Eighteen

Danger
Pieces
For
Piano

Matthew Lee Knowles [2021]

1: A pianist licks every key of an old piano then vomits on the pedals.

2: A pianist is trapped

inside a piano, weighed down with hundreds of large books on music theory.

3: A pianist’s head is used to play chromatic

clusters with an animalistic ferocity not often witnessed in Wigmore Hall.

4:
A pianist’s little finger is tucked between black keys then violently twisted.

5: A

wasp’s nest inside a piano is angered by a pianist playing cataclysmic music.

6: The keys are coated with glue

and recoated throughout the performance, the pianist plays exceptionally

long chords and only stops when permanent nerve damage is achieved.
7: A pianist gratefully

receives paper cuts across their eyeballs from a drunk page turner.

8: A pianist repeatedly

brings the lid down on the fingers of one hand until they are all broken.

9: The legs are cut o a grand piano and several people

hold it above a pianist for as long as they can before dropping it on them.

10:
A A piano is modified so that every note causes pain: all As spurt acid,
all Bs deliver an electric shock, all Cs have small embedded razor blades etc.

11: A pianist pushes

their face so hard into the strings that they become lubricated with blood.

12: A pianist’s legs

are glued to two di erent pianos which are then pulled apart by two teams.
13: A piano is disassembled,

the strings are wrapped tightly around a pianist’s neck, the keys are forced
down their throat, the pedals are used to gouge out their eyes.

14:
A pianist is told they will play a burning piano on a beach. This is a lie. The
piano is covered in flame retardant, the pianist is covered in an accelerant.

15: A pianist’s fingers are all split

down the middle, they play to the best of their ability before they bleed out.

16: A

pianist is instructed to play any note, with a warning that a specific note will
trigger a gunshot to their face. This is a lie. Any note will trigger the gun.

17: A pianist holds

a lit firework in their mouth, they play and stop when they are mortally
incapacitated, if this doesn’t happen they should attempt an encore.

18:
A pianist plays in the centre of a ring of thermonuclear explosions.