08/01/12: For the love of a piano

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

IT WAS the photo that caught my attention. A baby grand piano, top removed with insides clearly visible and the keys still intact, being roughly tossed onto a trash pile.

I just can’t imagine.

According to a recent New York Times article, this is the fate of many pianos today. No longer a required piece of furniture, costly to restore after years of neglect, and expensive to move, pianos have fallen out of favor.

Not with me.

My first piano was a refurbished upright that my godmother bought for me for Christmas in my freshman year in college.

I spent hours upon hours practicing, putting to use the basic piano skills taught to all music majors. Between Christmas and the start of the spring semester, I fell in love with the piano, a love that has lasted a lifetime.

For years, between apartment living and lack of resources, I satisfied my need to play the piano with electronic keyboards.

In those days, the keyboards not only didn’t quite sound like a piano — they lacked any ability to play louder or softer, for example — but they didn’t feel like one. Almost no one made an 88-key version, not that I had the space for one, anyway, and the plastic action was more like that of an organ.

I jumped at every opportunity to play a real piano — in church, in friends’ homes, in music stores.

By the time I had the space and the money to buy a real piano, I knew exactly what I wanted: a baby grand with good action. Not the stiff action of the larger grands, because I didn’t possess the technical skill to play those, but something stiffer than a console.

Wandering into a piano store one day, I finally found what I was looking for: an old 5-foot, 3-inch Knabe baby grand.

Like many old pianos, this one showed signs of neglect. There was a huge white water stain on the lid. A few of the keys had broken ivories. But the sound — oh, wow. For me, it was perfect.

I lived with the water stain and broken ivory on the keys until I could afford to have it restored. The case went to a refinisher, the insides to a refurbisher.

I remember feeling like it was taking forever, but I was thrilled with the result. Now its looks matched its sound, right down to the real ivory keys.

Electronic keyboards have come a long way in 35 years. The one I have in my home studio not only has 88 weighted keys but also real piano sounds — and a lot of other things, including the ability to record vocals and burn CDs.

But gracing my living room is my Knabe. And whenever I have a few free minutes, that’s where I sit and play. Forget about walls talking — if that piano could talk, it could tell you so many stories of my life, as it has been a source of comfort and joy all these years.

The Times article says that the average life span of a piano is about 80 years, which would put my early 1920s-built Knabe nearing its end. I’m hoping that my restoration and maintenance extends its life, at least to the end of mine.

Which reminds me: I need to call the piano tuner.