Steve Talbott

The difference between the piano and the shoot-em-up video game is that, for the most part, the latter trains our reflexes to operate independently of our higher, more artistic sensibilities. The aim is merely to maximize a score or otherwise to win. Where the pianist is pursuing a sense of a coherent whole and is trying to produce an esthetically unified performance, the video game player is simply responding to one damned thing after another. Bodily grace and expressive content hardly figure into the picture as conscious goals - although I suspect there are few if any imaginable activities where the truly superb performer is not required to develop some aspects of grace.