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...

I think you should have kept out of it OP. He wasn't physically threatening the children, he just shouted at them in annoyance because they were mistreating musical instruments. I'm fed up of this attitude that everyone must pussyfoot around children nowadays and anyone who says a cross word to them ends up defending themselves to some finger wagging adult.

I see the consequences where I live all the time. Annoying brats who ignore any requests from neighbours to keep the noise down, go and kick their football somewhere else etc because their parents constantly defend their behaviour and refuse to accept that the neighbours have any right to object to their little darlings' behaviour.

"mistreating musical instruments"

But they weren't mistreating it (at least as per the OP) - they were banging on the keys a bit while trying to play tunes on it (ie the intended purpose of a piano). Sure, it mightn't have sounded very nice but it's hardly vandalism/bad behaviour and extremely unlikely to damage the instrument.

Talk about bitches!

I don't think you were being unreasonable, Pep- you were in the right.

I think there has been some confusion. I only expected the policeman to have a word, not to actually arrest him.

I personally think it's not very nice to scream at kids who may not know they are wrong. Still, this has been an MN-tastic ride.

I personally think it's not very nice to scream at kids who may not know they are wrong

So You now admit the kids were wrong?

YWBU!

No one's being a bitch. The OP asked a question and we are anwering her.

Just out of interest, how many people who think the children were being bad/mistreating a piano/deserved to be told off etc. actually play the piano?

YABU. If the children's parent couldn't stop their bad behaviour, someone else had to step in to do it for them.

But it wasn't bad behaviour. It was using the piano for the purpose for which it was intended. At most, it warranted a gentle suggestion that they use less pressure.

I don't know if they were wrong but if I wanted to tell them not to bang I would have explained not shouted.

Oh, and I DO play the piano. Have done for 29 years. I didn't think they were damaging it.

I used to play the piano. While banging on it won't 'break' it, it will damage the sound quality unless it's a very good piano. Hence, I presume, why the man said the pianos would need tuning if they didn't stop banging them like that.

leedy - That is an interesting question...

I play piano (badly) and, while I don't have an issue with passing adults intervening in children's behaviour in a measured and appropriate way, I don't think the situation described in the OP warranted a telling off.

I think people who are comfortable with instruments are generally much less precious about them. I used to teach guitar to children and quickly developed the view that you show respect for your instrument by practising, enjoying and maintaining it as well as you know how to. As long as you're doing that, scratches, dings, and mishaps caused by accidents and beginners' ignorance are all just forms of fair wear and tear.

I do get upset when I see people putting hot drinks on pianos, sugary drinks near amps, leaving guitars next to radiators etc, though. None of those things is part of the learning or enjoyment process, and I've seen plenty of lovely instruments damaged or ruined (followed by inevitable dismay and self-reproach on the part of the owner). That's just sad.

While banging on it won't 'break' it, it will damage the sound quality unless it's a very good piano.

Yes, but it takes a fair amount of consistent very heavy playing to detune a piano: a couple of children trying to play one of their favourite tunes, even if they're playing like a herd of elephants, isn't going to put a piano out of tune immediately (I speak as someone who grew up in a house with one piano that was played by five people of varying degrees of skill/thumpiness). As I said above, it's not like it's a harpsichord. Nor, for that matter, is it a Steinway that's about to be used for a concert.

I would imagine though that kids are probably banging away at it on a regular basis, without parents stepping in and asking them to be a bit gentler. Hence why the man got really irate.

Anyhow the bottom line is that he didn't do the kids any harm. We often got told off or shouted at by people when we were kids. Sometimes justifiably, sometimes not. No one ever called the police. We would have been astonished if they did.

You don't bang on a piano.
The parents weren't stopping the kids, somebody else stepped in.
no big deal really.
As for putting them off music, it might show them some respect.

The man sounds like an arse. There is no need to yell at kids like that. Even if it was the best piano in the world and not a knackered public train station piano.

If it was a bench and the kids had their feet on it, you'd say 'c'mon kids other people have to sit there, can you get your feet off, sit nicely on the bench'. NOT 'what the hell are you doing you're ruining the furniture'.

In an ideal world yes. saythis. But in an ideal world a friendly polite request to kids to stop doing something would result in polite friendly acquiescence, not sniggering, ignoring or parents rounding on you for daring to interfere with their children's right to enjoy a free and fun filled childhood unhindered by requests for consideration from other people.

The man did overreact, but maybe he was just fed up of asking kids over and over and over to play the piano more gently and quietly. And it really was OTT of the OP to make an issue of it with the transport police.

Actually, now that I think of it, I do know someone who broke a piano by playing, but it was a friend of mine when she was a teenager and a reasonably practiced pianist - apparently, it's not always a good idea to lay into a bit of fortissimo Beethoven when you're having a massive teenage strop. Also apparently a string breaking on a piano makes an enormous bang.

It does. We lost nearly an octave worth of bass strings when I was a kid. We had a mouse plague at home (farm, foreign country, drought) and unbeknownst to us they'd set up a nice cosy home in the left hand side of the piano.

A Brahms rhapsody did it. Suspect it gave the poor fuckers such a shock that they moved out and gave the piano a wide berth after that. The piano tuner was bemused.

I have just massively outed myself.

Kids that just bash and destroy do my nut in.

It's not over exuberance it's bad behaviour, you would not let them do it to a baby grand in a posh hotel.....or maybe you would....the darlings.

Maybe he had already asked them calmly several times to go easy on the piano and they'd ignored him.

Something similar happened to me last year. I asked kids several times to stop making a racket late at night outside my window. Eventually, after being ignored, I went out and told them off very sharply. I then had one of their dads being highly indignant at me upsetting his disobedient and rude little precious daughter

It's not over exuberance it's bad behaviour, you would not let them do it to a baby grand in a posh hotel.....or maybe you would....the darlings.

Shall we take a small moment to reflect on the difference between how anyone, let alone a child, should be expected to interact with a baby grand in a posh hotel placed there for professional use, and an elderly upright in a public space placed there for the public to play? Or do we not believe in teaching children to differentiate between situations in determining appropriate behaviour?

I wasn't there so don't know whether the kids were playing loudly (banging while picking out a melody, not ideal but not 'destructive') or 'bashing and destroying'. I'm inclined to go with the OP's interpretation given she was there.

In any case, if anything is going to be damaging the pianos at St Pancras, I'd be more worried about fluctuating temperatures which are going to fuck the tuning and the tone long before a couple of kids playing loudly.

The hyperbole on this thread is brilliant.

Jassy there's no harm in teaching children that they have to respect public property, and also keep the noise down in public spaces.

Ah, the wonders of the public order act in the modern age, where everyone thinks police officers are their personal butler/stazi.

"Excuse me officer, that person hasn't really done anything criminal, but please go and interrupt their day and tell them off for me."

Ever think that perhaps police officers in 21st century western society might have better things to do?

there's no harm in teaching children that they have to respect public property, and also keep the noise down in public spaces.

But using a piano that has been put there for the use of passers by is respecting public property. "Banging the keys quite hard" isn't disrespecting it, otherwise there would be an awful lot of disrespectful concert pianists out there.

And, if you've ever walked through the concourse at St Pancras on a normal day, you would know that the idea of demanding that noise be kept down is, shall we say, fanciful.

No wonder our precious little darlings are increasingly turning into cheeky little shits. They were abusing something that didn't belong to them and were told off. My eight year old wouldn't treat something like that and I hope if he did and I didn't notice, someone would tell him off. I applaud the man and just shake my head at you reporting him to the police.

It doesn't really feel like this chap was trying to teach them anything, does it, by yelling at them and storming off again?

Two scenarios: the children didn't know that what they were doing had the potential to damage the piano (probably the more likely). A stranger coming over to yell at them is unlikely to be very effective and is a massive overreaction.

Second scenario: the children have had it repeated to them over and over that banging pianos is wrong and evil, and they are either (a) deliberately naughty or (b) overexcited or got carried away.

None of us know what the actual scenario is, and then neither does the bloke who stormed over to give the kids a piece of his mind. By any measure, his response was an overreaction and probably fairly counterproductive.

But then, I do find the 'THIS IS DESTROYING THE PIANO' hysteria on this thread to be quite funny. It was probably spread by piano teachers trying to impart better technique using any and all means at their disposal, alongside people who don't seem to know very much about pianos.

St Pancras isn't really an oasis of peace and quiet at the best of times. If the chap had an issue with the noise, he should have been honest enough to say so. But even so, the level of aggression as described by the OP is never OK, no matter how irritated a person is, or the age of the person they're irritated by.

Would it have been OK for him to come over and shout and rage at an adult in the same situation?