Lockdown things to do with your piano (2): Ram it

Lockdown things to do with your piano (2): Ram it

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norman lebrecht

November 24, 2020

Use it to ram a police line.

Apparently there’s nothing in the German criminal code that prohibits driving a piano through a line of cops. So an unemployed soloist gave it a go at last week’s anti-Covid demo in Berlin.

The removal of pianist and piano required, according to the police report, ‘considerable force’.

The pianist’s name is  Arne Schmitt. Book him for a Stockhausen recital before he does it again.

 

UPDATE: Arne writes: Awesome, I was brutally arrested by the police today…
Completely disproportionate, and unlawful..
And then even though I didn’t fight back, only behaving passively, I was told I’m getting a criminal complaint for resisting the police, among other things for hitting and kicking, and that’s not true.
I was totally passive.
What’s going on in our state?

Comments

  • V.Lind says:

    “It is disgusting. A total lack of respect for the instrument.”

    Thanks, Roman.

    • Garry Humphreys says:

      Agreed. (See my comment to the ‘piano on fire’ story.)

      • V.Lind says:

        Saw it, agree with it. I lost my taste for pop music in that phase when breaking up guitars was fashionable. I find vandalism distinctly unsexy.

        • Greg Bottini says:

          I agree with you wholeheartedly, dear Ms. Lind.
          I saw The Who way back when, in San Francisco. I loved the music I heard, even though it was fookin’ loud, but at the end of the show when they started to bash things up, I left the hall (Fillmore? Fillmore West? Winterland? My memory of those times is rather fluid) in disgust.
          But I am very sad to read that you “lost your taste for pop music in that phase when breaking up guitars was fashionable”.
          Because there was so much beautiful pop music of that period which did not involve any destruction of musical instruments!
          The Beatles… The Beach Boys… Crosby, Stills, and Nash…. Blood, Sweat, and Tears….
          And even The Who produced some great and profound music on records during those crazy days, when smashing guitars didn’t enter into the equation (My Generation, Baba O’Riley, I Can See For Miles, Who Are You?, See Me, Feel Me, etc. etc.).
          Just sayin’….
          – best regards, Greg

  • Karl says:

    Pianos lives matter!

  • E. says:

    “totally passive”
    the piano just happened to ram itself into the police line… =))))))

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