From storage to the quad, piano offers music and creates a community from within

The campus quad, a place where most students pass through to get to class, is now home to something very unexpected, an old-looking brown piano sitting in open space.

Most of the time the piano sits quietly throughout the day until, suddenly, the sound of piano keys start to fill the space from students practicing their skill to an impromptu duet between strangers.

For Lucas Reed, a business major at Sacramento City College, the piano provides something he does not have at home, access to a real piano.

“Well, I don’t have a real piano at home, and I’m not part of the music program here on campus,” Reed said. “So it’s really cool that this piano is out here and anybody can just play it.”

Reed said he is mostly self-taught, learning through a few online capabilities, which includes Chat GPT. Reed has spent mostly a year honing his skills by starting with basic chords and building off from there.

“I learned how to play through AI,” Reed said. “It tells you how to play chords and where to put your fingers, and then from there on it just kind of clicked for me.”

Reed practices about four hours a day on a keyboard at home, but he says the piano sitting in the open space of the quad allows for a unique experience.

“Nothing beats this one,” Reed said. “The sensitivity of the keys, the weight of the keys.”

Aside from practicing, the piano at the quad has created small social gatherings from time to time. Reed recalls meeting another student while playing last semester.

“I met this girl here while I was playing, and she came up to [me] and started singing. It was really cool.” Reed said. “It’s pretty cool to meet some people here.”

Reed now spends his time creating his own music and depends on instinct rather than the traditional formal piano training.

“I can’t read music,” Reed said. “It just doesn’t click for me.”

For music professor Daniel Paulson, the piano’s appearance in the quad was indeed intentional and strategic.

“I think it was twofold — community and also recruitment,” Paulson said.

Paulson said one of his plans when coming to teach at City College was to establish a sense of connection with students. By placing a piano in a central location, he believed it would help that space.

“I wanted to build a collegiate feel where students can be part of something bigger.” Paulson said.

The piano in the quad is something that has been used up and was originally sitting in a storage area in the music department referred to as the “graveyard.” Out of the blue Paulson decided to bring it back to life and roll it into the quad.

“I was thinking, how do we make our campus more musical?” Paulson said. “Like musical installations, something interactive.”

The quad has been a place where tensions sometimes arise among students and visiting outreach and advocacy groups.

“Theres been a lot of conflicts that have happened at the quad,” Paulson said. “So I put music into a space where there was conflict.”

And since then Paulson has noticed change.

“It’s a place where people come together to create something rather than to argue about something.” Paulson said.

The piano’s impact has developed over the years. Initially, Paulson brought a piano out in 2019 and it wasn’t receiving much attention. Now it has become the focal point of campus. Students will come together to listen, sing and even play late in the evening.

“We’ve had people playing at midnight.” Paulson said. “It’s allowed for this energy.”

Paulson embraces the piano’s imperfections from the rain. “It’s a workhorse. It’s there to get some wear and tear and that’s all part of its life.”

In the future Paulson plans to expand the idea by adding more musical elements throughout campus, and possibly a permanent structure to house the piano.

“My goal is to find ways to make the campus more musical,” he said.

As for now, the piano will stay where it’s at, slightly worn, sometimes out of tune, but full of endless possibilities.

“It embodies potential,” Paulson said. “What could we do?”