Inspiration from the Cat playing the piano!....Lang Lang did!

I'm not talking about those funny cats playing the piano on Youtube. How do you engage young children to want to learn the piano? Communicate to them in a genre familiar to them, with characters they know well. In this instance, it's Tom and Jerry, and the short film is called "The Cat Concerto". As my children 2 year old calls it, "Cat playing the piano." It was so popular and acclaimed at the time that it won an Academy Award (Oscar) in 1946 for best short subject: cartoons. Lang Lang credits this cartoon for inspiring him to learn the piano starting at the tender age of 3.
Here it is, Tom plays Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2.



And the knock on effect? About 25-40 million people in China have been inspired to learn the piano, following in Lang Lang's footsteps according to the article "Yes, China's got talent – but that's not enough" from the Observer on 14 Nov 2010. Deservedly, Lang Lang was listed in 2009 Time Magazine's Top 100 Influential People in the World.