Have you ever seen those pianos scattered along train stations? The first time I saw them, I thought that it was part of some fair or special event that would take place. I read a little bit about it and it turned out that it was part of an initiative by many governments to reduce people’s stress. According to this study, companies were experiencing lack of efficiency on behalf of their employees, due to stress.
These governments took the matter seriously and carried out some case studies to see how much stress people really had, and what could be an answer for it. The results came in and the factor that was found to greatly contribute to reducing people’s stress was music. Of course, not all people can have access to an MP3 player or a phone that plays these tracks.
So, they realized that they could place a piano there, and instead of hiring a piano player, they could just invite anyone who would be using the station to sit at the piano and play whatever they wanted. This experiment started somewhere in Europe and has quickly spread to many more countries in the world. People at first were curious as to what the piano meant but once they saw what it was, they started to share their musical skills with the rest of the people.
People started to play the piano and many commuters discovered so much talent. There is a saying that says, “Music makes one’s day happier,” and it was probably true. This made commuters not get as angry when they couldn’t find tickets for their destination but also helped the commuters spend a relaxing time, and without needing to pay anything.
Among these commuters, there is another group of people who use public transportation to commute to work. These people ride buses and trains into and around the city. In London, UK, there’s one of these train stations, and it has been getting a lot more exciting than others around the area.
St. Pancras Station has a public piano. They’ve had it for a brief time, but it has been an enormous success with commuters. One day, a couple of guys decide to sit down and delight the audience with a couple of cool tunes. Then, everything gets better when a woman decides to join them. As a side note, it turns out that this piano was donated by no other but Sir Elton John!