Hands On Pianos

Whether your specialty is chopsticks or Chopin, you’ll be the keyboard maestro this July in the Upper Valley. Thanks to the Hands on Pianos community project, colorfully decorated pianos will be turning up at bus stops, parks, sidewalk plazas, farm stands, general stores and other unexpected places around the region for the duration of that month, available for people of all ages and skill levels to explore, enjoy and engage in impromptu music-making.

Kicking off the Hop’s 50th-anniversary season, Hands On Pianos is modeled after other “street piano” projects in cities around the world. The Hop’s version involves 50 instruments, most of them “heavily loved” donated pianos that will be transformed into eye-catching marvels by local artists.  The project will also include a handful of “partner pianos” already in place in schools, community centers and businesses willing to make them available to all comers. Keep an eye on this page for more information about uploading photos and videos of yourself playing the instruments.

All 50 pianos will be festooned with the Hop’s festive Hands On Pianos placard and will be featured in an interactive web site to which piano donors can offer their instrument’s history: was it the keyboard on which they practiced their first lessons? The center of Aunt Mary’s front parlor sing-alongs? The nucleus of a first rock’n'roll band or stab at songwriting?

In addition, the project is a chance for a colorful public final chapter for dozens of Upper Valley pianos before they go to the Great Steinway Store in the Sky. With some 1,200 parts under their “hoods,” pianos don’t improve with age, and older pianos often require maintenance and repair that are eventually not worthwhile. Scan the classifieds on any given day and you’ll see pianos available for free. As Henny Youngman might have said, “Take my piano—please!”

During the month-long project, each piano will be checked daily and those in exposed locations will be guarded against rain by means of removable tarps. At the end of the project, the donated pianos will be mined for usable and recyclable parts.

Already, agreements are in place with multiple towns, businesses and property owners to place pianos in a host of unusual and welcoming places around the Upper Valley, including Ledyard Bridge, the Tip Top Building in White River Junction, Huse Park in Enfield, the Dartmouth Green, the Storrs Pond Recreation Area, the Montshire Museum of Science, the Co-op Food Stores, and dozens more locations.

Hands On Pianos is sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College in celebration of its 50th anniversary, with generous support from Hanover Transfer & Storage, ALTARIA  Development, LLC; and AVA Gallery and Art Center.