Would you spare a piece of your time for some beautiful music?
Before the coronavirus shut the world down, it was filled with street performers here and there – almost everywhere. There were actors and actresses, musicians, singers, dancers, and many others.
One of them is this old man. He walked towards a public piano and what happened next was spectacular!
Everyone that day was busy, until…
What appeared to be an old man, hobbled towards a pubic piano that is situated inside a mall. He decided to stop by and tickle the keys with his fingertips.
Should we expect a performance that is worth our while? Let us all find that out.
Lend the old man your ears!
As soon as he approached the piano, he put his umbrella down, sat, and just seconds after, he started hammering the keyboard majestically with his itching fingers!
He played to Tones and I’s ‘Dance Monkey’.
Passers-by decided to stop and watch the old man play. Some of them even brought their phones out to record his performance.
Satisfied enough? If not, then we dare you to watch him finish his performance.
But first – a but about public pianos…
Public pianos are basically pianos placed in a public place. It’s simply to encourage musicians and even enthusiasts to play on them. It’s one way of exposing great talents in public.
According to Wikipedia, the first ‘Street Piano’ was a piano in Sheffield City in Yorkshire, England back in 2003.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBvDU91gWQp/
They wrote,
“It was originally left outside temporarily because the owner could not get it up the steps into his new house. As a social experiment the owner and a friend then attached a sign inviting passersby to play the piano for free. This offer was taken up by a great many people and the piano became a part of the local community. It survived for over a year, including being stolen and subsequently replaced by a newer model (with several volunteers willing to provide a new one).”
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-Vl1TrANh1/
The second idea popped-out in Birmingham, United Kingdom back in 2008.
It’s a brilliant idea from an international artist named Luke Jerram. They called it ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’, wherein they placed multiple pianos across the city for a span of three weeks. They said that over 140,000 people played or listened to the pianos from different places in the entire city.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CDwK536AUK5/
“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. Where people have met for the first time around the pianos, the project has led to several marriages around the world. “
Have you seen a public piano performance like this?
You may have seen a lot of street performances from piano players, but not like this one.
By the way, the old guy’s face was just a mask (which you may have already noticed).
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9-JZ-Tp18O/
The man was in disguise as an old man and his name is Terry Miles, a Boogie Woogie Piano teacher.
He was all-in to the music and he was not able to contain his overflowing energy. There were parts of his performance wherein he was stomping and jumping on his feet.
Seriously, how can someone play the piano so good while energetically jumping? Anyway, it’s just the right attitude for a song that’s reached over a billion views on YouTube, right?
He even changed the tone and the tempo up one level.
The people watching him were obviously entertained since they gave Miles a couple of minutes of their time during that busy day. Going back to the question earlier, would you now be willing to spend some time listening to such beautiful music like this?
Can you dance like a monkey?
If not, just watch the old man do it for you in the video below.
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