But don't be surprised: She can unleash maelstroms at the piano, throw an elbow and pound a fist, then make a U-turn and come back swinging.

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And when (she) gives you a regular song, that's going to be as shocking as the meat dress, with her sitting there at the piano with no crazy hat on.

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The folks at Mudcu.be, who built a lovely color piano music visualizer have nothing to do with Belgium as far as I can tell, but the .be suffix makes for a handy branding opportunity.

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"It's a great place to live, and I think there's probably no better place in the world to die, " says Joanne Karp, an 81-year-old resident who was supposed to be in her room recovering from eye surgery but instead was down the hall at the piano, accompanying three kids learning to play the recorder.

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Many Jewish immigrant kids had had European musical training, and first generation Jewish-American children were often encouraged to study music, whether at home with a piano or in the synagogue, where texts were routinely meant to be sung.

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But in 1962, during a seven-week tour of the Soviet Union, an ingenious piano tuner gave me the chance to experience what having more than one piano at one's disposal might be like.

WSJ: When Two Makes Perfect | By Byron Janis

Between her roots in classical piano and her jazz-guitar education at the Berklee College of Music, it would be easy for Larkin to fall back on technical prowess and ability to experiment with instruments such as the "baribow" (a baritone guitar played with a violin bow).

NPR: Patty Larkin: Haunted Songs