By Julia Hudson
There is a piano at St Pancras Station. In fact, there are a number of ‘street’ pianos all over the world, but this is the one that catches my eye. It’s almost never empty, as passers-by, tourists and possibly even the occasional commuter stop to pick out ‘Twinkle Twinkle’, well-known classics, their own compositions or sometimes just some blues-y chords. In London you are being bombarded from all angles: enter this shop, buy this coffee, give to this charity – and yet this project, ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ is successful, to such an extent that although it came to London for the 2012 Olympics it has remained here ever since.
The project’s website says: “‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ was first commissioned by Fierce Earth in Birmingham, UK in 2008. With 15 pianos located across the city for three weeks it is estimated that over 140,000 people played or listened to music from the pianos. Since then ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ has reached an estimated five million people worldwide. Disrupting peoples’ negotiation of their city, Street Pianos are designed to provoke people into engaging, activating and claiming ownership of their urban landscape. Like a musical equivalent of Facebook, Street Pianos provide an interconnected resource for the public to express themselves.” Society is, increasingly, about self-expression – as well as social media, graffiti, demonstrations and even styles of dress are all ways in which people are bringing their personal life into public view. Here, we have one which gives something back.
When was the first time you played a musical instrument? Was it when your parents decided you should take piano lessons, probably against your will, or was it when you were forced to join the school choir? Probably not, in fact – my guess is that it was long before that, when a friend or relative with suitable disregard for your parents’ sanity bought you some kind of noisy baby toy. A brightly coloured xylophone, a tambourine, a mini keyboard, or even one of those books that plays carols at the press of a button – all brilliant toys to improve a baby’s awareness and stimulate their learning. Also, teaching them that by touching something they can make a noise, which (unfortunately, some might say) is inherently attractive. Fast forward 26 years, and I am currently spending some of my time at a house that owns a drum kit. I cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, play the drums. In fact, as a musician, I can safely say that rhythm is my weak point. However, in recent weeks I’ve taken rather a fondness to having a go (I’ve mastered two rhythms, a third still eludes me) and I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction when I manage it for a few seconds – rather than the instruments I already play, it’s fun to try something new and different.
These are examples of exactly the same symptom that I remember my Head of Wind Studies at school talking about many years ago. He picked up his trumpet, blasted out a loud and unpleasant noise to the assembled teenagers in front of him, and said ‘this is what everyone does, as soon as they get their trumpet home for the first time – not try to play a C major scale. Music should be satisfying, and it should be fun’. How can we convey this enthusiasm to children starting out on their musical journey? Why does every toddler happily play that annoying demo theme on their keyboard for hours, yet by the time they are in primary school music is being sidelined? Many teenagers throw all their energies into being ‘in a band’ – how can we translate this dedication and enthusiasm into formal education?
My view is that we need to convey the importance of knowing the basics. For every Paul McCartney that can’t read music, there are many Chris Martins and Laura Mvulas – classically, thoroughly trained musicians who then branched out to create their own kind of music. With a proper knowledge of reading music, an awareness of its history and trends, young people can then start to find their particular niche without intimidation, whether that is authentic Baroque chamber music or innovative electronic composition. And, increasingly, financial and circumstantial limitations don’t need to be barriers to involvement. With a new project run by Savills estate agents, ‘Free Rehearsal Space’ is a project allowing arts groups to make use of unused commercial property spaces. Initiatives like this, as well as the ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ project, have “enticed many hidden musicians out of the woodwork. It has become apparent that there are thousands of pianists out there who don’t have regular access to a piano. ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ provides access to this wonderful musical instrument and gives musicians the opportunity to share their creativity by performing in public.”
More importantly than just competence at the piano, therefore, is the quest for community, as well as a respite from an increasingly stressful daily life. The creator of the project, Luke Jerram, says that ‘The idea for Play Me, I’m Yours came from visiting my local launderette. I saw the same people there each weekend and yet no one talked to one another. I suddenly realised that within a city, there must be hundreds of these invisible communities, regularly spending time with one another in silence. Placing a piano into the space was my solution to this problem, acting as a catalyst for conversation and changing the dynamics of a space.’ Ultimately, music is a social activity – as we discussed previously on this blog, without listeners a performance is merely a rehearsal. Here, every rehearsal becomes a performance.
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