Tucked away by a stairwell on the second floor of the Ohio Union is a grand piano. On most afternoons, Dan Shaw can be spotted playing slow jazz numbers that belong in a cocktail lounge instead of a union full of students chattering with friends and sipping lattes.
His rendition of the jazz piano classic “Alice in Wonderland” is literally passed by as students hurry by in their North Face jackets and backpacks, but the occasional few do glance over.
This doesn’t bother Shaw, though. Like his jazz music style, he is easy-going and cool. He has the confidence not only to play the piano within earshot of so many people, but also not to care whether they notice him. In fact, he prefers the noise of the Union to the silence of a concert hall during a recital, which he calls “a very stale setting.”
But a lounge setting would be his ideal.
“You know, martinis, women in red dresses, bow ties, tuxedos, if-you-wear-tennis-shoes-you-get-kicked-out kind of place,” Shaw said.
Shaw, a third-year in math and physics, has been playing piano for most of his life, whether it was in his pop-punk band in the eighth grade or in the jazz studies program at Cuyahoga Community
College, where he went before transferring to Ohio State.
Shaw was initially a music major, but he decided to change his career goals and focus on energy science.
“What I think music artists aspire to help people, I think science can actually do,” Shaw said. “[Science] has a lot more to do with helping humanity.”
Not only did Shaw switch gears to help others, but he did it to keep the fun in music for himself.
“I don’t rely on [music] for my money, so I can just play it and smile,” he said. “I think you should enjoy music for the three or four seconds you’re going to enjoy it for and then move on.”
This does not mean that he devalues professional musicians,
however. He considers talented concert pianists to be “super-humans,” and he regards the piano as the king of all instruments because of its unmatched range of notes.
“Concert pianists do the most Herculean thing,” Shaw said. “I don’t think going to the moon is as impressive, honestly.”
But this super-human image probably isn’t what comes to mind when most think about musicians. To many people, the word musician means a member of a four-person band like those heard on the radio, not a concert pianist. Kids grow up thinking that a musician is a “man with a microphone breaking guitars on stage,” Shaw said.
“I guess there’s this part of our culture that says that musicians just hang out and drink a lot and you know, they chill in bars, and I guess try to pick up girls, too … and it’s kind of true. We’re party people,” Shaw said, laughing. “I think that it’s just that we’re so broke that we’ve gotta have fun.”
Shaw doesn’t limit his fun to booze and lounge music, though. He accurately uses the word “eclectic” to describe his interests, as his hobbies are just that. Juggling, break dancing, fencing, playing chess and practicing Buddhism are among the activities that fill his days.
Playing piano is another activity on that list, but it is also something that has shaped Shaw’s outlook on life.
“Music is impermanent. When you hit pause on a record it
disappears — you can only enjoy it in its passing,” Shaw said. “Life is the same. You cannot pause life.”
And Shaw doesn’t try to. He watches students at the Union as they walk past him, and he keeps playing.
