Pianos must be replaced after use
NewsFrom the English instructions to foreign students at the Universität der Künste, Berlin:
- Air rooms shortly to avoid out of tune instruments
- Pianos are not allowed to be prepared
- It is prohibited to use instruments for storage of food and beverages
- Wash hands first to avoid stucked piano keys….
What is the news here?
Somebody with German is a mother language has translated a list of rules to English.
Are you so confident in your abilities to translate into German, Norman?
Mistranslations into English are funnier than into German.
And this leads to ‘damage joy’ (Schadenfreude).
But these cases are quite mild, in comparison to other cultures:
On a South African building: Mental health prevention centre.
Sign at Mexican disco: Members and non-members only.
A sign posted in Germany’s Black Forest: It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.
A laundry in Rome: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.
In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: Take one of our horse-driven city tours — we guarantee no miscarriages.
Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: Would you like to ride on your own ass?
Sign over the information booth in a Beijing railroad station: Question authority
In an Italian cemetery: Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves.
In a Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.
At a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.
A barbershop in Zanzibar, Tanzania: Gentlemen’s throats cut with nice sharp razors.
When I was studying in Basel many years ago, Steffen Schleiermacher (pianist and composer) gave a lecture and told us this anecdote:
Shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall, he was organizing a concert in former East Germany in which he was going to play Cage, but the venue had no good instrument. So he wrote to Steinway in Berlin, asking for a grand piano, not their finest one, but a sturdy one that can withstand being prepared. The general manager of Steinway wrote back:
“Dear Mr Schleiermacher, we will be delighted to provide you with the best piano we have, because after all a properly done preparation is less harmful to the instrument than a Rachmaninov concerto.”
After the lecture, we asked him if we could have a copy of that letter, but unfortunately he didn’t have it anymore.
lost in translation…
it says in german: „must be locked after use“
No. 10 – “hand back the keys” is also prone to misunderstandings when talking to clavierists!
The translation is goofy. They should have done better.
That said, anyone who speaks a foreign language has had their moments. I won’t forget the reaction of a taxi driver, when I asked him to take me to “Churhausgasse”, and mispronounced the first syllable as “Hur…”—it was “Kur…”
Only recently arrived in Brazil, my mother’s knowledge of Portuguese was tested to the amusement of the shop staff when in asking for a toothbrush she was told she had asked for “a broom for the teeth”! Sorry to slip so fast from the core of those website!’
As a very young man I needed,in Paris, a lawyer…yes you’ve guessed…I did indeed say to the newly qualified young lady
Ma Chère Maitresse…we celebrate her 84th B’day le 22 Janvier….
It never occurred to me, but brilliant idea, my grand piano is taking up valuable space in the living room, I’ll use it as my bar to store alcohol and condiments, olives, lemon wedges….
I once had to spend several thousands euro to clear the damages of a single coffee spilled over piano strings. People who put beverages over pianos would deserve to be caned in public.
Beethoven spilled coffee on/in his piano. I doubt he’d deserve to be caned…
But his piano was not tuned anyway and many of the strings broken, according to visitors. Also he regularly spilled lots of ink into the instrument. It would have been an ideal instrument for John Cage.
Screw English. The world was a better place when German or French was lingua franca. (Please spare us all from predictable misunderstandings of this comment)
For some, maybe, but not all.
“Prepared piano” is a standard term — used for works by John Cage and others when rubber pads, bolts, etc. are placed between piano strings.
Years ago I heard a Cage suite for prepared piano at the Philips Collection in Washington. Before starting, the pianist said, “I shall pause for two minutes at the half point, so those of you who wish to leave may do so.”
Ravel specified a sort of prepared piano for performances of his Tzigane that used piano rather than orchestra with the violin solo. In all my reviewing for Fanfare I reviewed exactly one recording that followed that alternative. If memory serves it was on a CD from Ragin (Ragin Wenk-Wolff), a very good player.
all these nostalgia is felt more dearly… now that the GPT is here
At least they’re not demanding it be re-tuned after each use.
Sauber und ordentlich!
When I was a student there the instruments were replaced periodically, and older pianos were given away in a lottery system. I was a lucky winner and for a symbolic $100 I inherited a 1920s 8-foot Bechstein. It was in poor shape except for the action, and the outside looked as if it had been used for soccer practice. I had it restrung, replaced the hammers, fixed the sound board, and restored the outside with shellac. It was a lovely piano which I had for years until I moved to the USA. I still miss it.
And I’m sure it served you well through many a movie.
Reads like some of those assembly instructions from IKEA. Or Chinese goods which arrive in flat packs.