I went into a room yesterday where my sister was watching BBC 4 where a piano was being played. The view on the screen was the keyboard/hands/reflection view. I looked at it and said "Ah, Freddy Kempf". "How can you tell?" she asked. "They're Freddy Kempf's hands" I replied. As it turns out I was right. Then I thought about it for a while. How is it that I can recognise Freddy Kempf from his hands alone?

You need to get out more!

I - don't - know -

How can you recognise Freddy Kempf from his hands alone ???

NO, it's not a joke: I knew as soon as I saw the screen that it was Freddy Kempf. I'm just not sure why. Maybe I just thought it was him and got lucky. Maybe I could see the reflection of the floor tiles (he was in the room with the chessboard pattern floor that you can see him in on youtube playing Chopin studies). Maybe he's just got a distinctive way of positioning and moving his hands. I don't know. I was sure, though.

Probably a mixture of those things. Also, could you hear him or was the sound turned off?

I sang in a service last year with 2 conductors and 3 organists (it was something with three choirs all singing together, so the guys from all three shared the jobs out between themselves). Because I was on the same side as the organ loft, I couldn't see which organists played which parts of the service, but I was able to tell, with absolute certainty, which one it was for some things because I recognised his playing style, just from the sound.

So, unless the sound was turned off, your ears were probably telling you as much as your eyes - maybe more.

I've got a friend who went to school at King's (he wasn't a chorister himself and isn't into that type of music at all). If I play him CDs of choral music, he can pick out which ones are from King's College, because of the distinctive accoustics of the building and the characteristic sound of the choir. (It's the building not the choir he's homing in on most because I played him one of King's choir recorded elsewhere and he said that if it was King's they weren't in the chapel. And he explained to me that he can hear the different echoes resulting from the narrow width and the long length of the building. To him, it's an aural 'fingerprint', which he just recognises without having to even think about it.)
He's not a musician. You are, so your ears are probably far more attuned to such details.

T.

Or maybe it was just the hands. I would certainly recognise any of my family and most of my friends from their hands. If you have watched clips of various pianists enough times, I'm sure you would recognise their hands in the same way (hence my initial comment...)

I'm willing to bet since you are a surgeon that your visual memory is very strong/highly trained and that it was the fact you'd seen that clip before....that it was probably the floor tiles combined with other visual things.

I was watching on an aeroplane the film Willie Wonka and the Chocolate factory (it was a **very** long flight) and Willie's father, a dentist, didn't recognise him until he inspected his teeth. OK so its Raoul Dahl...

It was probably the speed he was playing at (too fast for his own good and the listener's comfort)

Did he have F R E D tattooed on the knuckles of one hand and K E M P F on the other?

Even I'd recognise him!

Strangely, earlier this week I noticed one of my clients had a tattoo on his inner lip. Scottish chap, bit scary. I didn't even mention it!

I second that.