An excerpt from the New Yorker -
MY PRISON CELL: LEARNING TO HEAR ON A CARDBOARD PIANO
By Demetrius Cunningham
On my bottom bunk bed, I sat in deep thought. I had an unusual problem. The prison choir that I sang in needed a piano player, and they needed one quickly. I thought to myself, How could I teach myself to play? I had no prior experience with the piano, but I can still remember running down the hallways of my grandmother’s house as a boy. Every time I ran past her old upright piano, I would slam all the keys at the same time. Sometimes in the mornings before school, as I listened to cassette tapes of my favorite R. & B. and gospel songs by Mary J. Blige and John P. Kee, I imagined myself playing the piano. I sang in the church choir from the age of seven on. In the sixth grade, I learned to play the xylophone. I had an uncle who played piano professionally at Las Vegas casinos and on cruise ships. When he came to visit, I sat in awe as he played our upright. Music has been my constant companion. It’s like my DNA has tiny quarter notes infused into it.
One day while I was watching TV in my cell, I flipped past a show on BET that highlighted famous musicians, including the gospel singer Andrae Crouch, who described his first piano. It was made out of cardboard. I had an idea that was literally out of the box.
The first moment I could, I searched for a cardboard box. I wandered by cells, examining the garbage. I rummaged through every trash bag I could find. I soon realized that it was tissue day. Every Tuesday, the institution hands out hundreds of rolls of tissue, one roll per inmate. I knew that there would be plenty of cardboard boxes around. I found a large empty box abandoned at the end of the gallery. I tore off the top flaps and quickly went back to my cell.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/my-cell-learning-to-hear-on-a-cardboard-piano
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