You Must've Been a Beautiful Baby...

Guess who is the proud owner of a 1895-1915 antique baby grand piano? Moi.

Cost to me? Zero (so far). Good will I burned through to move this small behemoth into my house? Probably so far to the tune of six people.

Here's the back story. A professor in our department was moving into a smaller, closer home and was giving things away left and right. One of the things that came over the listserv was a baby grand piano. Wait, what? Seriously? For free? Turns out they didn't have the room to accomodate it at their new place. Do I have the space to accomodate it? Not properly. But ask El Hijo how much that slowed me down. Answer: not a pinch. I emailed about it, and he told me one other person was interested in it, but if they backed out he'd let me know. I figured it was over. But he contacted me a few days later to ask if I still wanted it. Hell, yes! His other option was to take it to the dump.

That horrified me. I saw that on par with saving someone's life, actually. It felt like a human rights violation, or something. I know that's the "moral equivalency" logical fallacy, but I don't care. It was a travesty. Some people stop for abused animals. I stop for neglected pianos.

Now, moving it was an adventure. I brought D/B's truck, plus her conscripted labor, plus poor El Hijo. I thought the four of us would be enough. Ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Not even close. With us plus the guy who was giving it away, we managed to disassemble the legs, pedals, and top "hood" (the part that lifts up and allows you to blast the hell out of unsuspecting neighbors with your tremendous piano sound) and then scoot/shove/drag the thing (which I swear to god felt like about 800 pounds) across blankets, through the man's house, across his patio, scoot across the grass, still on blankets, and then one giant shove into her truck.

I had no clue how we were going to get it up the eight wide wooden steps into my apartment. I had visions of ending up three stooge style on the ground on top of a bunch of newly created piano firewood, drinking the many beers I'd brought as payment for my conscripted labor.

But once we got to my apartment, all the neighbors were out dawdling around, because it was such a nice, sunny day. It's part of human nature when someone comes up and points at you specfically and asks YOU for help to say yes. It's actually a proven fact that when someone yells "Somebody help!" most people won't respond, because they all think there is a better person than them for the job; but when you point your finger and say, "YOU help", people fall in line. And that's basically what I did, with the promise of beers. So, with more men pressed into service, we brought the piano up my steps and into my "library", such as it is, in about 15 minutes. For some context, it took us about an hour to scoot it across the original owner's floor and into the truck. I had to zoom away to take Dante to his flag football game, and when I returned, there it was, sitting upright, everything in place, looking WAY too big for the room, but by god, it was mine. I've felt it up too many times to count in the past few days. I even laid under it, just staring at the bottom of the sound board.

This is how I fall into things sometimes. Silly little dreams of mine come true in the most bizarre ways. I've wanted a baby grand for, well, forever. I know how much they cost. I pretty much knew I was stuck with a Casio keyboard. Who knew some professor would be maniacal enough to give away a third generation baby grand piano? I know I certainly would've bought a house that fit the piano, instead of the other way around, but I'm sure some people would consider that crazy, as well ...

"Free," of course, is never really free. The piano is pretty well out of tune, because there is something internal that keeps making it fall out of tune. The old owner seemed to think it was because of the soundboard, but one of my conscripted laborers, who has a fascination with pianos, said it was probably the pinblock, because the soundboard looked great. It's hard to say until I get a professional in there (which may turn out to be the conscripted laborer, who seems to have developed an unholy fascination with the piano that just moved in across from his house). Humidity can cause the soundboard (and the pinblock and the bridge) to swell and then to constrict, so it might *look* fine, but that's not to say it *is* fine. Who knows. The piano is not really playable right now, though, because it's incredibly out of tune. So that's the first step. A full restoration will probably run about $3000, but that includes finishing, staining, installing a dehumidifier, all that fancy-pants crap. Making it playable will cost a lot less.

But it's a baby grand piano. How can you possibly say no?

I've loved pianos since I was a little girl. Even though I've played music since I was four, the piano was the first instrument I ever had formal lessons on. My grandmother gave us the piano that had belonged to her mother-in-law who gave lessons to neighborhood kids (making it a 4th generation piano) for me to play and practice on -- of course, my mother has it now and plans on keeping it. It was the only instrument I can truly say I played for my own personal enjoyment, and not for the sake of someone else or for performance. People who know me well know how much I hate performances, which makes it ironic that I was in a band for ten years. I only played the piano for my pleasure. It was like reading a really good book.

I played everything I could get my hands on -- ragtime, classical stuff, sheet music from the '70s my mother kept laying around. I bought my own sheet music -- the only thing I've ever bought for myself music wise except for my guitar. I can play the theme music to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in glorious detail. I worked furiously on things that Bach wrote. Grieg mystifies me, but I'm intent on playing it one day. I've never had a vision of being a concert pianist or even playing for visitors for entertainment. It's the only "selfish" instrument I've ever had. It reminds me of why I loved music, even though I hated performance. Playing the piano is what I did when it rained all day in the summer way out in the mountains where I grew up. It was one of the few pieces of "culture" my parents let me have growing up as a JW, even if Mom did make me learn a few "Kingdom Melodies" -- JW hymns, for lack of better explanation -- to play (for the record, I think they suck).

And so, as pianos go, my dream was to one day own a baby grand, and bang out the theme to The Good, The Bad & The Ugly in glorious, ringing sound; or to play Phil Collins' Groovy Kind of Love with much pathos and melancholy. Or to trot out Mozart's Turkish March like little soldiers clicking over the keys. That would all have to happen after I'd afforded an apartment of our own, of course, and probably Dante's college education. In the meantime, I figured I'd be stuck with a Casio.

But every now and then, you're in the right place at the right time, and you get ... this:

And yes, that's my grey cat Jane laying on top of it already. Click on the picture to see a close up of how utterly adorable she is as well as the original honest-to-god ivory keys of this awesome piano. I can't put the hood up yet, because, erm, I haven't exactly found those screws yet... but once I do, I'll totally post another picture with the hood up!

-- DV