Octopuses have been confirmed by scientists to be among the most intelligent and highly capable learning species in invertebrates, often displaying astonishingly high levels of intelligence. Mattias Krantz, a Swedish musician with nearly 1.7 million subscribers on YouTube, previously bought a baby octopus at a seafood market and attempted to teach it to "play the piano" like a human. The video of his teaching sessions attracted over 5.6 million viewers after it was released.
Krantz, known for his daring and adventurous musical experiments, uploaded a video on the 5th titled "I
taught an octopus to play the piano (it took 6 months)," which garnered widespread attention. According to the video, Krantz traveled to a seafood market in South Korea to find a "new student." After studying grouper, lobster, and flounder, he ultimately decided to bring home a small, young octopus.
The octopus was later named "Takoyaki" by Kranz. After caring for it carefully for a period of time, Kranz decided to use it to launch a whimsical and special project. Kranz said he had always wanted to try teaching animals to play the piano, and octopuses with eight tentacles are recognized as incredibly intelligent creatures, adept at problem-solving, and with an IQ comparable to a three-year-old human child. Therefore, he believed that octopuses had immense potential in learning music.
Kranz thought, "Each of the octopus's eight tentacles has a 'little brain,' which means there are eight pianists living in one body." With this idea in mind, he began actively planning Takoyaki's piano lessons. However, Takoyaki's initial learning process was not smooth. Kranz tried methods such as using glowing keys and hiding fake crabs in the piano, but none of them successfully piqued its interest. Ultimately, Kranz decided to personally build a brand new piano suitable for the octopus's habits and physical characteristics.
Above different piano keys, Kranz placed several transparent tubes that could deliver food. When "Takoyaki" pressed a key with its tentacles, food such as crab placed inside the tubes would gradually descend. Then, as long as "Takoyaki" could press a melody matching the musical vibrator with its tentacles, the food would fall within its reach. Kranz stated that after this "reward mechanism" was officially implemented, "Takoyaki" showed a remarkably strong motivation to learn.
After six months of diligent learning, "Takoyaki's" piano skills not only improved significantly, but it even began to play short melody with Kranz, who played the guitar. Kranz was overjoyed, praising it as a "blues pianist" and promising to let "Takoyaki" continue living with him. After videos of "Takoyaki's" learning process were released, they quickly went viral globally, attracting numerous zoologists and scientists who inquired whether Kranz could write a paper about the entire experiment.
Other netizens commented, "You might be the first musician to play a duet with an octopus," "It might have ended up as someone's food, but now it's become a musician and a friend. The world is truly amazing," "The piano performance was certainly brilliant, but the genuine emotion and understanding between you two is what truly touches people's hearts," and "As an animal rights activist, I'm glad you didn't release the takoyaki directly into the wild. Wild octopuses must learn to hunt and protect themselves, just like you taught it to play the piano. Once you change an animal's original behavior and then abandon it, it's a very cruel act."
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