3 posts tagged “piano”

I have some news to share on the piano front but am too tired to record it now. Anyway, I've been playing a bit, working on Fur Elise since I know M's dad will request it when he visits, and also on some Chopin pieces that I used to be able to play but now my fingers stumble across the keyboard. Years of playing on a digital has made me heavy handed, and boy, Chopin waltzes are long. Working on Grand Valse Brillante.

It's frustrating to have lost so much. It will take awhile to work back to what I used to be able to do. Must remember that this applies to any lost skill.

This afternoon, I got to play on a piano which cost more than $125,000, but before that piano, I played on a piano valued at only $50. The $125,000 piano was made by a manufacturer I had never heard of before named Fazioli. The Fazioli had a beautiful, vibrant sound, and it looked like a masterpiece. The $50 one was missing a hammer, also by a manufacturer I had never heard of. It had dust inside and out, and the sound was both muffled and out of tune.

I got to try out a few different pianos today because M received an email alerting him that there was a sale where pianos were priced below $1000 because a piano seller was emptying his warehouse. We have a keyboard, one that I especially picked because it was the closest simulation I could find to a piano, but it just doesn't compare to a real piano. Even uprights have so much more life to them than a keyboard. The experience is completely different on a piano, much more alive, something that M was never able to understand until very recently. We dropped our plans for the day and sped up to the city.

We arrived a little late for the sale because the best deals went quickly in the morning. Most of the pianos on sale below $1000 were sold but had not been carted off yet so we poked around at the selection. There were spinets, consoles, even a digital piano, uprights, baby grands and concert pianos. There was a showroom which had the newer pianos, the ones which the store guaranteed as being of high quality, and the back room where the used pianos were. Some of the pianos on sale were simply not tunable anymore although they could probably be polished and made to look pretty again, but those were very, very cheap. Some of the pianos were twangy, some were very old with yellowed, uneven keys but still had a sweet sound, some were very glossy, and others had a dull finish but intricate designs (some Victorian, some art deco) carved in the wood.

The other piano that sticks in my mind besides the Fazioli is a restored 1908 Steinway grand piano which was selling for $75,000. It was rich and bright but without the harshness that some Steinways possess. The $125,000 Fazioli was a joy but on reflection, there was something about it that nags at me, that perhaps it was almost flashy, calculated to show not only the craft that went into it but the wealth it would take to purchase it, but it's the type of piano meant for a concert hall rather than a home. The inside rims of the piano on the Fazioli were inlaid with golden beech, smooth and polished to a high finish. It was still beautiful though, and I don't think I would ever be a good enough player for either piano.

Thankfully, not even the store's top of the line pianos made me want to go into debt - none of the pianos quite called out to me - although the visit did make me want to play more.

I'll never buy it for my home (it won't fit in size or with anything else I own), but I liked this - probably a sign that my taste is deteriorating but the table oddly made me happy. I like the curves.