It came and went almost without notice: a small musicale at Rockefeller University last winter that was part of a symposium called "Meet the Polymaths." Ten amateur pianists performed favorite pieces, playing by heart for the most part, and afterwards engaged in a panel discussion on ways that music and the sciences seem to go hand in hand. The correlation is striking. It is hard to find great scientists or technologists who don't have some flair or at least passion for music. Einstein played the violin. Artificial intelligence guru Marvin Minsky loves to play fugues. Claude Shannon, the recently deceased father of modern information theory, tried to make computers compose music. MIT has a terrific orchestra. Yes, MIT.

Actually, the New York Times did notice the concert-where I was, incidentally, among the participants. Reviewing the event (in the paper's science pages, naturally), Bruce Schechter hit the nail on the head by including the following anecdote.

Two of the most towering piano virtuosos of all time, Josef Hofmann and Leopold Godowsky, were schmoozing at a party. Aside from being phenomenal pianists, the pair had something else in common: both were very short in stature, with remarkably small hands to match. After reverently shaking hands with the pianists, a fan was struck by their tiny hands. "How can you great artists play the piano so magnificently with such small hands?" she asked. Godowsky (a good friend of Einstein's) replied, "Where in the world did you get the idea that we play the piano with our hands?"

I'll second that. Now, as it happens, my own hands are better sized for pro basketball, but I play the piano passably. My piano duet partner, Mary Farbood, has rather small hands. We're proof that, in piano playing, size really doesn't matter. Godowsky was right: the piano is not just a tool for the fingers. Mind and heart matter a lot more.