We delivered a street piano on September 13th for public to play in the Grenfell Community art space Westway, London. The piano brings music to a neighbourhood in grief, after the tower block fire tragedy. Piano donated by John Reid Pianos and tuned by Roy Martin so it totally sings now. Beautiful community healing space created by amazing volunteers who have transformed the walkway under Westway over the past 3 months into a warm and welcoming community memorial space for all.

Letter from Marion who volunteers as her family live there:-

“The piano is being constantly played, by  a hugely diverse array of people, all with that same look of absolute joy & happiness!
Tonight, after the silent vigil, the lovely young Moroccan & I played together, wow, so emotional & beautiful. My granddaughter got to play her duet with me and then all the kids wanted to learn it, somehow, we got it going really well, with loads of them! So much fun for those children who’ve been surrounded by sadness! One of the mum’s plucked up courage to play her funky couple of chords, someone started a chorus, others joined in, all moving, some dancing, singing, laughing, lost in that magic moment of spontaneous music, some of these people I’ve not seen even smile in the last three months.”

Way back in 2012, a street piano was placed near the station at Herne Hill, south London. Four happy years later and its work is done (don’t worry there’s another one on its way) – and there’s no doubt it survived this long is thanks to the hard work and dedication of some of our local community heroes.

Number one is Roy Martin our local piano tuner (pictured above). Most of the time he’s working for people like Stevie Wonder and Damon Albarn, but he’s also taken Herne Hill street piano under his wing, repairing and turning it on his way home for four years. A piano that is played this often needs a lot of extra tuning, and Roy has kept it going.

On a day-to-day basis we have Elaine the florist (AKA the Flower Lady, pictured below) and Alan from Pullens to thank. Opening it in the mornings and closing it at night helps to keep everyone happy – residents trying to sleep as well as boogie woogie pianists.

And Herne Hill Forum who brought the piano here day one and have managed the Herne Hill Piano Project so well that with the generosity of the amazing Herne Hill Community have raised over £5000 through a crowdfunder – for a new piano. This much-loved  landmark will live on now thanks to them.

But we’ll leave the last word to Roy. Take it away R0y!

“Our well- loved piano has done a fantastic job. I became aware over a year ago that the piano had some problems and was perhaps working too hard for its age and needing a rest. I found a younger, fitter piano.

“As a piano technician the really good work is invisible ‘under the bonnet.’ And we have chosen a very good company to do the work so we will now have a piano as good as new for a much lower price. I am hoping we can have more events and attract more amazing people who may be tempted to do some performances for us.  I hope you will welcome the new one – it may be a bit shy at first but its still ‘The People’s Piano.’”

Find out more about Roy: http://www.londonpianotuner.co.uk/. Find out more about The Flower Lady at https://www.facebook.com/theflowerladyhernehill/. and Herne Hill Forum: http://www.hernehill.org.uk

Sadly, after 27 years, Pullens has closed its doors. Thank you for everything Alan and Debi!

Join us for an event to celebrate Herne Hill’s first street piano – and welcome its stunning replacement – on October 1. Details to follow soon. 

Well it was homeless on October 1st. After the Piano Day Event it was wheeled past the shiny new one that had taken over its place and was locked away in storage at Herne Hill Station, safe but lonely.

Gwyn is inspired by Herne Hill piano to set one up in Merthyr his home town

and makes special visit from Wales with his youth choir to sing round our piano!

Children passing by always stop to play. ” Sometimes if its locked there is a full on temper tantrum.” Elaine the florist says and so she pauses sorting out the flowers to remedy the situation and unlocks the piano. “Its wonderful to see kids arguing about whose turn it is to play the piano.”  The little ones naturally wander right up to the piano to clamber onto the stool and play or pause to listen mesmerised, One day Elaine said there was a 6 year old playing the piano while another 6 year old responded by doing ballet up and down the walkway.

Marcus,8, talks about how he responds to the little ones coming up to the piano. Kit plays a very competent chopsticks – Mina teaches her brother and Ethan gives us a short song.

Invitation to Free Screening of the Film!

At the Station Square in Herne Hill

Anthony was the first person that got asked these two main questions :- How did you get into playing the piano and Why do you  like playing the Herne Hill piano.

Anthony said “I got into music when I heard it on video games – the backing tracks, I wasn’t financially stable so I got myself a cheap keyboard and some books and learned to read sheet music and compose.”

He taught himself initially by ear to play the music he heard on video games classical, soul, jazz – then taught himself to read music and is now at college learning to compose music for video games. He plays beautifully.

“That what I just played was one of my compositions. Thats what I do now, I decided to make a career out of it , I compose music for games. I’m studying it now,  its a passion.”

John stops to play Brown Eyed Girl on his way from Herne Hill Market and talks about how one of the things that he most loves about London is coming across the street pianos.

Joel from Leeds stopped by to play some jazz

Joel goes on to tell us how he was intrigued to see the piano here