Pianos in my life...

It started when I was a kid, at about 5 we moved into an apartment which was the top floor of my grandparents’ house. In the house, in the living room/dining room jumble was a Steinway upright piano.

In my time, no one other than my father ever played it, and even then my father played it once, much to my surprise. A piano was just a fixture of the less than modern home, I figured. I did take a few lessons from the very nice piano teacher across the street, but I was no good. I had trouble reading music, or I just didn’t care. It was fun to bang on it a bit every now and than but never a fixture in my life. That piano still sits, I believe, in my Aunt’s basement in Baltimore.

Later on, when I lived with my wife and sons in Pikesville, MD, a veterinarian friend had an assistant who was moving to a new place and had a piano. She was willing to dispose of it to a good home, if someone would pay to have it moved. I had space and three children and it was a great idea. I paid movers to get it to the house. It was an upright player piano with the player guts removed. I have no idea if any of us played it, but it was a great fixture.

By then I played a guitar and understood chord progression a bit, and got a piano chord chart (still have it) which allowed me to play and scream (sing) and rock and roll. I do not remember if the boys played it, my wife at the time did not. (My oldest son says he did, in fact, use the chord chart.)

I sold it right before I moved to Detroit, as the new house came with a player piano (an upright of course) which fully worked and had lots of player rolls. It was in the basement and we found out later it simply was too heavy and cumbersome to ever move and it’s probably still there.

Everyone played it a bit, especially everyone took a turn playing piano rolls, not much skill involved here.

I moved away from the family home in 1984 and had no piano but by then had bought a keyboard or two. I still can’t remember if any boys actually played this, but at this juncture in life I know my oldest son has a piano from his uncle, which he plays a bit, as he is a musician. My youngest son has a piano which he purchased but I don’t know if anyone in his family plays it and my middle does not own a piano, at least I don’t think so. (My youngest son says his kids bang on it and it's pushing the floor down into the basement.)

My girls loved to play the keyboard, and my wife and I played it a bit and enjoyed it. For Christmas one year we got a large keyboard and loved it, and eventually, we had to buy a real piano, a Kawai which sits in our living room. My wife continues to play and take lessons, my youngest daughter is more of an ear musician but she took lessons until she learned “enough” and is a chord player and really good and my older daughter, the actual musician, is still mad we didn’t force her to take piano when she was a little kid as she would be good now! Both daughters have keyboards as well.

While none of this makes much sense, I still bang out my 4 or 5 chords and yell tunes to the sky. The girls can’t be home if I play any instrument or sing as they think I’m horrible, which is true but as it says in “Mr. Tanner”  (Harry Chapin reference)

“But music was his life, it was not his livelihood,
and it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good.
And he sang from his heart and he sang from his soul.
He did not know how well he sang; It just made him whole”.