New music for prepared piano

Words from G&R Removals, pictures from BBC News:


"We are G&R Removals - The Piano Movers, a family run business with a wealth of experience spanning over 30 years - the longest established piano carriers in the UK.


Since 1968 we have gained respect for our handling of all musical instruments throughout the UK and Europe.


We operate from a customs-approved, temperature controlled warehouse in west London with over 1100m² of floor space. Handling hundreds of pianos every week, with our ever modernising fleet of instrument vehicles, manned by experienced professional staff."


Now here is the full story from BBC News, who also supplied the pictures:

'A concert grand piano valued at £45,000 is thought to have been wrecked after falling off a removal lorry in Devon. The piano was being brought to the home of John and Penny Adie, the organisers of the Two Moors Festival, an annual music event on Dartmoor and Exmoor.

But disaster struck when it toppled over and fell 2.5m (8.2ft) before landing on a bank, causing extensive damage to the instrument. The moments before and after the fall were captured on camera by Mrs Adie, 54, who was hoping to record a highpoint for the festival. But joy turned to horror as she recorded how the piano toppled onto a bank.

Her husband John, 61, said: "It is unlikely ever to come back to us. The piano weighs half a tonne, has 10,000 moving parts and has fallen 2.5m onto the ground. How the hell do you guarantee that it will work again?" The festival had been raising funds for two years to buy the piano at auction in London earlier this year. It was to go into a concert hall at the Adies' home at Barkham, near South Molton, as a centrepiece for the upcoming spring festival.

The piano is now back in London where it is waiting for an independent assessment of the damage. The piano was insured, but only for the £26,000 they paid for it at auction in London rather than its likely replacement value of £45,000. Mr Adie said: "Bosendorfers are like the Stradivarius of the piano world. It's more than money that is the issue here. They are simply irreplaceable." Bosendorfers are made in Austria and are the piano of choice for many of the world's leading pianists.

Mr and Mrs Adie set up the Two Moors Festival in 2001 to help the area recover from the foot and mouth crisis. The two-year long campaign to raise the cash for the piano was spearheaded by Sophie, Duchess of Wessex, who is the event's patron. A spokesman for removals firm G&R said: "The matter is in the hands of the insurers. We have no further comment to make.'



Now take this path for the complete music for prepared piano.
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Comments

Incidentally, the The Guardian’s report gives a clue as to whether the result would have sounded like a Tex Avery cartoon:

As its wooden casing splintered, it gave a death rattle described by Ms Adie as “a deafening noise like 10 honky-tonk pianos being hit by mallets”. Her husband John, the festival’s manager, said: “It made an incredible racket—like something from a cartoon.”

S, tig
Gus said…
I too once saw and heard a piano go over...an old "upright" I was moving it from one classroom to another with the help of the school custodian...and off the dolly it went. The sound was indescribable (although if I had to describe it in words I would say that it sounded something like like an old upright piano falling off a dolly and hitting a tile floor...) The overall aural effect was made even more dramatic by the screems of the Miss_____, the music teacher as the instrument went over. A sad day.

There must be a tradition for this sort of thing in Milwaukee. A year later a venerable old Hubbard harpsichord fell off the end of a truck onto the street near the local university It did not survive.

There is a piano moving company in this city called "Hernia Movers."
their motto is "The Potantate of Totin' Freight."

Perhaps they would have done a better job...

Jonathan Brodie

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