The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
6 — Wednesday, February 23, 2022
Design by Grace Aretakis /
/ Page Design by Sarah Chung
S T A T E M E N T
OSCAR NOLLETTE-PATULSKI
Statement Columnist
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
The anonymous art of the University’s public pianos
I saw it online:
The importance of
digital communities
at U-M
I sit on the gray, pleather couches
in the East Quad Residence Hall
lobby, passing time between a class
and a virtual meeting. The long glass
windows behind me tell me it’s gray
outside; I wouldn’t be surprised if it
started raining.
A fellow college student strays
from the lobby’s traffic patterns
and pivots toward the space’s
musical focal point: the glimmering
Yamaha grand piano. They set their
backpack down to the side, adjust
the simple black bench and rest their
hands on the reflective keys. A few
chords are played as a warm up, and
the music soon turns into a Hans
Zimmer melody from “Interstellar.”
After some repetitions, the tune
changes to an early 2010s pop hit
I can’t remember the name of,
modulating again into something
lush and classical-like, the sounds of
a modern Mozart.
I pretend to type on my keyboard
while the pianist plays on theirs, and
perhaps 15 to 20 minutes later, the
song ends and the musician leaves.
There is no bow, no applause, no
fanfare, for this is nothing out of the
ordinary. It’s a typical performance
on the East Quad public piano.
There are versions of this scene
scattered throughout the University
of Michigan’s campus. You can try
the dark, polished upright piano
tucked down a hall in the Michigan
Union, or the multiple sitting within
the various spaces of Pierpont
Commons. For dinner and a show,
visit the dimly lit seating area in the
rear of South Quad’s dining hall;
the worn down wood grain seat of
the instrument and mood lighting
gives the appearance of a popular
underground music venue while you
eat meal-plan pizza. You are in the
audience by default, so why not lean
in and enjoy?
***
A year after my family moved to
Michigan, my mom commandeered
her childhood upright piano from my
grandfather’s living room, placing
it in our own where it now sits. My
brother and I took lessons on it while
in elementary school, and though
they halted when I turned twelve,
my fondness for the instrument
never did. I played almost every day,
especially when I didn’t have school.
During the summer evenings, my
arpeggios would float through the
open windows, harmonizing with
the symphony of cicadas outside.
In the months leading up to
my first fall at the University of
Michigan, I frequently thought
about how I would play the piano
once I moved out of my parent’s
house. I daydreamed, perhaps too
optimistically, of dazzling the East
Quad lobby and touring my talents
around the residence halls. My high
school hobby would blossom into
something publicly popular, quickly
cementing my status as a university
icon.
Upon my arrival in Ann Arbor,
though, other hopeful musicians had
similar ideas and more advanced
skills. And upon hearing them play,
I was overcome with jealous dread,
deciding the public keys were not for
me.
In the past month or so, however,
realizing
my
access
to
these
instruments is fleeting, I’ve forced
myself to step up to the bench and
play music in public. The moment
I decided to do this I became
incredibly nervous. My limbs forgot
how to do their job and my eyes
darted around the room, trying to
uncover reasons I shouldn’t perform.
I walked up to the keyboard but then
quickly turned around, worried to
offend, eager to eliminate anxiety.
How does everyone else make it
look so easy? What are the comforts
in being so publicly visible?
***
To investigate such feelings, I
interviewed some campus public
pianists, all of whom were within
a variety of stages and majors in
their college careers. What makes
these musicians so compelling
is the fleeting nature of their
performances.
They
start
and
end without notice, except for the
overheard chords of a spontaneous
setlist.
Their
programming
is
a mashup of your favorite pop,
classical and throwback playlists,
but unlike your Spotify music player,
the name of the artist is nowhere to
be found.
Despite their lack of disguise, the
pianists camouflage with the rest
of the student body moments after
playing their final chord. In an era
where musical artists are aligned
with their visual brand as much as
their melodies, the campus piano
player approaches the stage with the
clothing of normality.
Some
of
these
anonymous
sensations
have
other
musical
outlets, like a cappella groups or
bands, and some had collaborators.
LSA
sophomore
Will
Chehab,
who also records rap under The
Young XP, started early in making
the pianos a part of his campus
experience, playing in Stockwell
Residence Hall and on the grand
in the East Quad lobby during his
freshman year.
“I had a friend who also played
piano, he was really good, we liked
to mess around for an hour or two,”
Chehab said.
LSA
senior
Thomas
Martin
told me about “a little piano gang”
that formed during his first year
on campus, when a passerby
recognized the “Fourth Chopin
Sonata.”
“She sits down and starts playing
the same thing … I mean, as a lot of
friendships in college occurred, it’s
not like we saw each other every
day. But, we’re still friends,” Martin
said.
Behind the allure of musical
recognition is the opportunity for
genuine and lasting friendship.
Though others may see the piano
player as just that, knowing them as
people helps break down the barrier
between audience and performer.
Some
moments
of
connection
are much more fleeting, but are
just as gratifying because of their
unexpectedness.
Engineering graduate student
Dan Maguire said, “I definitely have
people come up to me a lot and say
thank you for playing … Someone
once left a note for me.”
When asked about the note,
Maguire smiled and picked it up
from its spot on his desk, reading:
“Beautiful playing, thank you for the
music. Hope you have a wonderful
day.” The message concluded with a
hand-drawn smiley face, providing
something comfortingly genuine on
a folded piece of notebook paper.
All of the piano players I
interviewed indicated they are
repeat performers on campus,
with Martin going as far to imply
it was his self-appointed job.
“The University doesn’t pay me”
he conceded, but described the
routine musical acts as a kind of
“addiction.”
Chehab had a similar sentiment,
saying the sight of the piano poses
enough of an incentive to play:
“I look at it and (think) I
kinda want to play this, and I
go in and play. It’s usually pretty
spontaneous.”
There is a sort of rugged
individualism a person must have
to initiate their own performance,
to create something grand out
of
ambivalent
silence.
Dexter
Kaufman, LSA sophomore and
member of the Southeast Michigan
band Luna Pier, told me the
experience is quite different from
being on stage with his group. “At
the piano you’re by yourself, you can
play at any tempo you want, all the
keys are in front of you,” Kaufman
said.
However liberating the freedom
of no-strings-attached performance
is, the inherent self-promotion of
spontaneous song must be carefully
balanced with the needs of an ever-
changing campus audience. When
a quiet study space unintentionally
doubles as a de-facto performance
hall, chaos can ensue. Maguire
told me of a time when another
musician’s act was stopped at the
request of an irritated study group.
“It was kind of really sad, I felt so
bad for the guy … I imagine a lot of
other people were really enjoying
it,” Maguire said.
Indeed, the flip side of anonymous
praise and the serotonin it brings is
the harsh bite of faceless critique.
The campus piano player,
though relatively free from
the repercussions of
identity, must take time to
consider the effect of their sounds
on the room to dodge unwanted
scrutiny. Maguire tries to cater
to the hypothetical piano skeptic,
saying “I’m careful to play agreeable
music … If it’s really crowded that
day I’ll be like ‘nah,’ I’ll pass today,
I don’t want to annoy people too
much.”
This consciousness extends to the
other performers as well. Martin,
who, like other interviewees, plays
for hours at a time, sees it as a matter
of continuing the musical tradition:
“I’ll have to balance my addiction to
play with everyone else who goes
here, (so they can) get what I got
(from the pianos).”
The lack of artist recognition
associated with this particular
type of performance allows the
impromptu stage to be claimed by
anybody and for anybody, for as long
as they want. As Kaufman stated
simply: “(It’s) just a public piano,
anyone can use it.”
Following Kaufman’s sentiment,
it seems the pianos can occupy two
paradoxical spaces in the public
consciousness: they are meant to be
played and heard,
and
their
performers
are
aware
of the
effect
their
music has.
But,
they
also
bend
some
of
the
most basic rules
of
social
It’s a common refrain on campus:
“I saw on the U-M subreddit that”,
“There’s a rumor going around in
my class group chats”, “Did you see
the Facebook post about”.
Running
parallel
to
official
sources on campus — University
press releases, emails and The
Michigan Daily — there is an
informal, crowd-sourced ecosystem
of digital circles: the U-M subreddit,
posts on Yik Yak, Discord servers
and countless others.
These spaces are difficult to
characterize. Their collaborative
nature and emphasis on community
norms make them distinct from
other social media. They aren’t quite
meme pages, but they aren’t overly
serious. They’re conducted mostly
by students, but professors are
known to lurk in the background.
There’s
a
social
element,
but
most users are strangers to one
another. Still, users with a range of
academic backgrounds, interests
and motivations coexist in these
spaces, tied together by their
common identity as members of the
University of Michigan community.
Since
my
freshman
year,
I’ve been an atypical producer
and
consumer
in
Michigan’s
information ecosystem. I spent
three years working on The Daily’s
audience engagement team, which
is responsible for managing the
newspaper’s social media presence,
posting
breaking
news
and
publishing newsletters. Simply put,
my job was to get news to students.
Getting our stories circulating in
group chats and online communities
was crucial. During my tenure, I
learned that if a story isn’t a meme
or the topic of a discussion thread on
platforms like Reddit, it’s not really
circulating on campus.
Having been both an information
producer and consumer, I’ve seen
how information can take on a life
of its own in digital spaces. The
U-M subreddit, various student-
run Discord servers and a collection
of Facebook groups fill in the gap
between
information
that
has
been endorsed and vetted by the
University and external publications
like MLive and The Daily.
Always Online
Information junior Ari Feldberg
is always on Discord. “In my room
on my desk, I have two monitors. I
have a bigger main monitor, then I
have a second monitor with pretty
much just Discord open,” he said.
Discord was released in 2015
as a messaging platform targeted
towards video game players, but
has since grown to include features
like video- and voice-calling. It’s
split off into servers, which are
smaller communities with their
own members, moderators and
rules. University-specific servers
have popped up on campuses across
the nation as a way for students to
connect with one another.
Thanks to his persistent use of
the platform, Feldberg became the
owner of the U-M server in 2019,
giving him access to essentially
everything on the server. Felberg
can change the group’s settings, add
moderators and remove members
at his discretion. When he joined,
the group belonged to an entirely
different team of moderators and
was more or less inactive: “The
previous owners just gave it over to
someone else because they’re like,
‘Okay, you guys are active and you’re
gonna fix the server.’”
Since then, the U-M Discord has
grown to over 5,000 members and
has channels for everything from
politics to off-campus housing to
sports. In practice, Feldberg is the
server’s lead moderator, taking
on most of the responsibility of
monitoring acidity on the Discord
and ensuring that users follow the
group’s rules. Moderators are the
border patrollers of the digital world;
the gatekeepers who decide what
kind of information and discussion
gets to be on the platform.
Feldberg
said
he
takes
a
“relatively
hands-off
approach”
and despite constantly being on
Discord, he spends very little time
actively moderating the group. He
also shared he typically doesn’t
intervene in heated discussions so
long as parties are “arguing in good
faith.”
Engineering sophomore Casper
Guo knew about the U-M subreddit
before he was even active on the
platform. Subreddits are individual
communities devoted to a specific
topic within Reddit. The platform
is made up of millions of subreddits
with distinctive cultures and norms.
“I literally made my Reddit
account because I wanted to see
the [U-M] Reddit,” he shared. Guo
couldn’t recall exactly how he had
found out about the subreddit. The
group has been around since 2010
and has 34,000 plus members — just
larger than the population of 32,282
undergraduate students on the Ann
Arbor campus.
Like Guo, no one told me about
the subreddit, or the Discord or any
other
student-run
communities.
It’s a testament to the ubiquity —
and sometimes, the invisibility —
of these spaces. It’s up to students
to stumble across the University’s
digital communities.
While some users like Feldberg
invest
time
into
moderating
and
cultivating
digital
spaces,
these communities are generally
characterized by low barriers to
entry.
Online
content
creation
generally
follows
a
power-law
distribution, with a few users
contributing the majority of the
content. Guo observed that, on
the U-M subreddit, “it’s the same
names that keep coming up,” and he
contrasted these active-participants
with “most people who occasionally
post maybe asking for classes or
asking for professors.”
Still, with an account, some
motivation
and
enough
posts,
anyone can become a recognizable
power-user, while the majority of us
sit back and watch the feed unfold.
Knowledge & Norms
Every
semester
when
backpacking begins, I find myself
instantly turning to the U-M
subreddit.
I had a four-year plan color coded
and organized in a spreadsheet
before I even began college. During
my freshman year, you could’ve
asked me what I’d be taking as a
senior, and I’d answer in earnest.
But I quickly learned that even if
you know exactly what you’ll be
registering for, the subreddit has
something that you’ll never find on
the LSA Course Guide — insider
information about nearly every
class. If the professor is boring, if the
homework is too long or if discussion
attendance is mandatory, someone
has probably posted about it.
When I asked Feldberg about
the value of informal spaces like
the Discord, he quickly mentioned
classes. He said that communities
like
the
U-M
Discord
raise
awareness for things that “the
University isn’t going to tell people,
Like, no, do not take intro classes.
Terrible idea. Do it at a community
college. The University isn’t gonna
tell people to do that, whereas
current students or former students
or alumni, they would all have that
experience.”
But
not
all
majors
and
departments are well represented
in the subreddit. Guo critiqued the
page for being “EECS-centric,”
noting that most posts are made by
and for computer science majors.
“The post I made asking about
linguistics classes, I think I got like,
maybe two comments. The other
majors don’t really have the same
sort of presence on Reddit,” Guo
said.
While there’s no hard data on the
page’s demographics, moderators
have instituted a policy that posts
asking about courses must include
the department name, largely as a
response to the constant stream of
users asking about “281, 370, 445,”
referring to common courses in the
EECS Department.
I am not an EECS major. But I’m
interested in posts about recruiting
for tech internships and doing
research, which are common on
the page. I’m a statistics minor, and
as the department is decently well
represented in the group, I can
usually find useful information.
I can benefit from the subreddit
because my interests are close
enough to the stereotypical engineer
major the page caters to. The
subreddit provides a rich knowledge
base for a certain type of student, but
has less utility for others.
Going Offline
These digital communities are
crucial in disseminating information
across campus, but that’s not their
only purpose. They are, first and
foremost, a space for members of
the Michigan community — a space
which became especially important
to students over the course of the
pandemic.
Cliff Lampe, a professor in
the School of Information whose
research specializes on social media
and social computing, speaks on the
value of fostering social connections
during this stage in our lives.
“Part of the college experience,
in fact, one of the best parts of the
college experience, is building social
capital,” Lampe said. Social capital
is a sociological term that refers to
the trust, reciprocity and shared
values that allow our interpersonal
relationships to function. Social
capital manifests as friendships,
professional connections or access
to opportunities. In a way, social
capital is analogous to that certain
something that we all feel is missing
from online learning.
Lampe went further to say that
the connections we make in college
“provide value often throughout
(our) life; (we) make lifelong friends.
How do you do that over Zoom,
right? How do you build meaningful
friendships via technology?”
The students I spoke to had
mixed experiences forming social
connections in digital spaces. When
Feldberg first began using the U-M
Discord, in-person meet ups were
more common. Now, he says these
virtual interactions have moved to
smaller groups specific to students’
graduating classes.
“
There’s like a class of 2025 server,
there’s a class of 2026 or ‘20. So it’s
HALEY JOHNSON
Statement Correspondent
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/ Page Design by Sarah Chung
Read more at
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