Gordonites are, on the whole, ecstatic about the new Adams Center of Music and express their gratitude towards the wealthy donors whose sizable estate made a construction project of such grandeur possible. Yet reception to the “exploding piano that kills everyone” has been mixed, with many questioning why an object of such destructive potential, even if it is also technically a musical instrument, would be including in the plans for the new facility. This reporter intends to get to the bottom of the controversy.
The “exploding piano that kills everyone” is a traditional instrument whose invention predates that of the standard piano by several years. It was observed that musicians were unable to become skilled pianists because they were usually vaporized within the first few practice sessions, necessitating the creation of a sort of nonexploding ‘rehearsal piano’. Purists maintain that all serious piano performances demand the “exploding piano that kills everyone” and that playing a nonexploding piano for an audience is akin to participating in the Tour de France with training wheels still on one’s bicycle.
“The greatest honor that can be afforded a pianist is the opportunity to be consumed in a glorious inferno at the culmination of their piece,” declared a Gordon College music professor, who has elected to remain anonymous on grounds that they were not authorized to speak publicly, “and as for the audience, they should be so lucky as to be incinerated alongside them.” The argument holds that people who truly enjoy piano music should feel such rapturous ecstasy upon hearing a proficient performance that they should be content to die at that moment, their lives’ purposes fulfilled by the music.
Dissenters employ many arguments against the “exploding piano that kills everyone”, each of which seems to rely on the notion that killing a large group of people in a totally avoidable manner is wrong. Similar moral sanctimony is responsible for the abolition of beloved Gordon traditions like “indoor pyrotechnics chapel” and the removal of “land-mine hopscotch” from the orientation schedule. While “dying for no reason” had long been considered an inextricable part of the college experience, in recent decades the administration (at the behest of student protests) has cut back on “unsafe events that constitute extraordinary risk to life and limb”.
Some insist that the name “exploding piano that kills everyone” is antiquated, dating back to a time when the laws of acoustics were poorly understood and as a result attendees of piano concerts would have to sit very close to the instrument in order to hear it properly. They contend, then, that considering the sophisticated architecture of the new recital hall, it should be referred to instead as the “exploding piano that kills most people”, as the people in the back several rows of seats would be outside the range of the blast. Therefore, a happy compromise could be achieved where those who wanted to survive the performance could opt for a further seat and those resigned to perish could have those closer seats within the so-called “obliteration zone”.
Administration is firm on honoring tradition and the wishes of the donors, who did not approve of the death toll per se, but were concerned that a recital hall without an “exploding piano that kills everyone” could not be competitive at a high level, as the Adams Center is to be one of the finest in the region. Though many of us may have qualms at the idea of prodigious musical talents and their admirers alike being annihilated by bursts of white-hot flame, we must suppress such feelings as the “exploding piano that kills everyone” is here to stay. I’d invite you to put it out of your mind entirely, and to have a fantastic summer!
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