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

Design by Grace Aretakis /
/ Page Design by Sarah Chung

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com