Truro, N.S. is the latest Maritime community to set up a public piano for residents to play.
Since it first appeared on Inglis Street this past weekend, people have been taking note of the old piano.
“I think it’s just great that people can show their creativity and if people that don’t even play the piano, they can come down here and then get interested in playing it,” says piano player Summer Hudson.
The inspiration for the public piano came from the City of Halifax.
“We want to have a piano, or two, or three in downtown Truro this summer, as many other centres are doing. It adds another element of fun to our downtown,” says Grace Murray, with the Downtown Truro Partnership. “If it’s here, people will stop and play it. Whether they can do a two finger chopsticks, or they can do classical music, or whatever.”
The Truro piano has hit a flat note, for now.
Despite being covered, it’s suffered some water damage and several keys will need to dry before they can work again.
However, that hasn’t stopped people from playing with the keys.
“Everybody’s been in their silos all winter long, everybody needs to get out and be invigorated and take in the sunshine and to be able to have music,” says piano player Wendy Burns. “Music, it’s part of all of us and ingrained in all of us.”
Before finding a new home on Inglis Street, the piano was in Cindy Carruthers’ family for more than 60 years.
“I was looking for a new home for it,” says Carruthers. “It hadn’t been played in my home for a number of years and it was just sitting there. The main thing I wanted to see was that it was used. I knew that it probably wouldn’t last at the end of the summer.”
Murray says they plan to have the piano downtown throughout the summer, with more effective rain covering.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Dan MacIntosh
