Used Pianos Can Be Donated to Charities and Artists - NYTimes.com
So did you read that depressing article in The New York Times about used pianos that end up getting dumped and junked? I couldn’t help but notice that it inspired, in me at least, a surprisingly visceral sense of sadness — on behalf of what are, after all, objects.
Turns out it wasn’t just me: “The emotions evoked by the deaths of used pianos are powerful, and they came flooding in” after that article, The Times reports in a follow-up:
But when it comes to keeping old pianos alive, owners find that their feelings collide with the reality of expensive repairs and inexpensive, easily available brand-new replacements.
Read the details here.
More musical instrument repurposing: Instruments turned into water fountains.
I (Molly) have to say that I have mixed feelings about decorative water fountains.
I find the sound of streaming water to be soothing, and I’m a fan of garden art and other garden-y things; however, I think fountains can be a waste of resources — water, electricity.
What do you think?
Photos, from the Philadelphia Flower Show, via Bérénice, a.k.a. Babeur on Flickr, here and here.
Related: Kinetic water fountains made from old instruments, made by Douglas Walker. Lovely, but still.
Audio-visual artist, Kathy Hinde’s work is pretty extraordinary. At TEDGlobal, she showed a version of this installation from last year. From the TED blog post: “Essentially, she found a broken piano that was going to be discarded. She stripped it and then she hung it up as a screen on which to project video. It’s rigged, mechanically, so that if a bird is projected on a string, that string will play a note. So, by projecting a video of birds on the piano, she can play a tune.” Kinetic sound sculpture gone wild.
Very interesting new use for an old piano. (Other uses here, in case you missed them.)
Piano Bookshelf.
We here at Unconsumption love coming across examples of musical instrument repurposing, and this uncredited piano-cabinet-turned-bookshelf photo is a great one to add to the group.
(Note: We always prefer seeing photos posted with proper attribution and link(s) to source(s). If you know the source of this piano-shelf photo, tell us!)
(Source: franspiano)
Australian artist Noel Brady deconstructs old pianos and assembles the instruments’ small parts into wall panels and other works of art.
There was a time, back in the 1950s and 60s, when many rural families in Queensland would often gather around the old piano in the corner of the dining room, for an evening of music and sing-a-long.
Way before the Ipod, Itunes, Xbox and indeed, even television itself, friends and families had to entertain themselves, and so many homes relied on the old ‘goanna’ as the centrepiece for the nights’ activities. As time and technology marched on, the old piano became neglected and forgotten.
As a sculptor working in regional Queensland, I happened to come across such an old piano and proceeded to pull it completely apart, eventually reducing it to a collection of hundreds of tiny pieces of wood. I became fascinated by these intricate small parts and then began to realise their sculptural potential.
Pictured: above, Noel Brady’s Convergence, 2009; below, Unknown Pictogram, 2011.
More from Artslink Queensland.
Find other examples of musical instrument repurposing in earlier Unconsumption posts here.
In other academic news
TIME magazine reports on a time-honored tradition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: the annual hurling of a broken piano off a dormitory roof.
The tradition began in 1972, when students living in the Baker House dorm had a broken piano on their hands and, as any rational group of intelligent undergraduates would, decided to push it off the building’s roof.
The tradition has become such a smash hit that after the dust settles, onlookers scramble to grab splintered wood, keys, hammers, strings and any other errant debris strewn across the dorm’s lawn. Astronaut Catherine Coleman, an MIT alumna, even took one piano’s key to the International Space Station during her six-month stay.
Those [pianos] chosen for the drop are generally already broken, often donated by generous folks who, understandably, have no idea what else to do with a broken piano sitting in their home.
In fact, the campus tradition has turned into something of a drop-off service for unwanted pianos. Eager owners contact the students to have their irreparable and cumbersome instruments taken off their hands.
(via TIME.com)
Hmm, I have to say I’m more a fan of piano repurposing like this and, for grand and baby grand models, this.
What would you do with an irreparable piano?
A Dumpster converted to a swimming pool; a food court and pocket park — shaded by vinyl repurposed from old billboards, “with puzzle-piece seating made from old fences” — built by University of Texas at Arlington architecture students; an old piano placed on the street for passersby to play; the street giving greater way to pedestrians and bicyclists; a bike rack made from a traffic sign — all were part of a “Build a Better Boulevard” event held recently near downtown Dallas.
The event took place in association with the Dallas Complete Streets project, “intended to shift the city’s emphasis to building streets that are safer, more livable, and welcoming to everyone.”
(via Scenes From a Better Ross Avenue - DallasObserver - Unfair Park blog)
See also: Earlier Unconsumption posts about repurposed Dumpsters, billboards, pianos, and traffic signs.
Sing for Hope, a New York-based non-profit organization that promotes arts accessibility, will install 60 donated (used) pianos in New York City parks and other public spaces next month. The “street pianos” are part of “Play Me, I’m Yours,” an international public art project created by British artist Luke Jerram. Jerram describes the project as “a blank canvas for everyone’s creativity.”
Pianists and passers-by will be able to post photos and videos to streetpianos.com/nyc2010, which features maps showing the piano locations and additional information about the project.
After the project ends in July, Sing for Hope will donate the pianos to area schools and community centers.
The Street Pianos Are Coming! New York’s Latest Public Art Experiment – The Village Voice blogs
Piano lid coffee table on Instructables.
Pretty cool…that is if you can get your hands on an old piano lid.
(Thanks, Make)
