Sound no barrier for 'world's fastest' pianist

A composer who claims to be the world's fastest pianist says tickling the ivories quicker than the human ear can hear is a surefire route to nirvana.

Ukrainian Lubomyr Melnyk is working his fingers at a dizzying 19.5 notes per second, and believes the result - what he calls "continuous music" - is the first innovation in piano playing in more than three centuries.

"The concert pianist is like a propeller airplane, but the continuous-music pianist is like a jet plane," Melnyk, 65, said in an interview ahead of his first-ever appearance in Tokyo. "It's an enormous difference."