Performances by Joshua and Ryan Cribbs are full of surprises. Sometimes Ryan is surprised. ... 4 hands, 88 keys...

Old Joshua may be the only one who is never surprised. We call him "old" Joshua because he has one of those marvelous elastic faces that can cause a belly laugh when you least expect it. He knows this ability well, but rarely uses it.

If he does display a Vaudeville face, it's at the right second and makes members of the audience keep their eyes glued, hoping he'll do another one. Ryan, who is accustomed to his brother, has trouble keeping his own face serious.

They are not Vaudeville performers. They play piano. Together or separately. Seriously or wittily. Their fingers may linger longingly over the notes, making your heart begin to ache a little, or they may dance over the keys in a blur making it difficult to control your feet.

They take their Yamaha electric keyboard and other musical instruments to play in area nursing homes and for charitable benefits. They also play in ice cream parlors, Free Chapel church services, on the Steinway grand at Nordstroms department store at the Mall of Georgia, and anywhere they can find a piano.

The Times watched and listened to them Thursday at Gainesville's Dogwood Forest and the Guest House, where audience faces were split with big grins and toes were tapping.

The brothers play both from memory and with sheet music. Emcee-mom Jan Cribbs announced that they once performed without sheet music, and Josh, then at the piano, quietly said he now has too much in his head.

For the first time, they're preparing to enter the Georgia Music Educators Association Piano Auditions/Competition on Dec. 3 in Macon. For this performance, they had to memorize many pages of music, and some of the other stored compositions had to be "deleted."

The brothers play ragtime, spirituals, hymns, classics, folk songs or new songs such as "Santa in a Red Corvette" that Ryan wrote himself. They play Scott Joplin as easy as they play Chopin.

At the nursing homes, they frequently play old family folk songs such as "Oh, Susanna," and "Camptown Races." They also play guitar, violin, harmonica and a total of about 13 instruments. Their only music lessons have been for piano; they taught themselves to play the other instruments.

When comparing them to professional musicians, the listener may hear a rare falter or misstep now and then. But they each have been studying music since age 3. They have performed before groups, numbering from one to 4,000, so many times that they appear perfectly at ease before an audience.

They travel to Athens now once a week to take lessons from Joey Hokayem, formerly of Gainesville, who is known for his award-winning piano students. They also are studying advanced music theory at Brenau University where they have studied with Dr. Priscilla Jefcoat for four years.

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