Not sure how that happened

My piano, when it it not in use (which is most of the time)

My piano, uncovered and ready for use

Somebody sent me an inquiry about my musical background, so I sat down and wrote an email about how I got where I am today musically. I bragged a bit about my Yamaha C-1X grand piano, and while doing that, I thought I could prove my point by providing a link to my blog. Imagine my surprise, then, when the only picture of my piano is the one where it was sitting in themusic professor’s room at UAH, before I actually purchased it and moved it into our house.

What the …?

Open for quiet time, which is pretty much all the time (it's a really good piano, so it is loud)

I have pictures of us putting in hardwood flooring, including multiple shots of the cats out of their element. I have photos of myworking studio, which includes my self-repaired P-70 digital piano and the new paint and CD rack. I even have shots of the dining room being painted andreorganized into a music room. There are shots of the piano bar moved to its new location. All very impressive. And yet, somehow, there is not a single picture of my grand piano. I say again:

What the …?

Open and ready for some music

I even have a couple pictures of my grand piano on Amazon, from when I reviewed some music related goods. Somehow, though, none of those made it to my blog either.

The inside, obviously

 If you had called me up yesterday and made a bet with me for, say, $1000, that I had only one picture of my grand piano on my blog and none showing it in my house, I would have taken that bet and you would be $1000 richer. I just couldn’t believe it.

Elton John-esque

So, anyway, this entry is just a ditty to rectify that situation. This is my piano. This is where it sits in our house. This is what it looks like, closed, partially open, fully open, and even lit by a string of LED lights. I do own a damn fine piano. One day, I may even be able to play it.

My piano, being used (which is occasionally)

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

A couple of weeks back, I was reading the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal and they had an article about a woman’s quest to buy a piano. She sounded to be cast much in the same mold as me: not particularly talented, not particularly rich, but sure of her dedication to playing and with a devotion to jazz. Without belaboring the fine points of the article, it ended up that she ran across a second hand Baldwin grand that she and her jazz-oriented instructor liked the sound of, and so she ended up with (I believe) a Baldwin concert grand in her house.

This entry would be too boring without a picture of a piano, so, why not a nice Yamaha?!

Up until reading that article, I’d never considered a Baldwin, much like I’d never considered a Steinway until I ran across a cheap one on Craigslist (this in spite of the fact that the Wall Street Journal had another piece about a woman buying a Steinway a few years back. Now that I think about it, why is it always a woman?) But, if somebody could write a newspaper article about that experience, I felt I owed it to myself to at least consider the piano that was the subject matter.

Since reading that article, I've broadened my search to include Steinways and Baldwins, still without success. You would think with so many pianos to choose from, it would be a simple matter to find one I liked at a good price. I think my point is: buying a piano is pretty much like buying a car. There are sports cars and roadsters and sedans and old ones that work and old ones that need work, and European made and Asian made and USA made, and they call come in different colors with different features, and in the second hand market, some owners have nice ones they just want to get rid of, and some have junk that they just want moved, and some have nice ones they’ll only sell for the right price, and some have middling ones that they are attached to and they end up being overpriced, and some just don’t know what a fair price is and so they are priced wrong from start to finish, and some are worth buying and considering and some are not, and some should be pursued and some should be positively avoided.

And all that availability and information and misinformation and static and noise is why I still don’t own an acoustic piano. (End part two)

Speak to me…

In my search for my next and last piano, I’ve come to realize something. The realization is not revolutionary. In fact, it’s kind of common sense, almost to the point of being nonsensical. On Saturday, Mrs. S. and I went to the local music shop, which is basically the only music store in town reputable enough and large enough to sell a decent selection of pianos. When I walked in the door and the salesman (who turned out to be not pushy at all and very, very knowledgeable) asked, “Can I help you?”, I merely said, “Yeah, I’m here to play your pianos.” Not “buy”, not “look at”, not “price up”, “PLAY”. To which, the sales guy said, “Okay, what do you play?” And from there, I laid hands on two Steinways, a Kohler & Campbell, some kind of antique Baldwin, two or three Yamahas, and one more that I’m going to tell you about in a moment.

After playing the second Steinway, I noticed my not-revolutionary idea: price and brand are pretty irrelevant factors in deciding if you like a piano or not. Just because it’s a big, expensive, name brand piano doesn’t mean it will work for you. I can say this because, the first Yamaha I played did not thrill me, even though I’m a self declared Yamaha guy. So the sales guy put me on a Kohler, and, no. It’s nice, it’s better than 90% of pianos I’ve ever touched, but, no. Then Mrs. S, over by the lovely used mahogany Steinway said, try this one. And this one is better than 93% of the pianos I’m ever going to touch, but, no. “You don’t like it?” she asked. “I like it just fine,” I explained, “but I’m not going to buy it.”

My second time in a piano shop, and I was getting no closer to my goal.

The sales guy and I talked: about music, about what I played at UAH, about how big a room I had to put a piano in, about my obsession with Yamaha. His eyes widened, “Did you try the C7?” I looked at him. “I don’t know, did I?” He walked me over to it. I thought maybe I had played it. Sure I had. No wait, maybe not. Let’s try our standard test song: Freddie Hubbard’s “Little Sunflower”.

There. That’s it. Hear it? I do. The Yamaha C7, eleven years old, well-used by a local church, spoke. It spoke directly to me. Mrs. S of course saw all the dust and scratches. She didn’t hear what I heard. I also saw the worn hammers, the dust bunnies under the harp, and a few other imperfections, but the voice of that piano was scintillating. It was a sound I’d not heard in a long time. It was the sound I want to hear every time I hit a piano key. Unfortunately, I’m not sure about hitting up the home equity line for the piano. I’m just not sure about it. There was something satisfying about paying an annual fee because the HELOC balance was $0.

Oh, well. We walked around some more. Looked at a new C7 which, surprisingly, did not sound quite as sweet as the old one. It was, however, situated on tile, so the harmonics were bouncing all over the place, but I still felt differently about it, compared to the used one. Couldn’t help but notice the price tag of the new one was more than double the used one, too. Next to it was an elaborate mahogany inlaid, squat little baby grand. It had a little gold bird on it and said, Vogel. The sales guy said it was hand crafted in Poland. He said, we’ve all been surprised at how good it sounds. Really? Poland? Hand crafted? “It’s pretty,” Mrs. S said. Okay. Let’s cut to the chase and try some Miles Davis on this one. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on a piano that sounds like it came from Toys R’Us.

But, believe it or not, I heard it again. In fact, I was stunned. I played some more. I could hear it, plain as day. The Vogel spoke mellifluously in the same tongue and tone of the C7. It was incredible. I looked into the casing. How could that voice be coming out of that little box? Doesn’t matter. If it’s going to talk to me, I’m going to listen. And with apologies to the fine companies of Steinway and Yamaha, whose pianos I love, I’ll take the Vogel action every day of the week. It was smooth, even, strong, fluid, precise, and (I’ll say it) beautiful. There could be no better translator for the voice of that piano, another reason (I guess) why it spoke to me.

I will give some other pianos chances to speak to me, but my realization is, I’ll not buy a piano that doesn’t speak to me.

Vogels and C7s and I are going to be having more conversations in the future. Hopefully, a lot of them.