Project Narrative
Music is a prominent force in everybody’s lives. To hear symphonies grace, bless us with the sound it produces, as it guides its way to our ears is phenomenal. Many people use music to help them through the roughest days that they could ever be going through. Music can help people physically, to get a workout going, mentally, from nostalgia and emotionally with lyricism. With all of this being said there is an issue at hand. The beautiful grand piano that resides within the NAC building of CCNY is tarnished. The piano has CCNY’s culture and history stored into it, and that can be seen just by looking at it, as you can see from any beautiful instrument. It’s such A graceful instrument only if it could be played. Broken keys, untuned, missing notes, some things that drastically affect the appearance of the instrument. Watching people try to play piano, complaining about the broken and missing keys and initially making a joke out of the piano is kind of sad. Our goal is to not only get this piano in the NAC fixed, but also to get the school to fund lessons on how to fix pianos, as well as fund piano lessons.
Our problem statement is the broken piano in the NAC. There are many reasons we want the piano fixed but a huge reason we came up with was there can be students who want to self teach themselves piano and there are also music majors that might be doing some homework or something related to their course. Alongside it being an iconic part of ccny and it’s culture, it’s something that people passing by can play and the beautiful sound that fills the air can make someone’s day better. Music tends to have a huge effect on people’s emotions and overall mood and it’s a part of everyone’s lives. Every other piano in Shepard Hall is electric besides the one in the Great Hall that is not often available to everyone like the one in the NAC. We have seen students playing the piano in the nac and we can visually see their frustration when they couldn’t play certain keys, and on top of that we would see them verbally voice their concerns. This issue is of our concern because we know how important music can be to people, I mean we already know what it means to us. We interviewed some students to see how they felt about the matter and they had quite a lot to say about this.
We looked into the budget for fixing or restoring a piano in our case. Many old pianos can be restored with a basic interior cleaning, action regulation tuning, etc for about $750 and $3500. The price grows as the services increase such as basic interior rebuilding which includes restringing, damper work, hammer replacement, regulation, tuning and voicing, the prices grow to $3500 – $9500.
We went around the school interviewing people, some were actually sitting by the piano trying to play it. To our surprise there were many students that found the piano important and wished it were fixed so that they could enjoy playing it. There was also a Grove student that told us that in Grove you cannot play any other piano in the school there unless you were listed as a music major, which is unfair but they turn to the piano in the NAC. if the piano isn’t fixed it would disappoint them. Besides being music majors, many people want to self teach themselves the piano while others want to blow off some steam. This would all be possible with enough funding to fix the piano. Here is the first interview that we did. We asked them a series of questions in regards to music in general or just the piano in the nac and how they feel about it. Here are three different perspectives:
What does music mean to you?
1)Music takes me on a journey. It’s an experience from beginning to end for me. Makes me want to feel something. Anything at all, whether it’s joy or sadness or anger. Music also helps me connect to people and make friends. It gives me an insight into how they are as a person. You could tell a lot by a person by the music they listen to. And even if you do not quite share the same taste, It’s good to step out of your comfort zone and give whatever they like a try. But for me, Music is an escape. Music is my release and music is my therapy. It is everything I need it to be when it matters most. Or when I just need something to drown out all the noise. I love music and all its parts.
2) As a black person, music has been something that can help transform pain into something pleasurable.
3) It’s an expression, another form of art in which instead of going through a visual aesthetic, it’s more auditory.
Do you play any instruments, or would you like to learn?
1)Yeah I play guitar both acoustic and electric, bass, and the ukulele. But besides that I would like to learn piano and drums.
2)Piano. I would like to learn the trumpet
3) I play many instruments, but I would like to get better at playing the piano.
How do you feel about the piano in the NAC?
1)I feel like having the piano is a good thing for the student and faculty. It allows people who know how to play piano and people who want to learn how to play piano to give it a shot. I feel like having music flow throughout the Rotunda every time you walk into the building would be refreshing. I personally tried playing the piano and noticed that the keys were broken and were out of tune and I think it would be much appreciated if fixed.
2) frustrated, the keys don’t work and It doesn’t allow you to play most songs because of it. I would like it if I could play songs without hearing the missing notes.
3) its trash, says clear all the strings are Out Of Tune they barely play and most of them probably cut I know
What impact do you think the restoration of the piano will have on CCNY?
1)I think it would be beneficial for the student body as many in our generation consider music a form of therapy. It would also encourage students to try and play, especially those who want to learn in between classes.
2)It would be very nice because I can play the piano that I care about and play songs without the disappointment of not being able to hear the strings.
3) Just that I would be extremely excited for the piano starts working because that’s a place that I can immediately go to 2 practice all the other pianos on campus are always restricted I’m a row student and they don’t like me playing in the music department because I’m not listed as a music student which is awful I feel like everyone should be able to go play some piano if you know you know even the people who aren’t in Liberal Arts date you know row students them soon as they all have some sort of passion towards in art people like to draw people like to play right and look at you be open to everyone not just music
