It's part of an extraordinary collection of 130 historically significant pianos that have been given to an Australian university.
For now, this is the only sound heard from the strings of Australia's first piano.
And it's not particularly a sound its new owners want clumsy fingers to make again when opening it up.
This is hopefully, how it will sound.
Restoration is expected to bring the 230-year-old English square piano as close as possible to its former glory.
Australia's first piano came to our shores with the First Fleet in 1788.
English surgeon George Worgan brought the piano to this new posting on the other side of the world.
After he finished his three-year stint, he gave it to an Elizabeth McArthur, whom he'd given lessons.
She sold it and it's believed it stayed with the same family on a farm in Windsor, north-west of Sydney for generations.
It's one of 130 historically significant pianos are now being given to the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
The man behind this generous gift is Stewart Symonds.
"Bill Bradshaw, a friend of mine, heard of it and went to see it. It was in the laundry of the house and they kept their soap powders and washing liquids on it, but the children in the house had been told, for generations, the same mantra: 'don't damage it, don't hit it hard, it's very old, it came out in the First Fleet. Be careful'."
Bill Bradshaw bought the piano and then sold it to Stewart Symonds.
But he is now giving it to the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts for the rest of the nation to enjoy.
"The collection is far more important than I am. In fact, it's far more important than you are. This is for the future generations. People in a hundred, 200, 500, maybe a 1000 years, I don't know, will be able to come to this and rediscover in these instruments exactly what our early composers composed. Their thoughts, their feelings, the emotions - they are in the early instruments."
Stewart Symond's relationship with WAAPA, which is part of Edith Cowan University, began when he met Professor Geoffrey Lancaster who was researching his book The First Fleet piano: a musician's view.
Professor George Lancaster says the collection is an amazing gift and the university is now trying to figure out how best to display the collection for the general public.
"This of course has ramifications in terms of research into all sorts of things into decorative arts and designs, the history of the piano, the way music in the past was played on pianos like this. The research opportunities are enormous and, in fact, most of the significant early music orientated universities in the world, the jewel in their crown, is a collection of historical instruments."
The Professor says the collection is also an invaluable opportunity for the university to begin learning about, and eventually teaching, restoration skills.
The intention is to send students to England to be virtual apprentices to master restorers who will work on some of the collection.
They will return with the skills needed for the university to potentially start its own restoration courses.
"Once that's up and running, of course, we can then hope within say seven to ten years to be able to source ourselves with the products of that restoration course from here in Australia. We won't need to go outside the country to get the skills and the expertise that are needed to restore the very valuable pianos that will be in our collection. It's very exciting really in educative terms."
But the most exciting thing is the opportunity for music composed hundreds of years ago to once more be heard on the types of instruments they were originally composed on.
The university is also making modern copies of the pianos for students to use.
But a lucky few will also be able to use the original instruments.
"So this is a perfect venue in a university to research these issues. Not only in terms of the voice from the past of the piano but also in terms of researching how were these pianos played. And you put all these things together and you get the most unbelievably wondrously, expressively, ravishingly beautiful music. It's just fantastic.
