YouTuber Joe Jenkins plays his piano under the sea
- Published
A YouTuber who regularly plays his piano in unusual places claims to be the first to play the instrument fully underwater.
Submerged in the sea with his piano, Joe Jenkins played Under the Sea from Disney's The Little Mermaid while on a trip to Swanage.
The pianist who has more than 4.15 million subscribers on YouTube said the stunt had taken him two years to plan.
He said logistically, with health and safety, it had been a "big challenge".
In his latest video, Mr Jenkins, from Bristol, can be seen wearing diving gear, including breathing apparatus, while playing a yellow piano that used plastic mechanisms instead of wood.
Mr Jenkins said some people had attempted a similar challenge, like "a guy who took his piano into the sea but only went like halfway up the keyboard", but he believed he was the first to play a working piano fully submerged underwater.
In conversation with BBC Radio Bristol, Mr Jenkins said the video came about after someone "challenged" him to attempt the task a couple of years ago.
Mr Jenkins, who has previously played his piano on a boat, outside Buckingham Palace and even in a hot-air balloon said: "I dunked it in the water and went down there and dived and played it."
He said "now I've finally managed to just about pull it off".
The biggest challenges he said he faced were making sure he complied with health and safety regulations, being able to dive safely, and making sure the piano worked underwater.
"They're not really designed to work underwater as you can imagine so I spent a long time just trying, just jumping through hoops," he added.
Mr Jenkins said though it was "horribly out of tune" and "incredibly rusted", the piano, which is now in storage, did still work.
For his next stunt, he said he thought playing Elton John's Rocket Man in space "would be fun".
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- Published30 January 2022