Black and white photo of a forearm tattooed with piano keys and a small treble clef on the hand, with the fingers raised in a rock gesture.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Piano keys forearm with treble clef on hand

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A hand with the fingers raised in a rock gesture shows a small treble clef tattooed on the palm near the thumb. The forearm is covered in black piano keys that wrap around the arm, with the keys rendered in solid black and clean outlines. The photograph is black and white against a dark wooden background, with strong contrast that emphasises the pattern of the keys.

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The piano in the first-class saloon has been out of tune since Gibraltar, and by the third night out of Cape Town you have stopped apologising for it. Mr Halloran, the purser, wants Gershwin after dinner. The widow in the corner wants hymns. You give them both, the bass notes a little flat as the swell rolls under the hull and the lid rattles in its hinges.

Keep reading

Between watches you sit on the bench in the dark passage outside the galley and press one key at a time, listening for whether the ivory still holds. The black keys catch the lamplight like wet slate. You have learned that a ship is only ever a long instrument, creaking in every register, and that the trick is to find the note that sounds like it belongs to the sea.

On the fourteenth night a boy from steerage slips in behind you. He is perhaps eleven, carries a tin whistle in his pocket like a stolen biscuit, and asks what the curly sign on the sheet music means. You tell him it is a letter G that has curled up to sleep, and if he finds the line where it sleeps he can play anything at all. He hums the first bar, low and wrong, then gets it right.

Next morning the sea is flat as a polished lid. The widow requests a hymn, Mr Halloran requests nothing, and you lift the fallboard and find a folded note wedged against the hammers, in the boy's careful capitals: THANK YOU FOR THE SLEEPING G. You leave it there for the next passenger who needs a tune.

More like this

Black and white photograph of a forearm with three thin, evenly spaced black lines tattooed around it in a fine line style, with long hair falling behind.
Three parallel lines on a forearm
Black and white photo of a forearm with three thin black parallel lines tattooed around it, forming a simple armband effect.
Three thin black bands around a forearm
Black and white photo of a forearm with three thin parallel fine line tattoos wrapping around it, with damp hair falling across the background.
Three fine lines around a forearm
Black and white photograph of a hand making a V sign, with a small fine line angled tattoo on the skin between the index and middle finger.
Small angled line tattoo on hand
Black and white photo of an outstretched hand and forearm with a small black ringed planet tattoo on the wrist, set against weathered wood.
Ringed planet tattoo on the wrist
Black and white photograph of two weathered hands, each with a small black swallow tattoo on the back between the thumb and first finger, in a traditional style.
Two swallows on the backs of hands
Black and white photo of a fine line arrow tattoo on the inner upper arm of a woman whose arm is raised behind her head.
Small arrow tattoo on upper arm
Black fine line tattoo tracing the edges of the fingers and back of a pale hand, placed on the hand.
Black linework outlining fingers
Fine line tattoo of three parallel black bands wrapping around a woman's forearm, with long brown hair blowing across a teal background.
Three thin bands on a forearm
Two forearms crossed under clasped hands against a white wall, one with a dark spiked band tattoo with two stripes near the wrist and the other with a tiny line of script.
Spiked band tattoo on a forearm
Black and white photo of a fine line arrow tattoo on the upper arm of a woman in a loose white top.
Fine line arrow on upper arm
Black and white photo of a thin single line tattoo running from the wrist up the inside of a forearm, in a fine line style.
Single fine line along a forearm

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.