48 seconds in - the other elephant starts twerking.
Personally, I found the elephant’s interpolation of twelve tone technique into that jaunty ragtime chestnut to be sardonic, brilliant, and curiously affecting.
Darn better rhythm then I have.
lol ephalunts
awh! Elephants are just so cool, wondrous creatures. We should replace all politicians with Elephants, we’d do much better I’m sure
This makes me think about instruments designed for elephants. What kind of music would they create for themselves?
I wish the handlers weren’t involved here. It appears he’s reading some sort of form and giving commands. Sorry, teh intertubes has made me a cynic.
Elephants’ trunks are their noses, right? All through this video I kept thinking how weird it would feel to play a piano by tapping my nose on the keys. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I tried that at least once as a child.
That elephant plays amazingly well. I’ve tried playing with my nose. It’s not easy.
Well, I think Peter just has a different sense of tonality…although his rhythm is point-on with the tune. Perhaps elephantine music is just different…and he was trying to show that jumpy human how it should be done.
I think he is filming with an ipad in a fancy case.
Peter was actually trying to turn off that damned organ. The switch is on the left side, Peter. The left side.
I loved this one Xeni posted late last year. “Hey buddy, my turn!”
I was expecting it to be more like my cat walking on the piano, but this elephant was really getting into it, flapping his ears and bouncing around.
Quick! Somebody give Peter some tap shoes!
The difference, of course, is that our noses aren’t nearly as long (nor flexible).
Imagine trying to play a very finely tuned theremin with the tip of your nose, only having to move the barest fraction of an inch to change pitch, instead of having to move your entire head around over relatively large distances as you would on a piano. 
Honestly, everything about imprisoned elephants, their abusive mahouts, and the things that they are trained to do for tourists (see especially “painting”) is completely horrible.
…but if I were to bring that up here I’d probably be accused of concern-trolling, so carry on.
I’d thought dancing was a human-only behavior, our way of compensating for lack of movement involved in the production of sound. For Millions of years a swinging arm was needed for there to be rhythm. Why would an elephant have the urge? Radiolab sucks!!
