Yesterday, I saw a something like a European young artists competition
on TV, where young (around 16-20 years old) solo artists played with
an orchestra.  The young talents were quite impressive on different
solo instruments like piano, cello , violin, even accordion!

But now to the point; one of the competitors played a stormy piece of
Prokofiev on a huge Boesendorfer grand piano, and it seemed to have at
least four extra white keys in the bass, with blacks in between.  The
camera captured the piano player in a straight angle from the left
side, so the extra keys were displayed in the bottom of the picture.

Here's the strange part, the extra keys were black instead of white!
The picture was a bit unclear in the edge, so I couldn't tell the shade
of the black keys, but I guess their shade also was swapped (to white).

I tried to figure out if the artist ever hit any of those extra keys,
but he played so fast, so I'm not quite sure!  I think he once however
went into that area.

Do real concert grand pianos have extra bass keys?  What about extra
treble keys?  They must be rare.  How rare?

Probably no player piano manufacturer bothered making those notes play
automatically; however, does anyone know for sure?

If one should happen to have such a piano, what about inserting an
extra valve and pneumatic for that single note to be played by the one
(-1-) roll in the collection needing that note? :-)  (It seemed to me
at least, that the pianist played one such note once.)

Myself, I can barely get any musically out of the lowest note (it only
rumbles to my ear), so what is the purpose of those extra bass keys
other than being fancy?

Thomas Henden, Norway

 [ The Ampico roll of Liszt Concerto in E-Flat, played by Marguerite
 [ Volavy, omits the triangle solo which introduces the 3rd movement.
 [ I want to somehow add aonther control channel to play a real triangle
 [ hanging under the piano !  :)  -- Robbie