Building Community With a Rolling Piano
It started with my life long avocation for bicycle riding. When I started teaching piano I was looking for a way to downsize my vehicle usage. This downsizing grew out of my activism around resource depletion and environmental degradation. At first I entertained the idea of a motorcycle. Since I had no history with motorcycles I decided pretty quickly that the learning curve was too steep.
Electric bicycles seemed more my speed and there were a lot of varieties on the market. I found Jim Olsen who built kits for existing bikes. Jim made a name for himself having invented a particular camera dolly that is now a film industry standard. At the time I was traveling 20 miles to teach piano in some of my student's homes. I needed an electric bike with a good range from each charge cycle. His electric bike kit served me well until I wore it out. I bought a 2nd kit from Jim and he mounted it on a 2nd bicycle.
At the time I wasn't thinking about pulling a piano around but it turned out to be a good thing I bought Jim's kit. It was also good that I had developed a friendly relationship with Jim as I would need his customization skills very soon.
Hungry For Community
My activism work was helping to build two local organizations, Transition Pasadena and the Arroyo SECO Network of Timebanks. I also participated in some bicycle activism and even helped someone move to a new home using only bicycles and bike trailers. That opened my eyes.
Despite all my activism I hadn't really thought about using the piano this way until that bike move. I had been playing piano at regular indoor community events that we organized. One was called the Repair Cafe. I started thinking about pulling a piano as way to enrich the various outdoor projects and events that we also organized. Garden work parties, the Altadena Urban Farmer's Market, a head shot day and the Pasadena Earth Day Festivals that we had participated in. We kept noticing that attendees were hungry for the community feeling at our events.
Piano a la Carte is Born
We also realized that art had more of an impact on people than all of the facts we were delivering at our events. It is central to the nature of humanity to create art. Art, in any of it's forms, seemed to be a more impactful way to reach people. Rather than telling people facts about the environment, which mostly bounces off them, I try to reach directly into their heart using art. In my case, it's the art of music. Reaching people's hearts means that miracles become possible. By miracles, I mean something we can't explain from our current perspective.
I had already built a utility trailer for my bike using it most notably for hauling locally picked fruit to the Union Station homeless shelter kitchen. I decided to buy a trailer from Bikes at Work to mount a piano on. All I had to do was assemble the parts and mount the piano. Relatively simple. The "piano trailer" worked flawlessly, Piano a la Carte was born.
I was able to bring the piano to many more events around Pasadena. The trailer continued to be problem free but the bike had several problems. After burning up a motor, wearing out my chain ring and even breaking the chain, Jim came to the rescue. He redesigned the motor mount to allow for a 3rd chain ring up front. This made it possible to have a couple really low gears. In my first gear I can sit on the bike with my feet on the ground and crawl up a hill pulling the piano.
I continue to do many public events, indoors and outside. The Pasadena Chalk Festival, Altadena Farmers Market and the Pasadena City College Flea Market I do regularly. I've also "crashed" the Rose Bowl Flea Market. It's always fun to see the looks on people's faces as I ride through neighborhoods pulling a piano with a bicycle. I have a short video of the Piano a la Carte in Pasadena traffic.
The trailer had it's first flat tire earlier this year but otherwise continues like a champ. The bike is functioning well but Jim has retired. I've been able to find another bike customizer nearby. That's Jimmy Lizama of the Relampago Wheelery. He built a bicycle trailer for a Cumbia Band to perform on while riding down the street. Really!
Music is a Universal Language
I believe that music is a spiritual experience. Music study grounds and connects a music student, in concrete ways, to that spirituality. I think this is what makes music universal in nature. By providing motivating and enriching team piano experiences and solo performance opportunities, I think I make that kind of musical spirituality more available than in a traditional piano lesson. I didn't realize it when I started but I was using Piano a la Carte as a way to bring spirituality to our activist events.
What I really like about Piano a la Carte is that it feels like a time machine to me. Anywhere outside, I play a Mozart piece and we're back in the 1700's. A latin jazz number and it's Brazil 66. Rachmaninov and it's 1900's Russia. I can shift from one time period or culture to another instantly. Because music is universal, any barriers drop away and the music itself can be appreciated.
A couple parallel ideas, which I would like to think are related and not just parallel are one, that time heals all things and two, the passage of time creates miracles. This is the nature of Alchemy. Alchemy is the process of redeeming spirit from matter. Not just from human beings but any physical object. The intention of the alchemist wedded to the magic of time. When I take the piano out, I feel like I'm practicing alchemy.
