I got a piano!

I started piano lessons when I was almost five years old, and by the time I was a senior in high school, I was pretty good. I’ve never been precise enough to be amazingly good, but I’ve been told I have a nice touch, and I love playing with tempos and dynamics to make a song come alive. I later learned to play the flute and also got heavily involved in choirs, but through it all, I considered myself a pianist first.

But since my sophomore year of college, I haven’t had an accessible piano, so I haven’t been practicing more than a few times a year. Even then, I’m not practicing. I’m just playing songs I already know. As is to be expected, living without a piano for over five years has been really bad for my abilities. When I sit down to play, I often feel embarassed that I stumble through songs that once were easy for me.

When Jon Boy and I were engaged, my lovely, generous, eccentric Granny offered to buy me a piano as a wedding gift. I was floored, but after talking with Jon Boy about it, we decided that the time wasn’t right. First of all, we had no room in our little apartment for a piano, and second of all, we knew we’d be moving a lot in the next few years. Time went by. I figured Granny had completely forgotten about the piano idea, and I was okay with it.

But about two weeks ago, my mom was browsing Craigslist. She accidentally came across a beautiful, perfect-condition Yamaha console piano for $1000. Now, if you know pianos at all, you know that cheap-o, non-name-brand pianos in perfect condition don’t sell for $1000. Yamahas are not cheap-o pianos. No, they’re not Steinways or even Baldwins, but they are definitely considered one of the better pianos to buy.

So my mom called up Granny, who agreed to buy the piano. My family then brought it over here a week ago in a U-Haul (packed securely inside by the seller’s professional movers). The hard part was getting it from the U-Haul to its home in Lego’s room (the only place we had room for it).

But, oh my gosh, it is beautiful. It’s not in tune yet (apparently you’re supposed to let it acclimate for a month first), but the sound is lovely, the touch is just how I like it, and there’s not a single scratch on it. I can’t find the exact model on Yamaha’s website, so I guess Yamaha doesn’t sell it anymore. But it’s somewhere along the lines of this one.

And luckily, Lego is finally getting bored with banging on it while I play, which means I actually get to play in peace sometimes.