The rise, fall and rise again of the pub piano

I don’t have the looks, time or inclination for an affair or the nerves for a motorbike, so the only obvious step was to take up the piano. I’d dabbled as a child in the keyboard but never achieved my dream of becoming the next Jools Holland.

So after a few months of lessons, my teacher encouraged me to play publicly and so one fateful day, much to the chagrin of commuters at St Pancras Station, I did. Was I good? No. But were the swaths of passing commuters and tourists entertained? Also, no. Probably. But what did happen was the kindling of a fire and as a result, as I have got better, I have continued to abuse public ivory wherever I find it.

Piano popularity

Of course, as you will very well know, the Live Music Act 2012 did away with the requirement to licence facilities for making music and took unamplified live music out of the scope of regulated entertainment meaning that the public piano could flourish.

While this could not be accused of being a recent development, pubs in pianos do seem to be a reflection of a bygone age rather than a post Live Music Act utopia. Programs like Channel 4’s The Piano​ have done wonders to boost the popularity of pianos at transport hubs, it makes me think back to golden age of tipple fuelled singsong around the pub piano.

Growing movement

As my interest in the piano grew proportionately to my interest in beer, I discovered a growing movement in identifying public houses that still have a working piano and allow their customers, for better or for worse, to have a go. I for one think this is wonderful and routinely find myself looking in pub windows in the hopes of finding the “old Joanna” there for a quick play and a pint of IPA.

I am not the only one. YouTubers such as London-based Terry Miles have made it their mission to tour the country in search of pubs with a piano as well as a great drink offer and the interest in his enterprise is phenomenal. A recent YouTube video in which Terry visited the Southampton Arms, London to play some boogie woogie, accrued over 160,000 views in a few short weeks. Not bad PR. Not bad at all.

I for one would love to see more pianos in our pubs. So my advice is this; get a piano in your pub. You don’t need a licence for them have great appeal. If you’re lucky, you might get some free advertising on YouTube. If you’re unlucky, you might get me.

• Joe Harvey​ is ​a​n associate​ solicitor at licensing solicitors​​ Poppleston Allen.​