Why I still don’t own an acoustic piano, Part One

For Sale: 1992 Steinway & Sons Model M Grand Piano. Current retail for a new M Grand is $57,900. Piano is EBONY SATIN (the most desired finish) with matching bench. Very well maintained. Kept tuned. More photos available. Moving across the country March 31. Taking no furniture.

Did that get your attention? Yes, it got my attention, too. And when I contacted the seller and learned she would possibly consider a price even lower than what she was asking, and that she was on a tight deadline with an imminent, furnitureless move to California in the works, I felt I owed it to myself to find out if maybe, just possibly, a Steinway might be in my future. Of course, Mrs. S heard “Steinway” and a price that was marginally within the limits of our home equity line of credit and she said, “You should buy it”. I told her to hold on there, and let’s go and look at it and see what it looks like and go from there.

The corner of the cabin filled with a Steinway

So we traveled up to a log house in Cheatham County Tennessee that was built in 1832 and is the second oldest house in Tennessee (or something like that) to see a lady’s piano. There were lots of stories to go with the piano: slight water damage from when an upstairs bath leaked, strings “rusting” and being rusted and being replaced. The piano seems largely to have been purchased as decoration, and as such, the current owner had no cover and, as far as I can tell, stored the piano with both the lid and fallboard open pretty much all the time (I didn't directly ask her if that was the case). I played the piano. It sounded fine, but in all honesty, nothing special. Inside the log home (which the owner kindly showed us around – it was beautiful, original and highly desirable), the corner where the Steinway was stashed was quite dark and unaccommodating. I couldn't see any of the features of the piano, even with the flashlight I brought. The piano was a bit out of tune, but okay for the most part. It hardly sounded “bright” as the owner described, though I would say it sounded brighter than a typical Steinway concert grand. It was, however, a rather dull sounding piano overall. I’m not sure if that could have been because it was dusty and cobwebby, or dried out, or too close to the wall, or it was just never an exciting piano. I was disappointed. I told the owner I’d think about it, but by and large, I’d already given up the idea of owning that piano.

This gives a better idea of how dark and secluded the area around the piano is (photo taken with flash)

Back home with Mrs. S, we discussed the potential. At the price and for that piano, it was desirable, if only we could figure out whether the water damage really was a trivial issue and why a string had broken and two others needed servicing (and how soon would the rest break or need servicing). I was far from buying the piano, and getting farther the more I thought about it and discussed it.

The Monday following, Mrs. S was off work. While I sat at work during lunch time, perusing another unexciting edition of Craigslist, filled with mediocre and undesirable pianos, I started to think the lonely Tennessee Steinway at the decent price point might be the way to go. In the meantime, Mrs. S found a piano buyer’s discussion group where someone had tested that very same piano (serial number match) six years before, and apparently, just before the current owner purchased it. (She’s owned it since 2006.) He said he found a problem with some of the tuning pins being too close together. He also said what I thought: the piano did not impress him.

Still, I think about that piano. If, after I grabbed it up, I sent it to New York for refurbishing, when I got it back I would have a certifiable, refurbished, Steinway grand piano. Hard to go wrong. But, with so many unanswered questions about that piano, I haven’t bought it yet, and that’s why...

I still don't own an acoustic piano. (End part one)

Fire Sale

My original plan for financing my grand piano purchase fell through. The stamp collection that I have kept and fostered and insured and cared for over the last forty years turned out to be worth far less than I thought it would. The buyer, who was very professional, knowledgeable and courteous told me what I already knew: the hobby is dying. Kids have Facebook, Nintendo, X-box, and their phone, and many of them have never seen a piece of mail with a stamp on it. No surprise then that young people are not taking up the hobby and there is not market for stamps, even for some as nice and relatively rare as mine.

I dove into Craiglist and it wasn’t long before I found a Yamaha C3 (very nice piano, that) for $2000. After two days of fervently trying to contact the seller, I finally heard back from them. Unfortunately, I quickly realized something was amiss, and a cursory search with the text showed up number one on a website called scamdex.com. No C3 for me!

Speaking of C3's: Here's a C15 stamp, one of many I will be selling soon.

I’ve been watching two pianos in the north Alabama area on ebay. Both are Yamaha’s under six feet. Both are being sold by families with some kind of vague need. Both have a disclavier attached (not something I want). Both are at least one hour from my house. So far, I’m just watching those.

A trip to the Steinway Piano Gallery in Nashville turned up a relatively affordable new piano made by Samick. I wasn’t impressed with its feel, but it looks and sounds good. Still, something about, “What’s a Samick?” and “Well, it’s a German company, owned by a Korean company...I think.” Then, “So it’s a Korean piano?” “No, Indonesian.” I don’t know. I mean, Yamaha makes pianos in Indonesia, too, no big deal there, but, nobody’s going to ask me about my Yamaha.

Next phase: Try one more time to sell my ginormous, semi-refurbished square grand piano, start piecing out my stamp collection on ebay, and use the proceeds to buy a nice Yamaha baby grand, used. Wish me luck. Or better yet, buy my piano and stamps.

Sure glad they invented cell phones

 Otherwise I’d have to be waiting by the phone for a call.

Player #1: The Apple iPhone

I’m stepping up my piano shopping in earnest. I have already decided that my next piano will be my last – or maybe second last – so I decided to sell my stamp collection to fund the purchase. Although I have been collecting stamps for forty years and it will be hard to see them go, it will be nice to see a classic black baby grand piano in the house.

Player #2: A stamp from my collection (expensive one)

 Back in January, I called a buyer from a reputable company about my collection. I sent them an inventory and description, pretty much like I did for the insurance company a few years earlier. They were definitely interested (I did say I’d been collecting for forty years, right?) but not surprisingly, Alabama is not one of their hotspots for buying trips. He told me he’d call me the next time he expected to be in the area, and I suspected that would be the end of it for a while.

Player #3: One of the pianos good enough to be the last piano I buy, ever.

Then suddenly, last week, he told me he would be here this week and next. I told him when I was available, and now, I’m waiting. My stamps are ready. I even have boxes ready. All I need is a buyer with a checkbook and his willingness to write a Steinway-like (or at least Yamaha-like) number on it.

Ring, dammit! Ring!

How much can a piano take?

Saturday night I went to the Huntsville Symphony. In its two most recent concerts, the symphony has sounded very good, and with a guest conductor (and pianist) this past week, I was mildly intrigued to hear how they would sound under a different maestro's baton. They started off with a Schumann symphony, which was a little bland, but executed well enough. After intermission came a Stravinsky piece, which was certainly different from anything I'd heard in a while (as Stravinsky usually is). Then came a Grieg piano concerto featuring Anne-Marie McDermott on piano. Although Mrs. S. and I have balcony seats in the center, second row (far from the stage), I also have an excellent pair of binoculars, a relic of my days as a horse race handicapper/writer. With those binoculars, we can usually get a fairly decent view of just about anything we want to see on stage. So I watched Ms. McDermott pretty closely for most of her performance.

Of course, she was playing a Steinway, and she was really having at it. The Grieg piece had a lot of up and down movement, and a lot of low register accents to drive and fill out the high register arpeggios and scales. These require the pianist to (BUM!) bash the left hand down, then (Be-da-da-duh, Be-da-da-duh...) quickly bring both hands to the upper register to thump some high accent notes before immediately rushing down the keyboard in a frenzy, then BUM, Be-da-da-duh, Be-da-da-duh, BUM, Be-da-da-duh, Be-da-da-duh, over and over again, for about fifteen minutes. It was as physically demanding a performance as it was musically interesting.

Then I got to thinking. A Steinway & Sons grand has no trouble standing up to this kind of incessant, harried, (essentially) uncontrolled pounding, and indeed, the Huntsville Symphony's Steinway grand sounded, well, grand, while succumbing to Ms. McDermott's relentless attacks and beatings. While I watched, I thought about my serviceable, but modest Yamaha P-70 at home. While it sounds good and has true piano feel and response, it is clunky at the best of times and is basic in construction and performance. It occurred to me that if Ms. McDermott were to play the Grieg piece on my piano, she could only play it once or twice before she completely beat the piano into submission. As I watched her play the Steinway, I kept mentally projecting the P-70 beneath her hands, and all I could envision were keys flying and plastic housings cracking, red felt pads popping out the bottom and sides, and electronic circuit boards splintering and sparking into oblivion. I mean, every once in a while, when I'm practicing and I get frustrated, I'm apt to bang on the keyboard, or get rough in my playing just to let out some frustration, whereupon I sense the keyboard's delicacy and allow the guilt to force me pull my punches and stop. I know one day, if I don't control myself, one or more of those keys are going to go down, and not get back up again. Ever. I'll really feel bad on that day.

Maybe I just need a Steinway, so I can beat the hell out of it once in a while.

Maybe not.

As I do after every live performance I attend, I buckled down and practiced yesterday. I never bashed my keyboard once, not even while mutilating a stride exercise or disgracing Falling Grace by playing too fast.

Tomorrow (or maybe Wednesday), a long overdue addition to the Yoity Tot list.