31: Traveling Piano / 'Play Me, I'm Yours' returns for a day for Make Music L.A.

31: Traveling Piano at Los Angeles Central Library
Designed by: Frank Cubillos
Piano type: Spinet
Playability: Excellent
Weather: 73°F, sunny
How I got here: Metro Red Line, Walking


If I had one wish, it would be to bring back 'Play Me, I'm Yours' for just one more day.

Well, it came true.

The L.A. Chamber Orchestra brought out its elusive Traveling Piano (which I was unable to play during the 'Play Me, I'm Yours' installation) for the day as part of Make Music Los Angeles, a day-long, city-wide music festival, where music is celebrated on International Music Day and the first day of Summer, just as it has been in Paris, France (and ove 400 cities worldwide) for the past 30 years as Fete de la Musique. 


Okay, full disclosure, this was not some magical happening, as I even had a hand in it. Since November of last year, I have been a board member of Make Music L.A., and told the LACO folks about MMLA.    They told me that the actual orchestra could not participate due to Summer being their offseason, but they would be willing to participate somehow. Eventually they said they would bring out the Traveling Piano (which resides permanently in their offices) to a nearby location in Downtown. I recommended the Central Library and gave them our contact for the library. A day later, it was a go!

They even had the piano maintained and tuned-up for the big day!

When MMLA day arrived, I stationed myself in Downtown to visit a few of the performance sites. Actually the Central Library was already scheduled as a performance site, with performances on its front lawn, facing Flower Street, and I was initially concerned there might be some interference of sound between the two, but it was not the case. When I got there, two men were playing acoustic guitar to a few lunchtime audience members and visiting daycare kids hanging out on the lawn.

The piano was situated next to the main entrance door that faces Flower, situated 90-degrees to the wall (I assume so it could be heard better). LACO's Maya Kalinowski and Nicolette Atkins were both there, and other LACO staffers dropped by during the course of the day. They also made an outreach event out of the piano, handing out LACO buttons, posters and soliciting donations.

Yes, it was like Play Me, I'm Yours was suddenly back. A library staffer ran towards the piano with a couple sheet music books from inside and played some Disney theme songs. A homeless man named Dave, who just got out of the library, got up and played some beautiful jazz tunes. A seven-year old boy named Bodie played some excellent classical pieces.

Dave, a homeless library patron, played some wonderful jazz tunes.

Seven year-old Bodie played some excellent classical pieces on the Traveling Piano!

My friend Keith Dasalla, who works at the library, stepped out of the office, bongos in hand, to accompany me on a "Summertime" medley. He also brought out some of his co-workers to add to the audience.

I left the piano for a couple hours to check out the other performances going on, and walked across the 110 freeway to catch LAUSD's Beyond The Bell performance stage, which set up on a closed-off  Boylston Street.

I returned for even more adventures. I met another homeless man who told me he used to play guitar professionally with some very well-known R&B acts back in the '70s until he injured his arm. I played a blues song while he sang...and then the sound of a fire alarm rang from the library. Hundreds of people poured out of the building...suddenly we had a huge, captive audience.

I spotted fellow street piano fan Stephen Jerrome in the crowd and got him to play. Janet Sudo, another street piano aficionado, who also played all 30, also dropped by, this time with her daughter Keylana. We even got to have a little street piano reunion!

Alas, 5 o'clock came around and a crew of piano movers came and unceremoniously plopped the Traveling Piano (a.k.a. La-La) onto a dolly and pushed it effortlessly towards the piano moving truck that was waiting at the curb on 5th street. So that's how it goes.

The Traveling Piano's day was over. But mine wasn't...a few hours later I returned to the Chinatown Street Piano on its last regular day with Keith to do our Make Music LA show.

It was a great say to celebrate music, Summer and street pianos.

Play Me, I'm STILL Yours!

On Memorial Day I took a bike ride around town and ended up at Union Station. I decided to use a Starbucks Gift Card I recently got, so I got me a Frapp. This was my first time since May 6 that I've been at Union Station, so the sight of the empty space next to Starbucks caused my heart to ache:

:(

After I consumed my Java Chip Frappuccino and a blueberry oat bar, I was considering curtailing my bike excursion and just taking the subway the rest of the way home. But something in me decided to just continue riding home via Cesar Chavez and Sunset. So that I did.

As I rode up the hill on Chavez near Grand, I passed by Ramon Cortines Performing Arts High School and looked wistfully at the empty space in their front gate where their street piano once stood.

Only it wasn't empty. Could it be?

Yes, the street piano is STILL THERE!

Some of the decorations were torn off, and the bench was almost ready to come apart in two pieces, but the piano was still in a playable shape, and no noticeable bad keys. So of course I did the honor of playing it, playing a few original tunes that had popped into my consciousness lately that I never got to play at the street pianos. I even composed a few riffs here and there.

A man walking a dog approached. He heard the music and thought I brought the piano by myself. I told him about the "Play Me, I'm Yours" installation in two sentences (Been doing it often enough, I have it down to a T now...). He was Tony Hernandez, a math teacher at Foshay Middle School. I told him about my Journalism school days at USC and how we got to tutor the kids at Foshay and helped them put their school paper together. He shared with me his frustrations as an LAUSD teacher. He lived up the street, at the Orsini Apartments. I asked if he played and offered the piano to him, he told me he only played "a little" and didn't take it up. Then he went on his way.

"Play Me, I'm Yours" is gone, but the interaction from the pianos lives on!

Since the installation ended, the L.A. Chamber Orchestra auctioned off six of the street pianos, and donated the rest, most of them to the host organizations.

Here's a list of the remaining, publicly-playable pianos that are still at their locations, as of June 2, 2012:

• One Colorado, Old Town Pasadena
• Glendale Community College
• Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood
• Cortines School of the Visual and Performing Arts, Downtown L.A.
• Chinatown Central Plaza (Will remain until 6/21, and return on 7/28, 8/11 and 8/25)

(Bear in mind that the quality and playability of the pianos is subject to the new owners)

Last week, I went to the Hel-Mel Art Walk in East Hollywood and met Andre Miripolsky, the artist who designed the Egyptian Theatre piano. I told him I played all of them and he was glad to meet someone who played the pianos He told me LACO donated the piano to American Cinematheque, who didn't know what to do with it, so they plan to leave it there "until it falls apart."

If you know of any street pianos still standing, please leave a comment below! I will update the list accordingly.

D.C. al Fine

"Play Me, I'm Yours" is now history, but the effect of the street pianos will linger on in this city for a while to come. With events like this, as well as other public activities like CicLAvia and our many festivals in town, it's one of the sure signs of Los Angeles' maturity as a city.

Having played music at all 30 of the pianos in this installation, and most importantly, in different communities, I felt almost like a tourist in my own hometown, visiting 30 temporary attractions. Most importantly, through both playing and listening to these things, it gave me a chance to interact with people whom I wouldn't get a chance to do otherwise. What a wonderful thing this was. Thank you very much to  Luke Jerram for your concept, and thank you, L.A. Chamber Orchestra for bringing that concept to the City of the Angels.

In this City of Angels, the angels don't play harps...we play pianos.

Epic props

I was perusing the comments of one of my "Play Me, I'm Yours" YouTube videos, and came across this comment on the "This Little Light Of Mine" performance at the William Grant Still Arts Center:

No way! WOW! From the creator of the "Play Me, I'm Yours" concept himself! It's kind of like Stan Lee or George Lucas digging a sci-fi/comic book geek's fan fiction!

Winning the Chamber Orchestra tickets was awesome, but this totally made my day.

Street pianos on Streetsblog

My 30-piano journey was covered in the transportation/urban planning/sustainability website Streetsblog Los Angeles today. The post also embedded the videos from Chinatown ("I Love L.A."), the L.A. Live puppet show ("Ebony and Ivory"), Plaza de la Raza ("Always and Forever"), Watts/Willowbrook Boys & Girls Club ("Lean On Me") and Ramon C Cortines School For The Yadda Yadda... ("Another Brick In The Wall"). It also included some of my overall thoughts on my piano quest including interactive open space, transit accessibility and which ones were my favorite pianos.

More fun with puppets, and a fond farewell

Milking out the last few drops of "Play Me, I'm Yours," my brother Elan, his friend Paul and my other brother Elliot (manning the camera - a much better one - this time), we head out again on a Sunday night to Union Station to play the beloved street piano on its last night...and do another puppet show.

The piano is slated to be removed from the premises on Monday.

When I got there, there was one person playing some minor-key, gothic stuff. He seemed to be playing an endless medley, constantly going back to the same song. I don't know if he was homeless, but he was wearing socks instead of shoes and hung out with two of his friends in the passenger couches nearby in the station's waiting room. He was playing for a good half hour.

Then someone else started to play, he wore a tank top and a baseball cap. He was also playing for a long time. His playing drove me nuts since, although he was a more-than-decent player technically, he had absolutely no sense of dynamics. Everything was fortissimo. It was like the acoustic equivalent of The Loudness War.


Maybe it was good that "Play Me, I'm Yours" was coming to an end...some people had lost all sense of street piano etiquette, sad to say.

Elan, who wanted to go on with the puppet show and the video shoot, got a little impatient, so he politely told Mr. Fortissimo that we needed the piano for a video shoot, and he complied.

We did a reprise of our Staples Center puppet show, plus some new numbers.





I doodled around with some improvisations and a few other tunes, including Stevie Wonder's "Ribbon In The Sky."

It was time to bid goodbye to this piano, and to "Play Me, I'm Yours" in Los Angeles. Afterward, Elan and Paul wanted to film additional puppet scenes in the main waiting room of the station. I was called to do some puppetry as well for the video (I played the female puppet and spoke in a falsetto British accent).







I couldn't think of a more appropriate place to play my last street piano, the same place where I started at.

Despite the lack of piano etiquette and the irreverent puppet show, I was playing a street piano for the last time at Union Station after 11 o'clock at night. Just like the first time I got to play it.

Union Station is a place where journeys begin and end.

A winner is you

The website DiscoverLA, run by the city's Tourism and Convention Board, ran a Twitter contest throughout "Play Me, I'm Yours" to see who can Tweet the most pictures of pianos with the #PMIYinLA hashtag by May 3.

I didn't even know of this contest until 2/3 of the way through the street piano run. And my impetus to play all 30 pianos had nothing to do with winning a contest. But, in the name of fun, why not play? I asked the @DiscoverLA Twitter account if it was cool to Tweet a link to my Flickr page with pics of the 30 pianos, and they said yes. So...

...I won!

I felt a little guilty, having  been sort-of visible through the process, and asked if I was the only one who played all 30. They confirmed I was. Certainly I wasn't the only person in town who played all 30, as pianist Mikael Oganes' YouTube video shows, but I guess I was the only one who did who entered in the contest.

The grand prize? Season tickets to the L.A. Chamber Orchestra's 2012-2013 Season!

As good as I was at reaching all of the Los Angeles street pianos, I don't think I'll be able to attend all of the LACO's shows. I've met a lot of cool people along this journey, so I told them that I'll share my prize and give some of the tickets to them.