by Deborah Fischer
(Ridgway, CO, USA)
My Beloved Piano
I always admired musicians and their magical talents. I would look at a piece of sheet music or hymnal and marvel at the beautiful characters that made up a written representation of sound. I couldn't read music so it seemed simultaneously beautiful, complex and intimidating.
When I married my husband twenty five years ago, he had two pianos. One was an upright, the other a mid-size grand. He had begun music lessons in his forties while living in Alberta, Canada as an expatriate.
He loved his lessons. Eventually, his company transferred him and his family back to Chicago. Several months later, tragedy struck and his then wife of twenty years suddenly died of inoperable Glioblastoma. Somehow, the will to learn piano was lost in the fog of grief.
A year later we met by chance. We became phone pals and pen pals as PCs were not yet part of society and we were dating long distance. I in San Francisco and he in Chicago..
We fell in love and were married. I moved to Chicago. We lived in an eighty year old home. I knew nothing about pianos, but I learned.
My first lesson was selling the upright and learning how an upright piano must be moved down stairs and into a waiting truck. My second lesson was learning what to do for the Grand to keep it in good condition.
It was sad to me that I couldn't play and that Randal no longer had the desire; nonetheless, the piano just seemed to fit our home. I wanted to keep it and so did he.
Over the years I had the piano tuned and consistently cared for it. We moved -a lot. I learned how to have the keys blocked prior to the arrival of the moving company. I learned how movers take the legs off of a grand piano in preparation for loading it onto a semi trailer; and I learned the process in reverse when we arrived at our new locations. Homes were chosen based on whether they could accommodate the piano. Neither of us played.
Tuners always commented on what a beautiful instrument we had and they truly enjoyed playing it. They also were amazed that it rarely needed much tuning.
It was December. I was cleaning house. As I dusted the piano I wondered if I could ever learn to play. I thought about it for days. Eventually I added 'Learn to Play Piano' to my New Year's Resolution list. Because I take my resolutions seriously, I started teaching myself to play on January first. I could barely find middle C, I couldn't read music. I struggled.
I was at a church retreat, visiting with my minister and the leader of the retreat, also a minister, at lunch. The subject of music came up. Shyly, I admitted that I was trying to teach myself to play piano. I also hesitantly admitted it had taken me TWENTY YEARS (!) to work up the courage. I was an artist, a seamstress, a crafter, a baker a cook, a reader, a wife.
I was a lot of things but I was NOT a musician. Jim, the retreat leader,
Comments for I Looked in Awe at Musicians and Their Language of Notes
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