"The concert pianist is like a propeller aeroplane, but the continuous music pianist is like a jet plane," Melnyk told AFP in an interview ahead of his first ever appearance in Tokyo. "It's an enormous difference."
That's 19.5 notes each hand per second. A lightning speed for pianist. He said that an ordinary pianist can only play an average of 13 to 14 notes per second.
What he played in Tokyo is extremely extra ordinary and even he may not do it again.
His music may not be compared to the composition of Beethoven or Chopin, but he is proud that his music exist.
"You never get tired of playing – if you can stay awake you can play for 24 hours a day. I'm not claiming my music is as beautiful as Beethoven or Chopin. But I think it's important that it exists."
"Nothing has happened with the piano for 300 years – since 1650, nothing," he said. "What Scarlatti was doing,Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev were still doing, 300 years later.
"Finally something new has happened in the world of the piano. It's terrible to think I could be the first and the last to do this."
"In continuous music you can't make a mistake because you are living the music with the piano. My fingers disappear."
"All I hear and experience when I'm playing is the actual music, the sound, the piano. I barely feel anything. I'm barely aware, my mind is racing and I'm just flying through this landscape. It's beyond nirvana."
