The Pianote

"The name, if I remember right, is Pianote. Search it and it should come right up."

"Pianote?"

"It's a rhythm game you play on a piano. You'd be more than good enough at it."

"You can play a game on a piano?"

"Jiyoung plays piano well, so she'll do just fine."

"I don't know about rhythm games, but if it's a matter of sitting down and playing piano, I think I can handle it."

"Honestly, there's no telling whether Jiyoung would be any good if she started a regular rhythm game from scratch. But if piano is the foundation, that's a different story."

"I bought it to use as content, but I don't know how to play piano, so it just became a totem."

"I never imagined unnie would have something like this in her house."

"I wanted to have Jiyoung try one ages ago, but I could never find a way to get my hands on it, so I never brought it up."

"Yeah, the realistic price was the problem."

"The digital piano version never really appealed to me."

"How much does a Pianote even cost? Over ten million won?"

"It's built on a grand piano, so they usually run over a hundred million."

"H-huh? That expensive? What if I break it while I'm playing? Maybe I just shouldn't."

"It's fine. I wouldn't care if you broke it. It's a totem to me anyway. And pianos don't break that easily to begin with."

The words a hundred million won startled me so badly I refused to even touch the thing, but Shinye unnie insisted it wouldn't matter if I wrecked it. As if it would just happen to break the moment I sat down to play.

I'd taken up piano as a kid on my sister's recommendation. I'd never entered a competition or anything — it had always been nothing more than a hobby.

"Anyway, if someone got it right, there should be a prize, don't you think? You remembered that I play piano well, so I'll give a gift to whoever guessed it."

"Then we'd better make it a really good one. Let's give them the title of first-ever winner on Shinye unnie's stream."

"No. We have to draw fan-meeting seats from the viewers and WeTube subscribers anyway. I'm thinking of giving them a ticket."

"And Shinye unnie — I'd like you to be on the organizer side with us, not as a fan-meeting guest."

"I can do that? Fine by me."

"I agree with Jiyoung."

"We'll keep drawing more fan-meeting seats going forward, so look forward to it."

"But if it's a real piano with notes on it... dynamics, the pedal, all of that. There's a lot to account for. Does all of that count toward the accuracy score too?"

"Uh, well. I don't really know piano. As far as I know, you just have to hit the timing."

"Really? If it's just the timing, that sounds simple enough."

I stepped up to the Pianote Shinye unnie had led me to, and a flicker of nerves ran through me. It had been a while since I'd stopped playing, but I'd played for a long time — long enough that I still had some confidence.

I eased the fallboard open. Shinye unnie connected a screen-style monitor, and when the display came on, all eighty-eight keys appeared in the shape of a keyboard. A pale sky-blue highlight even marked, helpfully, exactly where middle C sat.

At this difficulty, someone who'd never touched a piano would have a brutal time trying to enjoy it as a rhythm game. For me, though — if all I had to do was match the timing — I just needed to play the score as written. From where I stood, this wasn't a game at all. It was just piano, the way I'd always played it.

"The Pianote has a random function, same as other rhythm games."

"Sorry? Random?"

"That's what makes this Pianote special. If you just play it, from a pianist's point of view it's no different from a regular piano. But with random on, it can actually feel like a game."

"If it's random, I can see how you'd feel that way."

If you played on random, it would never sound like a normal piano. This one was apparently a silent piano that could switch into digital mode. I'd heard silent pianos were built so you could practice at night without bothering anyone, but I'd never actually played one.

Shinye unnie pointed to the module underneath the Pianote.

"See the module down here? It says 1, right? 1 is a regular piano with falling notes. 2 and 3 are note mode, digital. 4 is sheet-music mode, acoustic. 5 and 6 are sheet-music mode, digital. The difference between 2/3 and 5/6 is whether you use a headset."

"Sheet music? The score comes up on this screen?"

"That's right. So all the famous classical pieces are loaded in. The score comes up, which makes it easy to read along, and you can see the timing too."

"And the random function?"

"The random function is something the designer threw in because he was bored, apparently. It only works in digital mode, and I heard only the easy pieces like Czerny 100 have a random option. That's why people call this a game, I think."

"So they took a silent piano and added falling notes, sheet music, and a random function. If the price were lower it would have sold well, but at that cost I couldn't even dream of buying one."

"Right? Even working musicians would hesitate. It's really just a handful of rich people picking them up as a hobby."

"It's far too expensive for an ordinary person. If someone who wasn't rich said they were going to spend a hundred million won on a hobby, you'd have to talk them out of it."

Even a regular silent piano ran well over ten million won, from what I'd heard. But the company that built this one made pianos in the hundreds of millions. This was a piano designed for the hobbies of the very rich.

It did look more fun than an ordinary piano, that much was true. You could watch with your own eyes how the notes were being played, which made it entertaining to look at too. Play it properly and the combo count climbed — a piano that could satisfy both the person playing and the people watching.

I checked sheet-music mode. The score scrolled continuously across the screen, and when you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pressed a key at the exact moment a vertical line passed over the note, a little sparkle flashed — the same kind of effect you got for hitting a note. That was probably the "correct hit" animation.

I was starting to understand why a Pianote cost what it did.

And someone had actually thought to add a random mode. All of a sudden, the Pianote was looking a lot more interesting.

Shinye unnie walked me through the module's features one by one. There were a surprising number of genuinely clever functions packed in.

"To get the notes to come down, you pick a piece with the arrow buttons and press the round button in the center to start. And this button here is the note speed multiplier. If you've memorized the score, or you're reading it as you go, it shouldn't matter what speed you set it to, right?"

"If I play it as written, for me it's just a regular performance. But from the viewers' side, they can see the notes falling, so it looks like it'd be fun to watch."

"Exactly. To anyone else, it looks like an 88-key rhythm game."

The thought of pressing C and hearing a completely different pitch was hard to even picture. What would it feel like to hit C and hear E?

"That said, random only swaps white keys with white keys and black keys with black keys. And even though there are 88 keys, you don't actually use all of them when you play piano anyway."

"That's true."

"So, what do you want to try?"

"Hmm, I'll go with this one. Mode 1 for now."

I chose Beethoven's Fifth Symphony — the one where the opening alone is enough for almost anyone to know exactly what they're hearing.

Da-da-da-DUM.

The instant I reached for the round button, Shinye unnie stopped me.

"Wait a second."

"Huh?"

"No. You're the one who bought it. I can't just do it on my stream."

"If I don't put you in the spotlight now, then when? I stream as a hobby, remember?"

"Shinye unnie."

"And we'll edit it and put it up on your WeTube too."

"Okay. Thank you. Really."

I was so moved I threw my arms around her. Handing me content this good — I was overflowing with gratitude. She was letting me play this fascinating Pianote and giving me WeTube content on top of it. She really was the best unnie.

"Then please wait just a moment. I'll turn it back on shortly."

"Hang on a bit. I'll be right back."