To have reported the shouty self-appointed piano police to the actual police?

[PeppermintCrayon]

I am half-expecting to be told I'm being U for posting a thread of the "please validate this thing I already did!" variety...

Recently I was at St Pancras Station. There are several pianos for public use there. They're a bit knackered; one of them has a few keys that don't work.

Some kids were playing one of the pianos, about eight or nine maybe. They were having a fun trying to play different tunes. They were banging the keys quite hard. A man of maybe 55, 60, suddenly appeared and started yelling: "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOU NEVER BANG A PIANO."

I went over and said I didn't think yelling at children was very nice and that these kids probably didn't have a piano at home and did he want to put them off music? He started huffing and puffing about how the pianos had to be tuned because of people messing about. I said perhaps he could have said: "Look, this is how you play a piano," and explained nicely instead of yelling. He then started yelling at me.

He then went back to sitting at a nearby cafe table glowering at anyone who went near the pianos, so I went and found a transport policeman and told him this man had been shouting at children for playing the piano and he went to have a word.

I don't think I was being U, but...

You really don't like children on this thread.. It was a piano... So 9 yr olds were hitting the keys too hard? .. its left there for them and everyone else to play. let them at it. Pianos are actually designed to be able to cope with some heavy handed playing.

and in case no one's noticed , the op said the kids were having fun trying to play some tunes. so not mindless banging.

so leave the kids alone. chill. stop worrying about pianos.

'Should he have written them a letter on a scented floral notelet?'

Farf - you have brought joy to my life.

[hmm I am more on his side. Kids that age are more than old enough to know not to bash a piano.
Sounds like he just told them off, I don't see what was a criminal offence about that? He wasn't violent or threatening to be.
Also - it's a PUBLIC piano. I use a station with a piano. I play ONE from a few basic (grade 3-5) pieces I know by heart, before getting my train. People need to be considerate as to whether everyone else wants to hear them. Which if you can only bang out Heart and Soul, poorly...no, nobody wants to listen to that. And people who hog the piano for ages to play said crap x100... with no consideration that someone else might want to play and might also have a train to catch so will miss out...
Maybe this group of kids are regularly doing this and the poor man had just had enough.

There's a generation of kids growing up who don't get told off. The man did right. When I was a kid adults who weren't related to me would tell me off when I did wrong. It didn't do me any harm. When did it become so wrong to check a child that was doing wrong. If they need telling they should be told. It's all part of their learning curve. Too many kids far too aware of their rights these days, safe in the knowledge that their rights are paramount to everyone else's regardless of what they get up to.

Exactly Icimoi (and a couple of others, I think).

How on Earth people have gone from the OP's

They were having a fun trying to play different tunes. They were banging the keys quite hard.

to the children trying to 'cause damage' or even destroy the instrument is beyond me. What awful children trying to experiment with a public instrument. Evidently public now means 'owned by whoever decides they can boss everyone else around at a given moment'. I wouldn't jump down the throat of someone who thought they should advise children not to thump the keys too hard, but really, the piano doesn't need people swooping in to protect it.

Far too many people here going on about their special connection to the instrument and how it pains them deeply. It's not your instrument. And instruments are there to be enjoyed. Otherwise they're just lifeless bits of various materials.

Yes, YABU. You reported someone to the authorities who shouted at children who were banging on and possibly causing damage to a piano for public use. Children of the age you describe are not tiny puppies and kittens they're not going to be scarred or prevented from a musical future because of being yelled at for being too hard on a musical instrument! And it doesn't take too many more instances of this type of precious little ones' misuse before, of course, it's rendered unusable for anyone. OP is the bully here I bet this would have gone down differently if the male in question had been a hulking, intimidating-looking 22 year old and not, as OP described, an older man of "maybe 50, 60."

Well done that man. With any luck those kids will think twice before deliberately behaving like that again.
the police probably went over and shook his hand, wishing there were more people prepared to deal with kids like that.

Oh, and for what it is worth, it is perfectly possible for a kid that age to break a piano hammer by banging it roughly. I know, because I was that child and did it in a fit of temper, whacking my elbow down on the keys. And I got hell from my parents, as well as having to pay for the repair. There is a world of difference between the highly controlled pianist playing loudly and a bratty child banging away.

"It's just an old piano" and "they are just kids" are never excuses for what amounts to deliberate vandalism.

I'm intrigued. Under which powers did the police had a word with him? The Misuse of Public Pianos Act (1841)? The Won't Someone Think of the Children Act (2011)? Or maybe the Let's Pretend It's a Police Matter So The Busybody Goes Away Act (2015)?

Nothing wrong with kids getting pulled up when behaving inappropriately, just a pity their own parents weren't there to do it. YABVU to involve the police (or say it will put the little angels off music).

So some kids were trying to play tunes, as the OP said... I'm not sure why a significant number of replies are talking about hitting keys with fists, even 'vandalism'. Fine, yell at other people's kids if they're doing something deliberately naughty, but as far as these kids knew they were doing what the piano was there for, so he could have told them not to bang the keys in a normal voice rather than going off on one.

Wow. Op you were perhaps a touch heavy handed but am reading this thread open mouthed at just how much people are revelling in being sarky bitches to you. Some repeatedly. Sad.

Hedgehogs, loving "The Won't Someone Think of the Children Act of 2011." Well done! (I can now sign off and attend to other matters.)

It's been said before but no one seems to notice : They were having a fun trying to play different tunes. They were banging the keys quite hard.

They were trying to play tunes. They were having fun. However loudly you play a note (with your hands) you will not damage the piano - they are built for that. If the kids had been attacking it with a sledgehammer these responses would be quite sensible.

hidden your youtube clip does indeed bring joy to the soul unlike the willful stupidity of the 'feck off' brigade here who seem to think children must, simply must, be allowed to do whatever they please in any uneducated way that they please so as not to lead to them needing counselling in later life because someone told them not to destroy something.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with teaching children to respect and treat correctly things that are not meant to have shit bashed out of them. If they are unable to resist that urge there's always soft play or the wanton destruction of their parent's belongings to help quell their desires although I suspect the rhetoric would be quite different if it were, as a pp so rightly said, their parent's precious things being mistreated.

What right does a stranger have to yell at kids? I would be fuming if some random man/woman shouted at mine.
Having said that, my 9 year old would be with me, not randomly roaming around a London train station alone so the issue would never really present itself...

I bet he wouldn't have yelled at a drunk man bashing the hell out of the keys even though that would have caused more damage.

Also where the hell has 'shit bashed out if them' and 'wanton destruction' of the piano come from.

Could op clarify whether the children were attempting to play a piano albeit in an annoying way or attacking it with fists and sledgehammers?

OP clearly stated the former, although some people here seem to be reading a different OP...

So the police agreed with you that since the pianos were for public use, the children were right to damage them, without somebody pulling then up on it. I completely doubt it.

The police agreed with you, to put an end to the conversation and spoke to him so they could say 'we spoke to both people, heard both sides and decided it was nothing'.

I very much doubt the police are worried about a man telling some kids off for damaging public property.

Wow. The pianos are clearly put there for people to enjoy that don't have the privilege to have their own piano.
The kids are banging the keys, ie playing heavy handedly because they've not been taught how to play the piano...they are precisely the people meant to use it and benefit from being able to touch and feel a musical instrument to get them interested when they may not otherwise have such an opportunity.
If it offends all you middle class musicians who feel pianos have a soul and can't bear to hear the piano not being played perfectly then you need to ignore it and go home and play your own piano perfectly. These old ones are not for you !

A lot of people seemed to have added an awful lot of information to the OP.

It's difficult to see how children not using fists could apply more force to keys than an adult playing fortissimo. Given the OP says they were trying to pick out tunes, it seems unlikely they were using their fists, or doing glissandos which are more likely to cause damage if not done properly.

I'm an pianist. I used to teach it. I bloody love my piano. If I actually saw children mistreating a piano (the evidence in the OP does not support the idea that it was being mistreated, but never mind), I'd intervene but shouting at the children in the manner of the person in the OP is frankly pretty antisocial as well. Can people really not see the issue isn't intervention, or even a stern telling off - but rather the manner of the intervention?

My experience of elderly pianos is that they can be awfully sticky anyway, which can encourage banging.

As an aside, there is plenty of Romantic music that is quite difficult to play well without pressing the keys with a significant amount of pressure. Perhaps I should hire someone to come and shout at me when I play.

not rtwt but are these your children op ? you sound very invested in s ome random kids being told off and to treat things with respect.

I told a couple of kids (about 12 years old) off for bullying my kid in the park the other day (I asked them to move away from the pitch where he was having a lesson).

They were throwing things over the rails and yelling at him. They didnt know him, just bored brats looking for trouble.Oh, the gobbiness of kids these days! And the semi threatening waving if a baseball bat by the larger of the two.

They get away with murder these days because they don't get told/know how to behave.

You reported someone to the authorities who shouted at children who were banging on and possibly causing damage to a piano for public use.

Really children "banging the keys quite hard" is not going to damage the piano. We are getting well into the MN tradition on this thread of massively exaggerating what the OP says in order to criticise her.

I do wonder how some of the precious flowers here cope with some of the louder bits of Beethoven and Rachmaninov's piano music. They entail doing what these children were doing. The fact that the children weren't playing Beethoven makes no difference in terms of the effect on the piano.