Piano Pleasures

The main D key finally give up the ghost and quit playing for us.  We were up a creek on what to do for a piano.   With five kids in lessons and one as the pianist in Jazz band, we needed the D key really bad. 

A little background on our beautiful upright grand.... 

I was in grade school when I petitioned my parents to purchase a piano.  It didn't take too much to coax my parents into seeing that it would only improve our young minds.  My parents took the whole gang to the piano gallery and I walked past every piano touching them and saying, "Not this one, not this one, not this one."  Finally in the back of the store I spied the piano I wanted.  It was a big mahogany piano and it sang to me.   Sadly it had a 'sold' sign on it.   My parents smiled and told me the sold sign was there because they had already purchased it.  Wow!  It really did sing to me.  I'd love to say that I practiced everyday and became amazing but I didn't.  One sister actually went on to play rather well.  My other three siblings took piano and then pursued the string family.  They play the violin and viola beautifully.  I was fortunate to lay claim on the piano a few years back and my mom was happy for extra living space.  My disclaimer at the cost of my parents' hard earned money spent on lessons is that it paid back ten fold one generation later.  I am indebted to them.

On to the story of the broken D key....

Although I did not want to replace the piano, I had to come to grips that it was getting old, 105 years old to be exact.  It needed a bit of internal surgery.  We researched the latest pianos and took all the kids to two different piano galleries.  Makayla instantly took to the $100,000.00 piano and played it for over an hour.  The younger three begged for the piano that played by itself. We had one salesman tell us that our kids would progress amazingly well with a $15,000.00 grand piano.  I agreed, but we thought feeding and clothing them was a bit more important.  We finally decided on a nice Yamaha upright for half that much and went home to sleep on it.  Let it be known that Cameron and I ALWAYS sleep on a decision - it drives us nuts.  During the night I had piano dreams.  My piano cried out and whispered of untold pleasures it still had for our family.  The next morning I called a highly recommended piano technician (I do my homework) to come over and take a look.  She played it and shook her head and said,  "Oh, I wouldn't replace it, she sounds great."  Ten days later and money saved in our piggy bank, we now have a fully restored piano that plays like an elegant grand.