Airport Pianos: Find Pianos in Airports | Hacker News Reader

Airport Pianos: Find Pianos in Airports

airportpianos.org

52 pointszerojames46 comments

Hello everyone! One of my favourite things to do is play piano in airports. The prospects of discovering, or being able to play, a piano brighten my mood when travelling.

That's why I made Airport Pianos, a site dedicated to pianos in airports. The site is text-focused and has a client-side search feature that you can use for planning an itinerary.

One of my favourite parts about this project is seeing submissions and data on Google Search Console about piano-related queries. It's so nice to see so many people out there looking for airport pianos; if you know of one, let me know!

My favourite airport piano? Maybe Chicago; really well maintained.

P.S. pianos.pub and www.worldpianos.org also have airport pianos listed!

Obviously not airport-related, but one of the hospitals I frequent has pianos in the lobbies of some of the buildings. Every now and again one of the doctors will use it, and it fills an otherwise drab, institutional space with a bit of joy.

My observation is that it's used in the afternoons to blow off anxiety, though it seems to get used most often in the mornings. I like to imagine it's the doctors loosening up their fingers before doing surgery.

Hi James!

The link on the page https://airportpianos.org/pianos, section "About the List" that points to the JSON file is actually pointing to a localhost address, not your public host name.

Cheers

Thank you for the report! I have just pushed a fix! The code is open source, too; MIT licensed: https://github.com/capjamesg/airport-pianos

The list is at https://airportpianos.org/_data/airports.json.

A friend said he wanted to post the data to OpenStreetMap. I hope the data is syndicated to different places!

Edit: Fixed errant close bracket.

HKG, there is a piano in the connected airport hotel.

You should do train stations next. There are a couple I know in London -- Euston and Liverpool Street stations -- and I'm sure many many more.

https://airportpianos.org/pianos/

Searching by airport code only seems to work in a few airports (perhaps by coincidence?). I see airports like Salt Lake City International Airport, Chicago O'Hare International Airport, and Los Angeles International Airport on the search page, but none of their codes work. DUB and MEX work, but that could be because they're the long-form names as well.

Most major airports (as well as many malls etc.) have at least one shiny pretty piano prominently somewhere. Almost all of them are behind yellow/red tape, say no touching and not allow to play and it is a sad sight. It's optics a la "look how we encourage culture" except not really. I much prefer a semi broken heavily used piano you can actually play but these are almost nonexistent.

Tim Minchin wrote this song on an airport piano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAFMSplS4y8

Apparently the Budapest and Warsaw airports have public pianos:

https://pianos.pub/piano/9a5d3025 https://pianos.pub/piano/6b6c2d78

Given that the airports were named after Liszt and Chopin, respectively, I would hope so!

I recorded the audio from a couple of kids playing a public piano in Gare du Nord, Paris.

They were really good. And every few months I continue my search for what it was they were playing - I’ve tried apps, friends, listening to chart music from then (2018).

I’m pretty sure it was a cover of some pop song, but damned if I can work it out.

"A gentleman is a man who can play the public piano, but doesn't."

(With apologies to accordion players.)

I understand the appeal of introducing elements of culture and music into public spaces. However, airports are often stressful environments for many passengers, including myself, and it's important to have areas of quiet and calm. While the intention behind placing pianos in airports might be positive, there's potential for it to become disruptive for those seeking a peaceful environment. It's crucial to consider all passengers' experiences and perhaps think of alternative solutions that cater to everyone's needs.

Love this. Not because of the Airport Pianos per se, but it reminds me of the Internet's early days where people created websites to just celebrate their niche interests out of love with no profit motive. No ads, no paywalls, no newsletter, no tracking scripts, just wholesome content about airport pianos.

Early Youtube was the same, no corporations, no sponsored ads to products from corporations, no algorithm forcing you to hit certain metric in order to be visible, just some guys making fun content as a hobby wanting to share it with the world. Guys like that are still out there, but much less easily discoverable.

People still selflessly create things to celebrate their niche interests, it is just that often they find that content is better contributed to a single unified website instead of a personal website in the corners of the internet that few people would find.

For example, lots of people spend many, many unpaid hours of their lives contributing to Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, or Wikivoyage, and since that data is available for free to the world with no ads, paywalls, newsletters, etc., it shouldn’t be seen as inferior.

That feel when I picked the wrong instrument to learn to play as a kid.

I loved violin, but communal violins aren't as much of a thing as communal pianos.

Guitar is probably the sweet spot between portability, versatility, and probability of stumbling upon the instrument somewhere.

As someone who had hitch-hiked across Europe with a guitar, the portability aspect is probably slightly overrated ;P

A Brunner folding guitar (https://brunner-guitars.com/en/b-compact-models/) is definitely portable, although not exactly cheap.

It's a lot more portable than a piano...

Depends! You can get pretty compact and lightweight keyboards for cheap (heck I've fished one out on a flea market and then hitch hiked with both instruments). Meanwhile almost all guitars come in only one (bulky) size; travel guitars are relatively expensive, etc.

I walked past the piano at John Wayne Airport (SNA) a few weeks ago and wished I had kept up with piano lessons as a kid.

Can you remember what terminal it was in? I would love to add it!

Also, it's never too late to get back into piano! :)

IIRC, it's between terminals A and B, outside Ruby's Diner. But it's been a few months since I was there.

https://pianos.pub/piano/e8052482

Yes, that's the one. It's tucked away in the corner, just around the bend as you walk from terminal A to B. I couldn't say for certain if it's actually in terminal A or B, but I think it's closer to B than A.

Has anyone had an experience of a worker deterring people playing on the piano? (I don't mean obnoxious kids pounding on the keys and damaging the piano, I mean actually skilled people playing tasteful music)

What's the best portable piano keyboard for traveling (self-contained, so not just a MIDI keyboard)?

I've had my eyes on something like Akai MPK Mini, should fit in a backpack with a laptop (12.5" wide) but doesn't do its own synthesis so you're gonna need both devices (and I guess decent headphones as well), even if you just want to practice for a couple of minutes. Otherwise it looks great: 25 keys, 8 pads, pitch bend, USB-powered, all the standard assortment of features.

Yeah, I've seen the device, but as someone who hates using laptops, I'm not a fan ...

Expensive, but the Teenage Engineering OP-1 is great if you can swing it.

Battery for days and days and completely self-contained. You can create entire songs on the go.

Though maybe more of a synth than portable piano — depends on what you’re looking for.

Cute, but doesn't have a touch-sensitive keyboard, which makes this a no-go for me.

It does look cute, but is also fairly formidable.

And a software update earlier this year introduced velocity sensitivity.

Too many bells and whistles, just give me a good grand piano sound with a mini size touch sensitive keyboard.

The OP-1 could be that, but the keys look awkward, have very little travel, and I don't really believe you can fix touch sensitivity as an afterthought with a software update, though I could be wrong.

Perhaps a roll-up piano? List:

* https://philadelphiapianoinstitute.com/roll-up-piano-keyboar...

The downsides: the keys have zero travel, and these instruments look like a toy.

With the caveat that I don't own one, how about a microKORG? Apparently the most popular synthesizer ever.

There's the Roland GO:KEYS with regular-sized keys, or the much smaller Yamaha reface CP with mini keys. Both have on-board speakers and can be battery-powered. The reface would be the perfect size to play in an airplane seat, for example.

I use the Yamaha reface YC as I'm into organs, and I really like it.

There are foldable or modular 88-key keyboards:

https://carryonplaying.com/product/carry-on-folding-piano/

https://pianodevoyage.com/

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