The Piano Drop
by Chris Trimmer
2013
Stereo
25 minutes
On April 26th, 2012, hundreds of onlookers, with news helicopters circling above, watched as a piano was dropped from the roof of a six-storey building. The Piano Drop is a feature-length radio documentary centered around the 40th anniversary of the M.I.T tradition of dropping a piano of the roof of the Baker House dormitory. The Piano Drop traces the events of that day, with scenes resembling a movie -- from custodians preparing the crash site amongst the sounds of the piano's last notes, to the anxious last minutes of hoisting the piano to the precipice, to the thundering crash and an ending that features an interview with an MIT alumni grazing the crash site for souvenirs. Throughout the documentary an interview with John Hall, owner and founder of the Canadian Piano Museum, is interwoven with Piano Drop Day audio to present one of the instrument's strongest advocates in a moment when it's destruction is fiercely celebrated. The Piano Drop is a modern story about music and our evolving relationship with it.