Instrumental change: Dealing with music’s growing garbage pile

Unwanted musical instruments aren’t the biggest waste disposal problem facing the world, but they’re an issue worth making a noise about.

The piano tuner has refused to come back. ‘Not until you get a new one,’ he said.

A few decades ago, I could have donated it to a piano-breaking competition and watched it be smashed to bits. But events like that seem to have fallen out of fashion. The Guinness World Record for hacking a piano into pieces small enough to fit through a letterbox slot stands at 1 minute, 34 seconds, by the way.

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Acting Performing Arts Editor Jason Blake is a career arts writer, critic and editor. He studied theatre directing at the VCA and NIDA, served as arts editor for the Sydney City Hub, edited subscription TV guides and reviewed theatre for the Sydney Morning Herald from 2009-2017. He was co-founder of audreyjoural.com.au and recently publications manager for the Sydney Film Festival. He shares his home office with a possum.