We ’re used to train it figuratively . One “ remove ” on guitar , is a “ killer ” pianist , or wants to “ die ” listen to a providential small-arm of euphony . History , though , is amazingly rich with examples of people actually stamp out by musical instruments . Some were bludgeoned and some crushed ; others were snuff out by the sheer effort of performing or while an legal instrument was deadly play to overlay up the offense . Below are seven people who met their end thanks to a musical official document .
1. Elizabeth Jackson // Struck with a Flute
David Mills was do his flute the night of March 25 , 1751 , when he vex into a heated disputation with fellow servant Elizabeth Jackson . A woman “ give to passion , ” she throw a candle holder at Mills after he say something raw . He strike back by hit her odd temple with his flute glass before the porter and the footman pulled them asunder . Jackson lived for another four 60 minutes , able to walk but not make sensible spoken communication . Her fellow handmaid decided tobleedher , a sadly ineffective discussion for skull faulting . “ Her s[k]ull was remarkably fragile , ” the operating surgeon testified at Mills ’s trial run .
2. Louis Vierne // Exhausted by an Organ Recital
repute to be theking of legal document , the organ requires a performer with an athletic endurance — more than 67 - year - old Louis Vierne had to give during a recital at Notre Dame duomo on June 2 , 1937 . He collapsed ( likely of a heart attack ) after playing the last chord of a piece . With a French appreciation for disaster , one concertgoernotedthe while “ bears a title which , given the circumstance , seems like destiny and take on an strangely distressful significance : ‘ Tombstone for a deadened child ’ ! ” As Vierne ’s exanimate groundwork fell upon the pedalboard “ a low whine was heard from the admirable cat’s-paw , which seemed to weep for its passkey , ” the concertgoer wrote .
3. James “Jimmy the Beard” Ferrozzo // Crushed by a Piano
Getting crushed by a piano is usually the stuff of animated cartoon , but what fall out to James Ferrozzo is somehow even stranger than a sketch . “ A nude , screaming professional dancer find ensnare under a human race ’s crush body on a trick piano trap against a night club cap was too inebriated to remember how she got there , ” the AP account the daylight after the 1983 incident . The dancer was a new employee at San Francisco ’s Condor Club ( said to be one of the first , if notthe first , braless bar ) . The man was her young man , the clubhouse ’s chucker-out . And the conjuring trick piano was part of topless - dancing pioneerCarol Doda ’s human activity — a blank baby grand that lowered her from the 2d floor . During Ferrozzo ’s parcelling with the dancer , the piano ’s switch wassomehow activated , lifting him partway to heaven before pestilent contact with the roof send him the residue of the way .
4. Linos // Killed with a Lyre
One of the greatest music teachers of mythic Ancient Greece , Linos ask on Herakles as a pupil . fit in to the historianDiodorus Siculus , the demi - god “ was ineffective to appreciate what was instruct him because of his sluggishness of soul , ” and so after a harshreprimandhe flew into a rage and beat Linos to demise with his lyre . Alcides doubtfully used a sort of ancientstand - your - ground lawas a defence during trial and was exonerated . Poor Linos : an honest man beaten by a lyre .
5. Sophia Rasch // Suffocated While a Piano Muffled her Screams
No one well proves George Bernard Shaw’squipthat “ hell is full of melodious amateurs ” than Susannah Koczula . “ I have see Susannah trying to play the piano several times — she could not play , ” 10 - year - old Carl Rasch testified at Koczula ’s 1894trial . Susannah , the Rasch ’s caregiver , distracted picayune Carl , sister Clara , and their neighborhood friend Woolf with an ad-lib performance while a gruesome scene blossom on a higher floor : Koczula ’s married man bind and suffocated Carl and Clara ’s female parent , Sophia Rasch , before making off with her jewellery . “ She have sex the piano , ” explain Woolf . “ I heard nohalloaing . ”
6. Marianne Kirchgessner // A Nervous Disorder Acquired Playing the Glass Armonica
Benjamin Franklininventedthe glass harmonica , or armonica , in 1761 , unleashing a deadly scourge upon the musical world . “ It was preclude in several countries by the police,”wrotemusic historian Karl Pohl in 1862 , while Karl Leopold Rölligwarnedin 1787 that “ It ’s not just the blue waves of airwave that fulfil the ear , but the witching vibrations and incessant strain of the bowls upon the already delicate nerves of the fingers that unite to produce diseases which are terrible , maybe even fatal . ” In 1808 , when Marianne Kirchgessner , Europe ’s premiere glass armonica virtuoso , died at the age of 39,manysuspectednervousness play on by playing the instrument .
7. Charles Ratherbee // Lung Disease Possibly Caused by Playing the Trumpet
One summer twenty-four hour period in 1845 , Charles Ratherbee , a trumpeter , got into a fight with Joseph Harvey , who lease space in a garden from Ratherbee and was sowing seed where the Cygnus buccinator had planned to plant potatoes . When face , Harvey became worried and knocked Ratherbee to the land with his elbow . Two weeks and five days later , Ratherbee was dead .
Harvey was arrested for Ratherbee ’s last , but a doctor nail another orca : An undiagnosed lung disease made worse by his melodic career . “ The blowing of a trump would decidedly increase [ the disease ] , ” the surgeon take the stand at Harvey’smanslaughter tryout . When asked if he was “ in a fit state to fumble a trumpet ” the sawbones replied roundly , “ No . ” Harvey was behave and given a suspended sentence for violation . The trumpet was never charge .
