The Piano

The sun is setting over the hills and I am in my bare feet, sitting on the couch with a warm computer on my lap and a cool breeze moving all the long grass outside. The house is quiet because the younger children went to the Pinewood Derby with their dad and my older son is playing games in "the dungeon" (or, the "gungeounary", as they call it--part game room (all the video and board games), part dungeon (windowless, and cement walls and floor), and part library (all the books that wouldn't fit inside--books books books, I am constantly seeking more storage for books).

I decided yesterday to put off buying my piano. I have been searching for "my" grand piano for over a year now and I found it (or rather, it found me) 4 months ago. The price wasn't very high, but it was high enough for me to have to wait for awhile before I'd have the money to buy it. And the seller--also a friend--is willing to wait for me. And, as the piano found me, the money also seemed to have found me. But doing some number crunching, I'll be a little short at the end of this month. There won't be quite enough to buy the piano AND to move it and tune it after the move. And. My daughter's college tuition needs paying. So. Some of my piano money must go there. But it seems assured that the piano fund will be replenished by mid-June. So, the obvious thing to do is to postpone the piano. And so I have done. I e-mailed my friend Sharon and she was fine with it. I felt like an idiot. In fact I felt like an unreliable, broke idiot. But, it had to be done. So. Now I wait another 6 weeks.

That will be 6 weeks of playing Chopin, Debussy, Gershwin and Marianelli (my current projects) on the old piano, with its out of tune twang (it is untunable, I am told) and its ailing sustaining pedal and its slow rebound time and all its other problems. I feel like such a baby when I complain about the old piano. My great-grandfather bought it and then passed it on down to my grandmother, who passed it to my father, who passed it to me. But I will be the last to use it, since it has become unable to fulfill its piano purposes. And it is so unfulfilling to play it. At last when I have reached a level of playing which allows me to get lost in the music, the music sounds so ill that I have trouble losing myself. But. Only for 6 more weeks. I say that I can't wait, but also I can't believe that I will actually ever really have this new piano that I have hoped to have for these many years.

It's only a Young Chang, but it's been very well taken care of and it feels good and sounds nice. If I ever become expert enough that my ear longs for a still better sound and my hands wish for more quality options of play, then I will consider the bigger investment for the better piano--a Kawai or perhaps a Yamaha. But for now the Young Chang is perfect. And maybe it will be the right piano for the rest of my piano playing years.

So. That's the latest on my piano. No one here plays like I do so no one quite gets how I feel about it. And I hate to babble on about something that they don't really get. They are all nice about listening, but.....

6 weeks!