WITH last weekend’s theme of keyboards played in unusual places around Southampton it was a treat to not only go to a gig in a bookshop, but also listen to one of the newest pianos around.

The ‘Airpiano’ has been created by German inventor Omer Yosha and he’s let Scottish singer /songwriter Jo Hamilton experiment with what can only be described as a plank shaped hotplate.

But it’s a wonderful instrument and what makes it magical is that you play it by waving your hands above it: as if you're trying to stop balloons floating up.

The effect is entrancing and wouldn’t have looked out of place in any episode of Star Trek.

The motions trigger sounds in the computer but levels, pitch and bend are all activated by the swaying limbs of the ‘pianist’.

An intimate crowd that gathered in Hythe’s Chapter One were enthralled by not only the instrument but Jo’s moving songs.

“The best way to work with it, is to write on it, rather than translate a song,” Jo told me. “You have to work out what works physically with it.”

For shop proprietor Grant Sharkey this was another successful mini concert: “When its silent, there’s people in a bookshop and there is goose-pimply music I just love it! It’s wonderful!”

For me is was a perfect mixture of music, science and literature, on a Saturday afternoon, in a shop.