The Velveteen Piano

Love made our piano real.

 

Matt and Rose moved west and their piano moved to our house. Young, untethered, and ambivalent where to put down roots, they moved to Oregon with whatever fit in their truck.

Their old, upright piano didn’t fit.

My husband was flummoxed. “Where,” he wanted to know, “will we put it?” I assured him we’d make room. I wanted a piano so bad, I didn’t care if we put it in the kitchen and ate in the backyard.

Our upstairs neighbors grumbled and stared in dismay as Keith and three men carefully moved the heavy piano down the stairs to our small, two-bedroom basement apartment.

I promised we wouldn’t play in the early morning or late at night.  

We squeezed it into our small living room and our kids instantly fell in love. I’m not musical, but I wanted my kids to have music. We didn’t have much money, but we could afford a free piano. Yes, it was old. Yes, it had seen better days. Yes, we didn’t know how to play, but I was determined we’d learn.

We enrolled our seven children in the “can’t-afford-piano-lessons-for-a-big-family" music program. As toddlers, they stood on tiptoes, and stretched up to plunk keys, loving the cause and effect of push a key, make a sound.

They loved to take the front cover off and look inside when someone played. We’d leave the cover off for days, then replace it before company came.

Over the years, invisible hands picked white plastic off the piano key tops. Nobody confessed and we never caught the perpetrator, but one by one, plastic disappeared until all the keys were rough and naked. Our kids didn’t mind the strange feel, but guest pianists always cringed the first time they played our piano. Our children didn’t wash their hands before playing, so when the keys got extra dingy, we painted them.

Kiah, at age eight, had the bright idea to write note letters with permanent marker on the middle octaves keys. Parents with nice pianos have fits over stuff like that, but we just sighed and took it in stride.

Our children banged keys, left scratches and water rings, and permanently broke three keys. One child carved her name on an inside leg. We didn’t do the piano any favors besides use and love it.

We never forced anyone to practice. Playing wasn’t a chore, but something they enjoyed. Our children barely know how to read music, but they love to learn new songs. Most of them play by ear and YouTube. One sister finds a Youtube piano tutorial, learns a song, then teaches it to the others. Every day, at least one of the girls sits down to play.

They learned piano by playing with it. Even though they never learned scales or chords or performed in recitals, they picked up bits of music theory along the way. They often pick the brains of piano-playing house guests. One daughter makes up her own songs.

With each move, Keith asked, “We don’t need to take the piano, do we?”  The girls all stared in disbelief, “Yes, we do!”

Friends who helped us move would look at the piano with dread and say, “This too?”

I had nerve to expect them to move something so heavy, but I smiled, and firmly said, “Yes, please.”

Keith’s brother often played for the kids when he came to town. They loved that Uncle Neil could play almost anything. I’d watch Neil expertly coax music from our worn-out piano and feel guilty that our kids had never had formal piano instruction.

Because the piano came to us beat up and we further hastened its decline, I assumed it would be out of tune. I asked Neil if the piano needed tuned. He always said it was a little out of tune, but not bad. Five years passed, ten years passed, fifteen years passed and, oddly enough, the tune never got worse.

Three years ago, a retired friend offered us his piano. We were torn. The newer one was much nicer than our old, faithful piano.  It looked and sounded nice, with intact, shiny white keys. Plus, it had a matching bench.

It was a tough decision, but we chose the nicer piano. The girls were elated with the new addition but felt like we were putting down a beloved family pet.

We tried to give the old piano away but no one wanted it. Keith felt like he’d imposed on friends enough over the years to move our heaviest piece of furniture so he dismantled it and stored pieces in the basement.

He found the manufacturer’s name on an inside panel. A Google search revealed that our piano’s unique features helped it stay in tune better than most pianos. Which explained why it never seemed any worse out of tune than when we first got it.

We never saw Matt and Rose again, but we used their piano for seventeen years. We’re sad that its long life ended on our watch.  I wish they could know how much our kids loved it. They never saw old and ugly. They saw fun and useful. Many people would consider it a beat-up eyesore, but to our kids, it was a real piano.

Our kids will never love the newer piano as much as they loved the old one, because they learned more than just how to play. They learned that making music doesn’t require a nice piano. They learned how to live with imperfections and to make do with what they had. They learned to love something that was old and run-down. They learned to play by delight, not drudgery. They learned to play by doing it together. They fed off each other’s skills and their combined knowledge took them farther than they could have gone by themselves.

We’ll always be thankful that years ago, we made room for an old piano, not just in our home, but in our hearts.

Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.
--Tom Lehrer--