The Music, The Mayor And The Monarchy

    The music in this case is generally not music. It is the aimless, repetitive banging away on a piano keyboard, a piano provided by the non-profit charitable organization Music For Everyone as part of the Keys for the City exhibit. Even if the person at the keyboard were playing a concerto by Beethoven or Prokofiev, the fact that it is unwanted by me in my space renders it an unwarranted intrusion. I want to choose what I listen to and be able to turn it off when I wish.

    From the Music For Everyone website:

             The objective of Keys for the City is to provide access to musical opportunity,
             foster creativity and build a sense of community among the public and, in the process,
             raise awareness for local music and visual arts education initiatives.

    How can disturbing the peace pounding away aimlessly on a piano keyboard at 3 o'clock in the morning on a city corner foster anything but animosity?

    This banging away often begins early in the day and continues well into the night past the legal limit on certain sounds. Therein lies the rub. Even though the city has a noise ordinance, the mayor himself has directed the Lancaster City Police to

    IGNORE ANY AND ALL NOISE COMPLAINTS REGARDING THE PIANOS.

                            (That information came to me from an impeccable source.)

From the Lancaster City Code:

                Chapter 198 Noise

                    198-1 Purpose

            The Council, finding that excessive levels of sound are detrimental
            to the physical, mental and social well-being of the residents
            as well as to their comfort, living conditions, general welfare and safety,
            and being therefore a public health and welfare hazard,
            hereby declares it to be necessary to provide for the greater control and
            more effective regulation of excessive sound and the sources of
            excessive sound within the City.
       
                    198-4 Prohibited Acts; Violations

            B. Specific prohibitions. The following acts and the causing thereof
            are declared to be noise disturbances and therefore in violation of this chapter:
            (1) Radios, television sets, musical instruments and similar devices.
            Operating, playing or permitting the operation or playing of any radio,
            television, phonograph, drum, musical instrument, sound amplifier, automobile radio,                         automobile stereo, high-fidelity equipment or similar device which produces,
            reproduces or amplifies sound: (a) At any time in such a manner as to cause a
            noise disturbance across a property line (boundary),
            or between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. so as to be plainly audible
            across a property line (boundary); [emphasis added by this writer]

Definitions:

    NOISE
        Any sound which annoys or disturbs humans or which causes or tends to cause
        an adverse psychological or physiological effect on humans.
    NOISE DISTURBANCE
        In addition to the sounds specified in §198-4B hereof, any sound which ...
        B. Annoys or disturbs a reasonable person of normal sensitivities...

   From the Lancaster City Code:

                Part I,
                Chapter 55,
                Part V (Mayor),
                 §55-18 Powers and Duties,
                sub-paragraph I,
        It is the duty of the mayor to:

         "Cause the enforcement of all city laws, codes and ordinances."

    Nothing I was able to find in the city ordinances or the statutes of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania allows a mayor to violate his own city ordinances.

    Reputedly, the mayor has said the pianos elevate the cultural status of the city and bring much needed money to the city. What suburbanites will drive to the center of Lancaster at three in the morning to hear some drunk pounding on a keyboard when the only place open at that hour to spend money would be an over-priced convenience store.

    The unanswered questions are: Can the mayor of a third class city ignore existing ordinances with impunity? Is the mayor pretending to be the king of a not-so-benevolent monarchy? Who decides which ordinances are to be enforced and which will be ignored and of those there are many — lined parking spaces; one vehicle per space; pedestrian crossing protections; speed limits; other violations of the noise ordinances.

    Are we a nation of laws, a city of laws or are we an anarchy?

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Pianos, Pianos and More Pianos

    Frank Sinatra sang that he “wants to wake up in a city that never sleeps…” and he was, of course, singing about New York City. If he were around today, he could satisfy that wish right here in good old Lancaster, PA, the town of a thousand pianos. Well, not actually a thousand. It only sounds that way at 2:30 in the morning.

    This city keeps patting itself on the back for all the wondrous expansion of the Arts and artistic endeavors. Has no one stopped to consider that sounds made by a musical instrument are not necessarily music, not necessarily Art. Any ignorant slug can sit at a keyboard and pound on the keys and make sounds, repetitive sounds, the same two chords played over and over and over, punctuated with banging rhythms incorporated as part of the non-concert.

    This has improved the city how? Even if a world famous concert pianist sat at the instrument and performed all the world’s best concertos, would that make the uninvited musical selections more welcome if those sounds invaded my space where I could control neither the choice of music nor the sound level while trying to practice my singing or my pennywhistle or my trombone or simply listen to music of MY choice.

    According to a press release from Music For Everyone, a non-profit charitable organization in Lancaster [PA], the pianos placed at a dozen locations throughout the city for the "Keys For The City" program are to “provide access to musical opportunity, foster creativity and build a sense of community”. Hah! What community sense is developed in the middle of the night by some drunk wannabe concert pianist who doesn’t know a musical fifth from a liquid one?

    That press release also touts the fact that the dozen pianos are “accessible to the public 24/7...” The city’s noise ordinance 198-4 B (1)(a) specifically prohibits operating “Radios, television sets, musical instruments and similar devices…At any time in such a manner as to cause a noise disturbance across a property line OR between the hours of 9:00 PM and 8:00 AM so as to be plainly audible across a property line.” [Lancaster City Police have noted the Capistrano-like return of the pianos and will respond, if called, to any late night keyboard banging. The pianos may be accessible 24/7 but it is NOT legal to play them 24/7.]

    The release goes on to say, “Whether people stop by to play a few notes or an entire piece, there will be thousands of magical, musical moments that will occur around those pianos this summer. This project is a literal expression of what this organization is all about – Music For Everyone.”

    I am a musician though not currently involved professionally. I had my “awareness of music” aroused while young in a more traditional manner — not by disturbing the peace on a street corner. I love music. I love piano music. I love jazz. I love van Cliburn, Rudolph Serkin, Vladimir Horowitz, Dave Brubeck, Hugh Laurie, Saint Elouise and countless other pianists. Even I own a keyboard which I enjoy making sounds with in the PRIVACY of my home. I inflict my sounds on no one else.

    I particularly love being able to choose what I am going to listen to or which instrument I will play. With street corner plinking sounds, whether melodic or discordant, penetrating my space almost all day, almost every day, I cannot change the channel or adjust the volume. It is, in short, a most unwanted, unwarranted intrusion into my space! It’s like being an involuntary resident of a piano practice room.

    What exacerbates the noisiness of this neighborhood seems to involve an acoustical anomaly similar to the whispering corners in the US Capitol building or the grottoes of Syracuse, Sicily, probably because of a natural amphitheatre effect formed by the curves of the alcove beneath the downward spiraling exit ramp from the Prince street parking garage where the one near my home is located.

    Other architectural aspects of this neighborhood include the amplifying effect of the open space in front of the convenience store across the street and the parking lot of a tire store across the other street. Sidewalk conversations seem to be occurring immediately outside the window rather than at the 50 feet or more distance where they are actually occurring.

    Add to this mix a 75 horsepower car with a 300 horsepower CD player at the stop sign just below my window waiting for traffic all the while blaring some rap lyrics through a blown speaker in a language I don’t speak while displaying a red, white and blue non-American flag with a vanity plate declaring the beauty of some place not in the continental USA.

    Think I’ll go to the club. At least there, for a buck or two, I’ll be able to choose the noise.

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Music for Everyone

    No less a personage than Friedrich Nietzsche, the noted German philosopher, poet and composer, said, “Without music, life would be a mistake.” I concur.

    Anyone taking the time for even a casual glance at some of my blog entries will see that music holds a significant place in my life. I became a music lover more than 60 years ago with 45 rpm vinyl records of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Beethoven symphonies, Rossini overtures and all the pop stars of the 50’s as well as some from earlier decades.

    I moved from mere listening to actual participation when I joined the church choir and the high school Glee Club. I also played the trombone and the baritone horn in the high school band. In the Navy, I sang in the Bluejackets choir.

    After the Navy, I returned to mere listener status for many years for no particular reasons except, probably, lack of both opportunity and motivation. Until recently.

    I found an affordable used trombone and a baritone horn and have been concentrating on reviving the talents I once was confident of. I’ve added to those instruments a penny whistle (I’ve nearly mastered “Amazing Grace” and am working on the melody played by Jean Luc Picard on his Ressikan flute in the Star Trek:TNG episode, “The Inner Light”).

    Vocally, I have reawakened the singing voice I once enjoyed by participating in various karaoke events I’ve spoken of in other blog entries. I doubt I’ll ever stop enjoying karaoke; however, the number of people wishing to participate places a limit on the number of songs any one performer will have time to do during the course of the evening.

    So, I ranged about looking for other outlets to pursue my singing interests. I have found that outlet with the Music For Everyone Community Chorus. In my blog entry on January 3, “Music, Monks and Mortality,” I spoke of the joy of music exhibited by Andre Rieu and the members of his Johann Strauss Orchestra. I have seen that same joie de musique in the singers in the Community Chorus and their cheerful director, A. J. Walker.

    This group of non-professional singers under the tutelage and expert direction of A. J. (who is also the Director of Music at Linden Hall School) is performing most professionally. The repertoire is far from traditional but the love of music by ALL is the driving force which ensures you will enjoy any presentation you are fortunate enough to experience.

    I have been welcomed by this group and I am happy to be one of them.

   
                                               You may not have heard of Community Chorus.
                                                                       You will.
                                                    They are not an up and coming group.
                                                                    They’re here.

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