Street pianos are all about communication, reaching out to complete strangers. It makes people talk to each other, abandoning their smart phone silos for just a while.
A player enters public space of some sort – picture a railway station, center hall – doesn’t speak to anyone specifically, sits down at the piano, briefly observes the crowd around us and starts playing. The first song is our opening statement to a potential audience and more than once, it’s in fact a question to them… When these questions get answered, beautiful musical encounters can happen where some – like this one in Amsterdam (NL) – go viral on social media.
Here’s a few questions we’ve practiced and observed from others over the years, they worked well on countless occasions.
Care to slow down for a while? – When playing an extremely crowdy and noisy place, see what happens if you open with a beautiful slow song with a touch of melancholy. It can be anything: classical music, a movie-theme, a ballad, as long as it’s slow and played legato (opposite of staccato). It can be quite rewarding for a street piano player if a bystander deliberately misses one bus or train and talks about it.
Care to sing? – This needs a bit of people savvy. Once you’re able to sense someone’s eagerness to sing (remember we’re in public space) it can be a challenge to get them to actually step forward. Two ways to get there: either ask straight forward (with chance of a massive shutdown) or play a few songs towards the singer(s) suppressed eruption. When targeting an individual (example): is she more like Adele, Amy, Pink, Beyonce, Dolly P., Nancy S.? When aiming for groups: Where am I, what’s popular here, who’s their musical hero? Remember: not a single song will work in all different outskirts of our globe!
Care to tune in? – We’ve played hundreds of duets worldwide, mostly unexpected, sometimes aimed for. When aiming for a 2nd piano player, there’s an opportunity to use half the piano stool, playing only the left part of the keyboard, there’s no clearer message sent… When aiming for a second instrument: keep scanning your surroundings. One day I thought I’d spotted a badminton racket sleeve, where it turned out to be an unexpected duet musical saw!
Care to dance? – This one’s the most difficult, by far! It’s public space, but MAN if you can make it happen 😉 Usually, you’ve been watching previous players building a crowd. Once it’s your turn to play, give it hell! A Jive, some Rock-’n’-Roll will work just fine. Best we’ve ever witnessed: Santiago de Chile (CL) 2013, where an office-worker stepped into the picture, put down his briefcase and got like 10 couples to dance a completely spontaneous tango, all with ONE song!Or just care to listen? – This one’s the easiest. Just do your thing, play your best and keep scanning your crowd. Quit at your peak, have a coffee and smile!
Last for now, here’s a few opening lines we’ve observed over the years that weren’t our favorites:
That previous player was an amateur – Honestly, we can’t think of any reason to open with the same song as the previous player’s last one. Mostly played better, closer to the original, sometimes faster. It’s not a competition folks and the message sent out to both previous player and the crowd is not a very kind one…
My piano lessons are starting to pay off – For a while, we thought that we could predict who would open with “Amélie Theme” or “River Flows in You”, either one of both and in random order. It used to be “Für Elise” for decades, but nowadays piano teachers (or students) around the world found these 2 to show a lack of phantasy. Think of both songs what you prefer, but opening with them usually means: Mom and Dad, if you’re listening, your money was spent questionably…
Show’s over! – Sadly, we’ve seen this too many times. A gifted player of any kind has been playing for a while, building a nice crowd, then gets gently tapped on the shoulder to make way for a new player. Upon sitting down, new player starts hammering keys in pretty random order, pedals to the floor, fists and elbows. The message it sends: I hate beauty and prefer to destroy, but thanks for your attention.
Stay safe, enjoy playing!
From the original worldpianos.org blog, restored by Sing for Hope.
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