Elizabeth Symington waxes poetically about her love for the humble piano players of the Brennan Room cafeteria and the little bit of joy they add to our lunch times.

This isn’t a conventional love letter.

It all began in 2016, my first year of uni when I finally decided to brave the social scene that was the Shortland building. I took a seat in the Brennan Room, laptop and uni work at hand when I heard the first few notes of some musical magic.

I felt like I had been launched into a Disney movie, part of me hoped someone would break out into song and uni would become the place I lived out my ‘High School Musical’ dreams… sadly that did not happen but nevertheless, it gave me a glimpse of what my life could have been like in a musical.

Fast forward to my third year and my love affair was reignited one Friday when another uni student decided to play some sweet melodies. While it wasn’t great for my productivity, it certainly made my morning a lot better.

Just to clarify, this is not directed toward any of you who play the piano’s as a joke, unless you have skills please don’t touch them.

I think the best part about it is that you never know when it is going to happen, you can be eating or studying silently and then bam someone sits down and fills the room with a tune. Sometimes its classical other times it’s modern and either way, it is brilliant.

Whenever I hear someone play, I am filled with joy and also a little bit of jealousy. The extent of my piano skills range from ‘Ode to Joy’ to ‘Mary had a Little Lamb.’ As much as I wish I could play other songs the only training I have is my year 7 and 8 music class experiences and I need the letters to be drawn on the keys otherwise I am clueless.

I’m now taking applications for a piano teacher so I can bedazzle the Brennan Room one day. But in the meantime, if you see somebody doing this… it’s probably me.

Feature Image: Elijah Henderson via Unsplash, no changes made.