Orono’s clinker

If Robert Noland has struggled to get his musical career off the ground, the struggle should be over. Thanks to Orono police, he now has a resume no booking agent could resist: Juilliard graduate; studies at the Royal College of Music; State Department touring artist, Carnegie Hall recitalist; convicted Chopinist.

Noland, of course, is the guy who got busted by Orono’s finest last Monday for playing the piano — handcuffed, frisked, tossed into the back of a cruiser and hauled off to jail.

No, he wasn’t drunk and buck naked on Main Street at 3 a.m., banging out Jerry Lee Lewis tunes full-tilt on a Steinway grand. He was sober, fully clothed, in his own home in the early afternoon. Practicing a Chopin etude on a meek little sotto voce spinet.

The specifics of the crime: It was a warm day, stuffy in Noland’s tiny house, so he opened the windows while going through his daily practice routine. A neighbor heard enough and called the cops. Officer Richard Bryant responded.

Standing on Noland’s porch, Officer Bryant had two paths from which to choose: The community policing way, gently urging the two neighbors to work out an accommodation; or the authoritarian way, the wrong way, the way Bryant chose.

So he flat-out orders Noland to cease and desist. Noland, in the belief that something in either the United States Constitution or the realm of common sense gives him the right to play the piano in his own home at a reasonable hour, declines to comply. And thus an entirely new FBI Uniform Crime Statistics category — arpeggiating without a permit, or maybe criminal virtuosity — was born.

Worse, no one higher up the scale in Official Orono sees any over-reaction here. “He was warned,” says Police Chief Robert Mulhern. “He disregarded the warning and he was arrested. End of story.”

A few questions: When did playing the piano (and rather well, according to the New York Times review of Noland’s Carnegie Hall debut) in one’s home in broad daylight come even close to disorderly conduct? When did citizens of this country become obligated to obey orders to cease peaceful, law-abiding activity? When will someone of authority in Orono stop this silliness and suggest the police find better uses for their time?

Chief Mulhern’s “end of story” assertion is hardly the case. Already, this tale is gaining the notice of news organizations beyond the Maine border (USA Today took note already). Orono is about to learn that there is a worldwide hunger for stories about public officials who embarrass the communities they serve. And of course this couldn’t happen in Podunk, where such conduct might be expected. No, it has to be Orono, hometown of the flagship campus of the state’s university system. The Athens of Maine becomes Sparta-on-the-Penobscot.

Robert Noland has been abused, wronged, humiliated and, until reason prevails, warned not to play piano at home until after his July court date lest his bail be revoked. On the upside, he’ll probably be playing on “Good Morning, America” before the week is out.

So here’s a caveat to all tinklers, tooters, strummers, hummers, whistlers and warblers. If you’re ever in Orono and there’s a song in your heart, best keep it to yourself. Big Brother is listening and, boy, is he ever a tough critic.