Stay focused on that piano not ladies BJ, Maile told me you are the next Beethoven or did she mean Schroeder?
Schroeder's piano
The piano's capability is illustrated in 1965's A Charlie Brown Christmas. Lucy asks Schroeder to play "Jingle Bells". Schroeder plays it in the style of a conventional piano, then manages to generate the warm tones of a Hammond organ,
but Lucy cannot recognize the tune until the now-irritated Schroeder
plays it, with one finger, in the tones of a normal toy piano. It's the
only time in the history of the television specials that his toy piano
ever actually sounds like a toy piano, with 'plinking' sounds.
Schroeder is normally a very passive character, content to play his
music, but he can be angered quite easily, especially if his music or
his idol Beethoven are insulted. In one short Lucy points out to him
the woefully inadequate single-octave range of a toy piano; an angry
Schroeder yanks it out from under, causing her to conk her head on the
floor. This became more of a running gag
in the strip's later years. On another occasion, Lucy asked if pianists
made a lot of money, and Schroeder flew into a rage: "Who cares about
money?! This is art, you blockhead! This is great music I'm
playing, and playing great music is an art! Do you hear me? An art!
Art! Art! Art! Art! Art!" (the last five words punctuated by slamming
his hands against his piano).
The musical notes
Schroeder plays also seem to have substance; characters are able to
touch them as they appear in the air. Snoopy, for example, once
decorated a Christmas tree using a handful of them, and has on at least one occasion been seen dancing atop the musical staff containing the notes.
On two occasions, Lucy went so far as to destroy Schroeder's piano
in an attempt to be rid of the "competition" for his affection. She
once threw it into a sewer and the piano was washed out to sea. She
later threw another one into the dreaded Kite-Eating Tree,
which apparently ate pianos as well. Schroeder ordered his replacement
pianos from the Ace Piano Company. When Charlie Brown asked if his
piano was covered by insurance Schroeder replied, "How do you explain
to the insurance company that your piano was eaten by a tree?". On
another occasion Lucy, armed with a baseball bat,
smashed to pieces a bust of Beethoven sitting on top of his piano;
Undaunted, Schroeder calmly picked out a new bust from a closet
well-stocked with duplicates.
The only time Schroeder accepted a gift from Lucy was when she gave
him a sketch of Beethoven--she was then shocked to find he already had
a gigantic wall-size portrait of Beethoven hanging in his room.
