Play-a Paianna!

[Jonix]

For every piano lovers there will be a gigantic keyboard on this years Burning Man. All the way from Göteborg, Sweden the Vikings will set sail with a keyboard that is over 20 meter long
See you on the playa the rumors says that it will be some fantastic piano jam sessions this year

For some pictures look at http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Grand ... 207?ref=ts

[theCryptofishist]

What a great find! You're getting a regular piano farm going, there.

That was the easy part. Do you know how hard it is for pianos to mate? We're going to have to help them. Bring pulleys.

[Elliot]

Pulleys, you bet. The idea is to hang one piano from the scaffolding, and pull the other up to the roof of the bus with a winch -- then cut the rope.



In this picture, the black brackets would be scaffolding, and the bus would be outside the picture to the left. I guess it would have to be called a quickie. If we do this at mid-day, it will be a Nooner.

[Elliot]

I have scored a free Mazda pick-up-truck. There has been a fire under the hood, so the carburetor is... yes, toasted. But I think the odds of reviving it are good.

What would be cooler -- the Baby Grand Piano on a lawn tractor size chassis, so it looks pretty much like the piano is moving by itself; or on the Mazda pick-um-up chassis with a small dance floor and some furniture?

There is also the possibility of installing a boat on the Mazda, with a piano in the boat. That would be a Double Surreal Thing -- a boat in the desert and a piano in a boat.

Thoughts?

[Tiahaar]

oh yeah a cruise 'ship' with piano serenade would be fun...and you are totally upping the ante on Capt. Goddammit aren't you heheh

[Elliot]

Well, today I scored a free motorcycle; a Honda CB 750 F Super Sport. It has been sitting for ten years, but the innards are supposed to be sound. Only 20.000 miles. So that will probably power the Baby Grand Piano. Which leaves the Mazda chassis for a boat. I'll have to ask the Captain, ever so casually, what size his boat is.

[Elliot]

Free piano # 5. The exterior is a shipwreck, but all the keys work and it is in remarkably good tune. Even the sustain pedal works!

As for the plans I bounced around a while back -- I'm putting TWO boats on the Mazda (grafted back-to-back) and a piano in the boat(s). Already have my invite from the BRC DMV.

[Captain Goddammit]

Maybe I'll have to install a goddamm drum set or something...

[Elliot]

We are finally going to out-noise the ravers!

[talito]

I'm a piano player in SF (www.talariel.com) and was thinking of doing some kind of Piano Lounge/Bar/Singalong concept this year. I was planning on bringing a keytar (http://www.youngloverslabel.com/details ... tail-1.jpg) which is much easier to transport and lug around than a piano. And I was going to look for an art car that might want to host a daily/nightly event...or maybe just stroll around with keytar in hand.

I also love your piano idea and would love to coordinate some playing-singing-dancing time. I can play many different styles, but find that most people seem can't resist the best of the 80s repertoire. Think "Take On Me", "Dont Stop Believin", "Livin On A Prayer", "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", etc. I was also thinking I'd put some song/lyrics books together.

What say you?

[shroom]

I look forward to seeing these pianos on the playa!

[Elliot]

The boat may wind up looking something like this -- or different.

And there will be pianos in the Booby Bar and at the Kantina Apokiliptika.

Any piano you see, step right up and volunteer to play!

[Elliot]

Talito, might you be able to accompany a gen-ew-ine opera singer? It looks like we have one!

[talito]

Opera is not my forte as far as playing, but I'm definitely open to accompanying a singer. Any idea what kind of material?

[Elliot]

Her web site:

http://www.sophiasantulli.com/live/

And here on E-playa, she is "C.O.L.A.H."

http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?t=33734

[Elliot]

Piano number 6 (if I'm counting right):



Winter & Co. spinet, escaped from the dump. Major damage to the "lumber", and parts missing -- primarily the pedals and related mechanism. But after one minor repair, the action itself seems fine. (That one key you see drooping in the picture -- just disconnected.) And tuned well enough for the Playa.

Use of this one is "to be determined". Lack of the sustain seems to be the only "real" problem.

[talito]

She's a beaut!

[Elliot]

As these freebees go, she's a real weird one. Major pieces missing from the "box", and the sustain stuff, yet the action and sound seem lovely (to me). Makes me wonder what happened to it. It's like a car that's been rear-ended hard -- junk, but nothing wrong with the engine and other expensive stuff up front.

Come June, I plan to line all six up on the barn floor for "triage". I worry most about repairing my one Baby Grand, but Oscillator has offered his expertise.

[LeChatNoir]

My oh my, they just keep coming!

[Elliot]

My oh my, they just keep coming!

Now... if we hang one of these up as a pinata, we could say "the hits just keep coming!"

Recently, I was in contact with a man who said he went to Burning Man a few times back in the 1990s. He said he remembered a whole structure, that you could walk around inside, made of nothing but pianos!
And I believe it -- there are enough of them out there, for free.

[oscillator]

This guy was cruising the streets last weekend...

[LeChatNoir]

I love it.

[Elliot]

I think I earmarked the Lester for something like that





plus some of the old Herring Cycle





and we could be off and playing.


What will probably NOT happen this year, is Wolfgang Amadeus Earnhardt. Plenty to do with Bigger Boat instead.

[Elliot]

Brought home free piano #7 yesterday:



Willard, Chicago. Was in regular use, and I cannot find fault with it.

Still hoping for a usable Grand, but they rarely appear on the freebie market.

The supply of free uprights seems endless.

[talito]

What a beaut! That might actually be a keeper if it sounds nice. Can't wait to play her!

[Elliot]

Yes, I believe this one is a "real piano". This one we will take reasonably good care of, so we can bring it every year. Oscillator has volunteered to tune it on Playa, so it should serve you and our singers well.

[Elliot]

CLEARLAKE, June 09

All known emergency agencies in the City of Clearlake and surrounding Lake County responded this afternoon to Clearlake Mechaniachal Laboratorium on 20th Avenue, where a piano test apparently went horribly wrong.

911 switchboard managers reported that all lines were busy for nearly 20 minutes with frantic calls from citizens who feared that helpless animals were being grievously harmed.

Contacted later in the day by this publication, Laboratorium proprietor Elliot Naess explained that the sustain pedal on one piano had jammed in the “onâ€

[talito]

hide your children. and be very quiet.

[Elliot]

The Clearlake Home-Of-Last-Resort For Wayward Pianos was today visited by Mr. Oscillator, who performed test strikes on 88 keys x 8 pianos and found not a single piano in need of immediate euthanesia.

One or two of the pianos he rated "should tune up nicely".

A couple of others he rated "anything can be tuned, but...."

Two troublesome keys were found that I had not already identified -- a sticky middle C on the Willard, and a pretty much dead G Sharp on the Leckerling.
And of course, there are various known broken hammers and such which I am slowly but surely learning to repair. (A piano action is a marvel of functional simplicity. Quite straight-forward to repair. The only trouble is that there are 88 such mechanisms in each piano.)

Now.... This man -- Oscillator -- has four hands. No question about it, because he struck some cords that could only have been performed with at least 20 fingers -- to my ears, anyway. Wow. If he can make intriguing sounds like that come out af an UNtuned piano, then I'm definitely looking forward to hearing what he can do after he is done tuning one!

Mr. Oscillator seemed only slightly perturbed at the sight of eight pianos in a barn in Clearlake. He asked me just how many of them I intend to bring to BRC?

Well, let's see:

Kantina Apokiliptika
Booby Bar (backup to the rumored Concert Grand)
Aboard the Bigger Piano Boat (a Mutant Vehicle)
Kinetic Cab Company

Those are the four locations of playable pianos. These are all full size uprights.

In addition, I intend to relegate two pianos to "pinata" duty.

The Baby Grand will probably wait until next year. It needs a LOT of repair.

On his visit, Oscillator was riding a Honda 305 Superhawk motorcycle similar to the one Robert Pirsig reportedly rode in his famous book "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance". Whether he intended this choice of motorcycle as a hint that I am as nuts as Pirsig had been in the book -- is unknown. I prefer to think of it as the motorcycle Elvis Presley rode in the movie Roustabout.

[talito]

Wooo! Exciting stuff. Can't wait to get my hands on them!