Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner What Spooky Thing?

I'm sitting on the couch, watching a couple of birds fluttering around and appearing to be having a gay old time in the birdbath in our back yard.

But I'm suddenly reminded of a strange and otherwordly experience I had once, several years ago, in another home. It had to do with birds and music.

It was a lovely summer afternoon, and I was listening to the 1812 Overture on my Walkman while looking out through the patio windows at the stand of trees at the end of our property. All at once the sky was full of birds, literally thousands of them, and they all swooped down and landed as one in our backyard. Just our yard! Not one bird in either yard on either side of ours (no fences separating us). I could not see a single blade of grass. Our lawn was a carpet of black birds.

Then, just at the end of the Overture (I still had my headphones on) when the cannons go off, the bird lifted up (again, as one) and flew off somewhere beyond my view.

There is NO WAY those birds could have heard the noise from the cannons that came through my Walkman. I was behind a thick glass door and our yard began beyond our deck, at least 20 feet away.

I was beyond amazement; I was frightened. How in the world could this have happened? That movie "The Birds" came to mind, and I was afraid to go out for the rest of the day.

When I told the story to my husband and others afterwards, I doubt if they really believed me. At least, I couldn't convince them how utterly strange it was that just a that exact moment of the cannon boom, the birds took off.

The whole thing happened in the span of 30 seconds, but it is a half of minute I'll never forget.

Have any of you had any unusual experiences concerning music or the piano, whatever?

Well there was that one time when a flying saucer landed in my back yard - Elvis jumped out and started singing "Love Me Tender".

But that thing with the birds - that's REALLY weird!!! :p

That's spooky!

My experience concerning music is often spooky. Here's one of my compositions for you to listen to when your outside with "The Birds" next time.
http://www.artistcollaboration.com/~johnny-boy/A%20Lovely%20Corpse.mp3

John

I've tuned a haunted piano; the customer bought it from an old lady who'd had it for 50 years, and when she gave her address, the old dear nearly fainted - turns out it was the exact house the piano had come from (the other side of London) 50 years before...
doo doo doo dooo...can anyone play the Twilight Zone?

There is NO WAY those birds could have heard the noise from the cannons that came through my Walkman. I was behind a thick glass door and our yard began beyond our deck, at least 20 feet away.
It is quite possible they heard it, but if the sound was produced using headphones, it is unlikely the noise would have scared them off.

Gill: Sounds like that piano really wanted to 'go home'. :p

A rather spooky friend of mine has an old piano that she swears is haunted by the ghost of the former owner, a soldier killed in WWII.

My old upright in my parents home in the basement used to play itself in the middle of the night and would scare me half to death! (Actually it was the cat walking on it :p ).

My Russian friend was evacuated as a small child during WWII to a rather grand house in Leningrad that had been taken over for refugees. There was a grand piano in one of the rooms. The building was erratically heated and sometimes at night as the temperature shifted the piano would "play itself," a very weird sound. My friend, who was about seven at the time, was totally convinced it was being played by a ghost.

I had a overwhelming experience too.
I was playing the piano and my wife actually said she liked it.



Then I woke up.

Peter

Peter: We should all be so lucky...

I had a wierd experience once. I was playing Chopin prelude in C minor, and after every chord my dog barked, no matter how long it took for the next chord to be played. It was wierd.

The I let him out into the garden and he hasn't done it since.

When I did my performance exam a couple of weeks ago, the bell to indicate each period of schooltime rang during Beethoven, and it was in time...it was quite uncomfortable for me, heh.

i can hear bats calling to each other if i have earphones and Chopin playing (the 2nd Concerto is the only music i've heard this with, but i bet any music on earphones would allow one to hear bats 'whistling'.) they were out for the dusk feeding.. swooping around, catching bugs no doubt.

no one has been able to explain why this phenomenom occurred.

odd story loveschopin2much

Was he a good pianist? Hope the haunting manifests itself in good music rather than spooky noise...

The old piano is unplayable. My "spooky" friend got it for next to nothing and decided it wasn't worth restoring after all so it serves as a shelf in her laundry room. She just senses a "presence" and catches the occasional glimpse. He's probably a very sad ghost to see his piano in such a state. The tale is that the soldier left his piano with his fiancee right before he shipped out. After he was killed she couldn't bear to see it, much less play it and her family stored it away in a shed somewhere. Of course it just deteriorated. My friend says she was crazy to buy it but she didn't know much at the time.

Perhaps the ghost can scare your friend into bringing the piano into a room that is more befitting its dignity and history. With a little polish and perhaps a few candles atop, it would make a great conversation piece in her living room. Perhaps she could put a copy of "Traumerei" on the stand.

Then, maybe, the ghost will rest easier and disappear.

Definitely a thought. I'll pass it on. I doubt if the ghost will disappear though. My friend's home attracts ghosts the way some homes attract stray cats.

I had a weird experience while driving my car. While on my way to work in Lowell, MA many years ago, I had to cross over a metal bridge. This is one of those bridges with the surface is a metal grid instead of concrete so everything vibrates like crazy.

On one particular day, I was listening to a Bach cello sonata, and the bridge vibrations along with the cello sonata made everything in my car vibrate so violently that the passenger-side visor came down off the window!

John

I'm very hesitant to post this because you will think that I'm ...

(no, I didn't REALLY see Elvis)! The flying saucer, maybe. :p

This is a three-parter, which makes it - perhaps - a bit more intriguing.

When I was quite young I was improvising at the piano. I remember feeling quite posessed at one point, and the music became much more advanced than I was sure I was capable of playing, much less making up.

At the height of the music, I felt a hand on my forearm! I stopped instantly.

OK, that was mildly interesting. No big deal.

Several years later (it is the 'years' part that makes this interesting) I had a dream: I was playing a strange upright piano with built-in candelabra. I could see myself playing as if I was an outside observer. I was playing that same piece! As the climax of the music came, a man walked up behind me and placed his hand on my forearm! Oh, the man was none other than Chopin.

OK, that was mildly creepy - but it could easily be explained by my subconscious mind creating the whole thing, right? It is just odd to me that the dream happened such a long time later.

Now for the third part...

I am a collector of antique books. Shortly after having that dream, I bought a really old book about the lives of the great composers. In the chapter about Chopin, there was a plate (illustration) covered by tissue paper. When I lifted the paper, I saw the caption "Chopin's death scene" - someone was playing for Chopin at his death bed. It was the very same piano from my dream!

Does that rate on the 'weirdometer' now?

he lives

Chopin?

Or Elvis?

"Does that rate on the 'weirdometer' now?"

You've pegged it on the post way beyond the algorhythmic scale that reads 100!

That's totally weird. Did it make your arm and neck hairs stand up?

John

Of course!

The feeling of a hand on my arm "freaked me out" as some folks are prone to saying.

The dream was weird, but much weirder when I woke up. I couldn't wait to tell my family about it.

Seeing the image in the book seemed to confirm the paranormal aspect at the time.

Now I tend to be more skeptical. Must be old age... :rolleyes:

When I was about 16, that would be in 1960, I made out with Joanne while playing Three Nocturnes by Debussy. It wasn't weird or spooky. But it was wonderful. Does this count?

Tomasino

Wow....that is reaaallllyyy spooky! And you are so lucky!!

As for the first dream, I know you are aware that Chopin was excellent at improving...thus that was his hand on yours.

Chopin obviously is haunting you for some reason. Either you are doing a superb job playing his music, or he's telling you to to quit already.

I'm sure it is a case of the former as opposed to the latter.

Or...you could be his reincaration. Have you had the urge to learn how to speak Polish lately?

Gee, I did recently visit the church where Chopin's heart is interred.

Now THAT'S really creepy!

Oh well, Chopin hasn't been by to see me anymore so perhaps he gave up! :rolleyes:

Tomasino, I wasn't aware that one can make out while playing the piano.

No need to explain further...!

I don't think our Polish friend rests easy. Alfred Cortot believed he felt his presence. Cortot had tracked down an original portrait and I believe a couple of personal items of Chopin's. There was a Russian pianist whose name I can't remember who reported the same thing. I confess I've felt the presence as well, also felt a hand on my hand. I've also had a very uneasy dream about an emaciated hand falling away from a keyboard. Chopin was too weak to even attempt to play for the last few months of his life. My theory is his presence thoroughly imbues his music and it's not that rare for anyone with a sympathetic temperament to feel it.

Beautifully put, Frycek.

Whippen and Frycek, those are truly freaky sounding (although I am a skeptic on the paranormal)

(insert Twilight Zone theme here....dee dee dee do,dee dee dee do)

Sophia

OK... Now I'm feeling quite eerie about all this again.

Thanks, Frycek for re-opening ... ...

the Door to the Unknown.



If I see Fred again - and he happens to GRAB my arm with an emaciated hand - I'll make sure to tell him my friends at Piano World send their regards!

For a moment there you really had me! I was thinking "played itself"????

Hi from South Africa!!

I'm no science expert (God knows), but didn't we learn that energy never dies, but takes on different forms?

If this is the case, and if we believe that there is an energy within the human body (all those electrical impulses in the brain, etc.), what happens to that energy when the "mortal coil" is shed?

It has to go somewhere? Perhaps (and I know this is way "out there"), isn't it reasonable to consider, at least, that it might find another human host. Yikes, this is bordering on the paranormal. I'm scaring myself.

I really should be posting this stuff at Halloween!

I'm pretty good at spinning a tale (the above story is 100% true, mind you), but would you like to hear something else very spooky?

NO?



OK, I knew you would.

This is just supposing...

(actually it couldn't be true)

If a 'spirit' is able to contact the living by making noises, appearing, creating cold air and EMF, wouldn't it perhaps be just as easy for it to communicate via the Internet? It just requires manipulating a few electrons - easy stuff for a spirit, no?

What's to say that everyone posting here is really here?



Yeah, that's way too much of a stretch.

But on a stormy night when you are alone on the computer, it is a pretty cool concept.

PS: You know you really shouldn't be on the computer during a storm.

PS: My 'spooky roots' come from my very strong affiliation with the South and the deep South. I'm sure Frycek knows what I'm talking about...

I know I'm here...I've checked in a mirror.

That's quite unreasonable to consider :p There is no more energy in a dead body than in your piano (Unless you press its' keys of course :p ). When the body ceases functioning, whatever possible energy it contains (food etc.), isn't going to be turned into energy usable by the body, since the bodyparts that do so, aren't working. There is no leftover energy, there is potential energy.

Even if it was the case that energy was there, then there would be no way for it to just "travel" to another body.

These paranormal thoughts are always wrong. I will let you all rest assured that there is no such thing as "paranormal activity".


Whippen Boy: Your argument falls down since there is no such thing as a "soul", in that meaning of the word. When we refer to soul, we refer to the fact that no two persons are alike, and as such, every person is different, having his own unique "soul". "Soul" in the meaning of something that exists outside the body, well, it's not real.

On a side note, I know im not the first to say this, but your recording of op. 32 no. 12 is absolutely fabulous. It is the best recording I have heard (including Richer and Ashkenazy), and because of it, im now learning the piece. Very beautiful piece when you get "below it's skin", i think.

Thank you very much, RalleStar for such kind words.

Even more heartwarming is the fact that you are inspired to learn the piece. That makes me very happy.

On the topic of the paranormal, I'd like to say

"maybe"...

This is not the place to debate theology and the great question of the existence or nonexistent of the soul will never be settled by the making of categorical statements. As for my own beliefs, I stand by everything I said.

i like to think we would be the perfect souls to possess..

just so you know, Bach has dibbies on me.

Remember that what you believe will depend very much on what you are.

Noah Porter (1811 - 1892)

"Your argument falls down since there is no such thing as a "soul", in that meaning of the word" - Rall

And how do you know this for a fact. Are you God?

You're only using the existence here on Earth for the basis of your argument. I'd bet there are a lot more possibilities (that none of us can imagine) outside this small "box" we're living in.

John

Amen to that!

ANDY AND BARNEY WERE A pair'o normal blokes!

I purchased the DVD of 24 episodes. I play it when I need cheering up.

Best, John

1st- Human bodies cant be possesed by spirits, thats completly false, its your life and yoru life can't be stolen

2nd- well... reencarnation dosnt exists, if it were to exists then you can kill today and tomorrow you wouldnt be yourself, things dosnt stop being what they are just by that... human bodies is a sustance body + spirit + soul, if one of those dissapear or chang(this is transformation then there is another human

for Example

Human1 = Body1 + Soul1 + Spirit1
Human2 = Body2 + Soul1 + Spirit1

though the spirits and soul numbers can change... this is just an example... what i mean iwth it s that if a soul and spirit takes another body then they wouldnt be themelves, a human is itself with its own parts, if chopin's soul were to possess someone then his piano abilities would dissapear and all his own, and he would be someone else, nor do chopin, nor you
so its impossible

when we die our body transforms and is not chained by space nor do time, it dosnt matter your body is buried in a cementery, your body transforms and goes to another "dimension" (just saying that word to be near to the real thing)... and he lives an eternity... eternity is no time, when there is eternity there is no time it dosnt mean infinite time, it means no time


well thats all i have to say
hope ive helped


cya

PS: belive it, or do not belive it, i dont care, i just told you what i do belive

Awww, darn!

Apple, when he does arrive could you ask him to make Chopin let go of my arm?!

Now would you REALLY want that?

cya:

I appreciate your taking the time to explain your belief on reincarnation. You certainly have given it a lot of thought.

But, this belief, much like religion or politics, is one that is impossible to defend.

I don't even know if I believe in it myself, to tell you the truth. I think it's just "wishful thinking" on my part. Probably because it is so difficult to imagine that when we die...that's the end.

Ever notice how the intellecutally intolerant totally lack a sense of humor?

I have made that observation, Frycek, hundreds of times.


"Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit."

Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

Excellent.