One of the things I have missed the most since we moved is playing my piano. We sold our old piano a few months before moving, after deciding that it would cost just as much to pay to have it moved as it would to sell it and buy a new one in the color and style I actually wanted in the first place. So we sold it, and spent months looking for a new piano. We had a budget, and really didn’t want to go over that budget if at all possible. We’re also averse to putting things on credit or making payments unless it is absolutely necessary. So all in all, we knew how much money we could spend and we set out to find a piano that would fit our wants and needs as well as be under budget. This has not been an easy task (though we did manage to find one, but that’s another story). There have been several pianos we have looked at that I was happy enough with to buy. But Kimball has a sound he is looking for, and we’ve had a hard time finding a piano in our price range that makes him happy. He grew up in a house with a grand piano, while I grew up in a house with an upright piano. So the smaller sound doesn’t bother me like it bothers him. Sure, I like the grand piano sound, but honestly, I just want a piano to play on. I like the look of a grand, and for that reason I want to have a baby grand (black – I love the leg style on the black ones) but the sound isn’t nearly as much of an issue to me as having something – ANYTHING – to play on. You see, the piano is a release to me. It is a hobby – one of the few hobbies I actually have. And while I remember hating lessons as a child and a teenager, I’m glad my parents made me stick with them long enough to be able to actually play something interesting.
In addition to being something I enjoy doing, playing the piano is also something I’ve been asked to do for church. I have been asked to play the piano for the church choir. And Christmas is coming up, and the choir needs their pianist to actually be able to play the songs they are singing – it makes it so much easier if the accompaniment is in key… You see, since it has been so long since we sold our piano, I’ve gotten a bit rusty. It is hard to find time to practice when practicing a piano means I’ve got to find someone with a piano who happens to have time for me to come to their house, and then I either have to take my kids with me and try to babysit them while I practice so they don’t destroy that person’s house (which Isaac and Cambria excel at) or find someone to take care of them while I go. Which really doesn’t happen terribly often. So I’m lucky if I manage to find an hour of practice time during the week, which really isn’t enough for me to be able to play the songs for the choir as well as I should.
Now I’m no master pianist – not by a long shot. I can play a song well if I practice a lot, but I’m not terribly great at just sitting down and playing something, especially if it is a little tricky. So it has been very interesting for me to be playing the piano for the choir. The choir director has chosen some very pretty and very interesting songs, which have unfortunately presented me with a bit more of a challenge than I have been able to overcome in an hour a week. An hour a day, maybe, but certainly not an hour a week.
Imagine this: Choir practice, roughly half-way through. The director announces which song we will begin practicing and immediately my palms are sweaty, my freezing cold hands begin to shake (I sometimes get nervous playing the piano and my hands are more like ice cubes than useful piano playing implements. Ever tried playing the piano with ten ice cubes? Not exactly something I’d recommend…), and my stomach starts churning. Of course he had to pick the ONE song I didn’t have time to practice. The ONE song I’ve been dreading because it has FOUR sharps. Ugh. I STINK at 4 sharps. And to top it all off, the song we just finished practicing was flats. 3 flats. Total brain shift, and when it is on a song I haven’t got down, well, let’s just say that I felt even my house burning to the ground would have been less of a disaster than this experience is going to be. And so the director brings me in. First of all, this song has a little unusual timing, and he is leading a little differently than I expect, so I can’t seem to ever come in when he wants me to. Relatively small problem, though, when compared with what proceeds to happen: As the choir sits and waits patiently for me to play their introduction, I hear myself playing about every other measure in the wrong key. Yes, I am playing half this song in the key of the previous song. And the half that I’m managing to play in the correct key (the one with 4 sharps) I’m also managing to miss about half the notes and play them off in never-never land. Yikes. And then the choir comes in. And of course they are all on the wrong notes because they’re trying to find their notes from me, and I’m not even looking for their notes while I’m under the piano bench hiding from the director. What started out as a bad instrumental piece quickly turns into a mumbling, bumbling, off-key and badly timed nightmare.
Needless to say, the next week my entire hour of practice was devoted to only one song. And while it isn’t ready to play for the Queen of England or anything, I think it’ll be good enough for choir practice. And maybe my new piano will come before the performance… (that’s a story all of its own) Hey – stranger things have happened (none come to mind, but I’m a firm believer that anything is possible).
