Piano burning

Piano burning is the act of setting on fire an acoustic piano, most commonly an upright, as either a ceremony or a form of performance art.

Piano burning ceremonies are held by air forces around the world, including the Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force and the United States Air Force, to commemorate deaths and other events.

Several contemporary musicians, including Annea Lockwood, Yōsuke Yamashita, and Diego Stocco, have composed for and performed on pianos which have been deliberately set alight. A burning piano was the centrepiece of Douglas Gordon's 2012 video installation, The End of Civilisation.

In The Phantom in Focus: A Navigator's Eye on Britain's Cold War Warrior, David Gledhill recounts a combat training exercise in Germany during the Cold War where Jaguar pilots from RAF Wildenrath and RAF Bruggen had the task of destroying a piano placed on Nordhorn Ridge with a single practice bomb. Because the target was so small, it was only the last Jaguar on the last flight of the exercise that finally managed to hit it. The pilots from both bases celebrated that evening at RAF Wildenrath by burning a second piano in the Officers' Mess. Although piano burning has become popular with air forces and especially the Royal Air Force since World War II, its origin is undocumented and has been the subject of myth and decades of storytelling.

One of the most common legends traces its origin to the British Royal Air Force sometime between World War I and II, when so many pilots died during World War I that the RAF was forced to select its pilots from the common population, instead of their usual preference for upper-class families. Attempts were made to educate the pilots on refined manners and tastes, but these lessons became very unpopular among the pilots, especially the piano lessons which the Royal Air Force believed would increase the pilots' level of culture and improve their dexterity. According to this story, the burning began at RAF Leuchars, where the only piano at the base burned down accidentally and piano lessons were cancelled. Word spread, and soon pilots at more Royal Air Force bases began to burn the pianos to avoid lessons.

Another origin story holds that RAF piano burning began as a tribute to fallen airmen. According to the New Zealand Herald, a piano-playing pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II played to his fellow airmen each time one of their number had been killed. When he himself was killed in action, his comrades decided that "if he couldn't play the piano any more, nobody would, so they dragged it outside and set it alight."

Piano burning ceremonies based on the RAF tradition are held by the US Air Force. A piano was ceremonially burnt at Langley Air Force Base in 2011 to celebrate the 94th anniversary of the 94th Fighter Squadron. At Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, the 4th Fighter Wing burns a piano each year in commemoration of the Battle of Britain. Vance Air Force Base sometimes celebrates the graduation of trainee pilots with a piano burning.

Although piano burning ceremonies are primarily carried out by the UK and US air forces, the Roxbury Tavern near Sauk City, Wisconsin has held an annual piano burning ceremony since 2004 to mark the Summer Solstice. A eulogy for the piano is delivered prior to it being set alight, and afterwards its remains are placed on display in the tavern's garden, along with those of burnt pianos from previous years.