Piano Shaped Object
We were honoured to be visited by Devanney Haruta – a fully fledged piano pilgrim! She is a 4th year PHD student studying Musicology & Ethnomusicology at Brown University, investigating human/instrument relationships and themes of life and death around musical instruments. She had been following our Piano Drowning project, as she also has an outdoor piano project – Piano (de) composition.
https://sites.google.com/brown.edu/pianodecomposition/home/piano-archive
We spent several days conversing about pianos in all shapes and forms. The discussions revealed a fascinating bit of piano terminology, completely new to this project – Piano Shaped Object, or PSOs to those deeply involved in piano repair and restoration.
‘Piano Shaped Object‘ is a term used by tuners and instrument repair specialists for pianos that are beyond repair, no longer a viable instrument.
Our piano began its life in the pond as a PSO, as per the original ‘Piano Drowning’ score written by Annea Lockwood in 1972:
Find a shallow pond with a clay/other hard bed in an isolated place.
Slide upright piano into position vertically, just off-shore.
Anchor the piano against storms, e.g. by rope to strong stakes.
Take photographs and play it monthly, as it slowly sinks.
Note: All pianos used should already be beyond repair.
While I don’t believe that pianos themselves carry their own memory, the people surrounding the pianos certainly do. Pianos inhabit singular spaces, which overlap with segments of one or more human lifespans - nostalgia runs deep. For this reason, our piano came to us severed from its past – free – neutral - ready to start a new life.
Pianos are essentially a playable piece of furniture. You don’t take it with you or move it around, people must move themselves around the piano. It takes up a specific amount of space and requires a particular arrangement of other objects in the room.
Perhaps this is why it doesn’t seem so strange to have a piano in our pond. A pond itself is a destination. One must travel TO the pond, you wouldn’t expect the pond to come to you. The water also makes it somewhat inaccessible. You must commit to interact. It requires getting cold / wet / dirty.
When is a piano not a piano?
That question can be answered again and again.
Any piano shaped object excites one’s piano-based memories. Perhaps of childhood lessons, or performances, or of a specific piano in a particular place.
When is a piano not a piano?
A piano removed from its room is the saddest kind of orphan. It can’t be put in a hallway or stowed away in a closet. No one so far has invented a murphy-style pull down wall piano. Therefore, there are an incredible number of abandoned pianos nowadays, as most people no longer dedicate entire rooms in their house to such a fussy and demanding object.
When is a piano not a piano?
At what point would it be easier to call it a pile of wood and bits of metal?
When is a piano not a piano?
I believe our piano will still be a piano for many years to come. Our piano has a title and a legacy. It has visitors and its own webpage. It has been filmed and photographed. It has been paid attention to. It has inspired music and travel, poems and drawings. It is home to spiders and insects. It is a destination.
DATE: 27 MARCH, 2025
CONDITIONS: 9 DEGREES C, LIGHT WIND
DAYS IN THE WATER: 1,291
