I would love for there to more public pianos in general, and in airports too. But at the same time, placement and noise concerns are real.
When we were traveling back from Japan, we had a pretty long layover at O’Hare. This was the last leg after being in transit for something like 20 hours. I’m having a problem with my leg/foot so I used the airport’s wheelchair service and they took us to our gate and kind of left us there. Which is to say, we were in no condition to go wandering around or to try to find an alternative place to wait for the next flight.
When we got to the gate, we were looking at a three hour wait there. There weren’t lots of options for places to sit, so we got settled, in a row of chairs that had another row perpendicular to ours. There was a guy sitting in the perpendicular row, playing a trumpet. He had a mute in so it wasn’t super loud. But because of the way he was sitting and we were sitting, the business end of his trumpet was pointed right at my ear. And he wasn’t playing a tune, he was playing scales. 😑
I thought to myself, oh dear, this is going to be a very long three hours…. As it happens, he got up and boarded a different flight after about 20 minutes (thank goodness).
But it did give me some perspective on how other people might react to musical instruments in public places.
Often, people at a gate are captive, they can’t leave by their own choosing. And travelers may have all kinds of personal situations, not just mobility issues, but maybe someone’s going to a funeral etc….
So I realized that it’s probably better to place airport pianos near restaurants, or in a big open space that’s not a gate (like at the Charlotte Airport). And as much as I think people should be encouraged even just to plunk on the keybaord even if they don’t know how to play, if you worked near a public piano and all day long people came by, smashed their hands on the keys for a few seconds, and every now and then a 6 year old came by and played two measures of chopsticks…. Well, that would become pretty trying.
I guess what I mean is, it’s complicated. 😅
Btw re Charlotte Airport, I should correct myself. That’s not a public piano. There’s a piano in what is sort of the main sitting area for a big food court. They have a pianist there, with a tip jar out. And AFAIK when the pianist isn’t playing, the piano is closed and locked.
