Not so long ago, Antonio Domingos, an American pianist living in Portugal, was living a relatively unremarkable life as a concert pianist. Having endured ten years in drug-riddled corners of Moscow as he studied at one of Russia’s top conservatories, his career was fairly straight forward – sit at the piano; play what you’re told; bow at the end. However, after finding that the working relationship with his employers was proving impossible, Antonio was essentially blacklisted by orchestras and competition judges across the country, his uncompromising playing style being pretty much the opposite of what ‘the system’ wanted.
Realising that his best chance to get out of the situation was to prove his worth demonstrably, he set out to unequivocally prove he was more skilled than his contemporaries – he would become the fastest piano player alive. Well, sort of.
Antonio officially has the fastest fingers in the business, after smashing the record for the most piano key hits in one minute. The footage has been viewed on YouTube nearly half a million times, the figure even more monstrous on Facebook.
The pianist played the key B7 a staggering 824 times in 60 seconds – that’s more than 13 hits a second! Antonio bettered the previous record by 59 hits, potentially because his technique involved using two alternate fingers and he spent about four months training for the challenge.
He played on an unmodified Yamaha CFX concert grand piano in a music store in Lisbon, Portugal.
“I am I Portuguese-American professional pianist and have been playing since the age of seven,” Antonio told Guinness World Records in his application for the title.
“I broke this record in order to gain visibility in the international world of music by demonstrating my athletic prowess on the piano” he added.
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