Katy Hamilton

On Tuesday of this coming week, a very exciting thing is happening. My piano – a beloved, if not particularly distinguished Yamaha upright that I got when I was 21 – is moving in with me. For the first time since I took ownership of it, it will be living where I spend most of my life living, rather than being with my parents where it has been played only when I visit. And all of my sheet music (much of which, like the piano itself, has been resident with the Hamilton parents) is also here. My piano, all my music… it’s going to be like several Christmases and birthdays at once! And when friends visit, we can rehearse, busk through duets, improvise, and be in charge of this wonderful, musical noise that requires no playback buttons, no hands-free technology, no battery, and offers the opportunity to try anything we want.

Being a pianist with an acoustic instrument in tow is not an easy task in the London rental market. As it happens, it is only because I have decided to base myself beyond the reaches of the M25 that I could actually afford to have a place in which I, my desk, my books and my piano would all fit comfortably. (The commute into the capital is also, ridiculously, far more straightforward and only fractionally longer than it was living in zone 2.) During my years working and studying at the Royal College of Music, I was always deeply impressed at the lengths – often geographical as well as logistical – musicians were prepared to go to acquire room in which to practise. Some instruments might be more portable than others, but they still need a home, somewhere secure, somewhere where they can be played. And pianists have it particularly hard (more so even than double bassists) for the sheer amount of room they need to put their instrument. I never managed it, not really, in my ten years of London living. I had an electric keyboard for some years, and later lodged in a lovely house which had a baby grand that I could use for practise. But my own piano languished several counties away, because there was simply nowhere to put it. Or most of the music I had acquired, much via second-hand sales and library give-aways.

Assuming that you do manage to find somewhere with the space to put the thing, the other difficulty of being a pianist – or any kind of instrumentalist, or singer – is how to make noise without annoying people nearby. That may (if you’re particularly unlucky) include the people you’re actually living with, if you’re sharing accommodation. But unless you have a large detached property, it will most likely be those who live in adjacent flats or houses. And since upright pianos rest on the floor and against a wall, that’s automatically an issue for those next door or directly below you.

It’s a funny thing, our attitude to noise pollution. We are bombarded by music everywhere we go: banks, supermarkets, shopping centres, gyms… not to mention people playing loud thumping music in their cars as they crawl through built-up areas with their windows open and the car frame shaking to the beat. We can buy TVs and sound systems with the kind of sub-woofer set-ups that can pound their way through layers of wood and masonry. I’m not saying that we all like listening to it, and it’s completely unreasonable to be using equipment of this sort at excessive volumes or during unsociable hours. But we have gained the ability to block it out in most cases, because it is repetitive and regular. Like a ticking clock or a buzzing light fitting, we can often push it to the periphery of our awareness until it doesn’t bother us.

Personally, I find this very difficult. I can just about cope with ignoring background music, if I’m not too tired. But if a clock is ticking loudly, my brain automatically starts making up counter-rhythms, and I can’t get it to stop. I end up focusing on it almost exclusively. If a light is buzzing at a high pitch, it drives me crazy and gives me a headache. These sounds drill into my brain in a way that I find very hard to ignore… perhaps because I was raised in the countryside, in a house in a quiet street, with no ticking clocks and no buzzing light fittings.

Playing live acoustic music is a very different aural experience. It’s irregular, and may be repetitive because someone is practising the same passage several times in a row. It is not modulated and balanced like recorded music. It’s immediate and sonically more varied. It’s much harder for most people to push into the background of their brains – which might explain why it’s been the subject of a recent major court case.

Of course, the very things that make acoustic live music-making more ‘irregular’ (and potentially more difficult to ignore) are the things I love about it the most. What’s making the noise is you, you and your instrument. I guess playing your instrument, the one you chose and adore, is not unlike driving a most beloved car, for which you can predict every quirk and nuance of the engine. A piano is a machine after all, just like a clarinet or a trumpet: moving parts, levers and mechanisms to create the sound. And yet the precise sound it creates is down to you, the one performing the music. The noise-maker.

On Friday, having finished my stint in London for the week, I came home and ventured into town. There is a big furniture charity shop which I stopped to explore. In it, among the faded sofas and imposing wooden dressers, were four lonely-looking upright pianos. I earnestly wished I had been able to adopt them. Or at the very least, find a way to get them involved in the excellent ‘Play me, I’m yours‘ scheme which has enjoyed such success worldwide by making unwanted acoustic piano available in public spaces. I can’t recall a single visit to St Pancras Station in the last year when all three pianos there haven’t been in use.

See, electric keyboards are fine, and make lots of interesting alternative sounds, and are more portable, and you can plug in headphones… but they aren’t like a real piano. Real pianos have character, and history, and depth. They’re a bit like pets – they need checking over and tuning every now and again, a bit of TLC to keep them happy. And like pets, for the extra responsibility comes huge rewards. They might even get you talking to the people next door. I spoke to my new neighbours and landlord here about having my piano, and they were all happy to let me move it in. I’m not planning any middle-of-the-night jam sessions… but personally, I’d still rather be distracted by the sound of someone practising Haydn through the wall, than the chugging beat of recorded sound. If nothing else, I might be moved to go around and suggest we play some duets.