably the worst thing I’ve ever done, and maybe the coolest thing, but also the worst ever. I never pushed myself to such limits,” the musician recalled. But he was certain he wanted to give it his best shot before giving up. When he knew the octopus was ready to take on an entire set of keys, he customized them and left them in the aquarium for it to play. Speed was not an issue; it was learning well. Krantz ingeniously used lights to give the octopus cues as to which key to play. However, Takoyaki didn’t grasp the idea at all. 

Then came his next plan — maneuvering the keys to be able to shake them so the octopus would interact. As he moved a key, the creature responded, moving towards it and eventually pulling it too. The duo took it one step at a time, and soon, Takoyaki was able to play multiple keys together. Krantz went on to add vibrations each time he played so that the octopus, which has low hearing, could understand, feel, and differentiate notes and tones.

This adjustment made perfect sense, because according to a study published in the National Library of Medicine, cephalopods such as octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish detect only very low frequencies in water — around 10 Hz — making them far more sensitive to vibrations than typical auditory cues. The researchers modelled the macula/statolith of a specialized organ called the statocyst as a dynamic oscillator and found that the simulated sensitivity matched experimental thresholds of particle motion detection. Unfortunately, the road wasn’t always smooth. After a couple of achievements, the octopus was no longer adding to his learning. “After tons of research and expert consulting, I got an idea,” the musician noted. 

He tried to develop a sort of reinforcement for Takoyaki. He put a crab in a tube and placed it over the key. Every single time the octopus played the right key, the crab would get lowered down the tube. “To get it down, he needed to play the entire melody. If that didn’t work, I would give up,” Krantz explained. But the stars were in his favor, and the brilliant octopus played the entire melody. “Tako was ready for his first-ever piano performance,” he proudly noted. 

The musician picked up his guitar and played the perfect melody — the theme song from the “Jaws” movie, and Takoyaki joined in key after key, in perfect timing. This visual is what determination and belief looked like. He turned the impossible into possible and found a lifelong friend while he was at it. “I can’t believe I sit here and play with an octopus,” he remarked. Krantz also shared his video on YouTube, which received massive love. @marc8239 said, “You do NOT realize what an immense scientific value this project has.” @xavier83623 added, “It really seemed like they were enjoying playing music, not just spamming keys for food.” 

You can follow Mattias Krantz (@Mattiaskrantz) on YouTube and Instagram (@mattiasyoutube) for more content on creativity and music. 

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