Piano Joy

Almost 20 years ago, my parents upgraded the Baldwin upright piano of my childhood to a gorgeous glossy Steinway grand piano. At the time, I was in my piano draught era between the end of college and the end of childbearing, where I played the piano like once a year at most. Jeff and I didn't even own a piano for 7 of those years. In 2015, a kind friend gave us her old piano--a much-loved beat up old Gulbransen spinet. That piano was an enormous blessing. I had been wanting a piano for years, but pianos are expensive--even low quality pianos. Once we had a piano of our own, I was able to put Jay and Rose in piano lessons! I played the piano a bit more at that time, but never enough to really learn any songs. This was during Amber's intense early childhood, so sitting down to play the piano without the house blowing up behind me felt like too great a risk.

Then in 2017 when Amber was 3, I was called as the primary pianist at church, which required some serious latent skill resuscitation (and lots of faith that the house wouldn't blow up during the endless hours I spent practicing piano with Amber running rampant, wild, and free). When I was released after 15 months in that role, I took several months entirely off from playing the piano to recover from the endless anguishing drilling practice of those same children's songs. I had never practiced piano so hard or so desperately in my whole life! I only took piano lessons during elementary school though, so maybe that's part of the reason.

Once I started playing piano again for myself sometime in 2019, I started actually learning songs for fun. I didn't want to waste all of that hard work I did to re-learn the piano for my church calling! Every now and then, I would play a song with fewer mistakes than usual, and I started feeling something inside. It was satisfaction mixed with interest and determination, with a dash of happiness. I started playing more often, and even brought my piano music with me whenever we visited my parents so I could play on their Steinway. I kept finding new music that interested me enough to learn, and slowly over time, I built up my piano abilities so I could play more and more songs. I started looking forward to playing the Steinway piano and reveling in its resonance during my annual visit to my parents' house. I practiced at home on my cute little spinet piano, but the ultimate best piano sessions were always when I played my parents' Steinway. 

At some point along the way, I started calling that feeling I get when I play my parents' Steinway "piano joy." Whenever I came home from my parents' house, it took me a week or more to readjust to civilian life with my average little piano. The piano joy still came every now and then when I played my little piano, but the piano joy was not as frequent since it was more dependent on my piano skills than the actual tone of the instrument.

The piano I have housed, played, and loved for the past ten years is functional, but very basic. At least a quarter of the keys squeak. Some of them stick every now and then. A few keys don't make any sound on the first try--sometimes. But with regular tunings it was plenty good enough and a newer/nicer piano was not even on our radar. When my sweet Dad visited us three weeks ago, he offered to upgrade our piano. The conversation went something like this: 

Dad: "You know what would look good right there? A piano. Have you ever thought about getting a different piano?"

Me, laughing: "Yeah, almost every time I play! But this one works fine." 

Dad: "In the grand scheme of numbers, adding a piano to the financial gift we put into your house is pretty small..."

Me: ____!!??!!

A few days later, my Mom and I went to Dickerson's piano store in the Tri Cities to look at pianos on January 10th. It felt so strange walking in to try out pianos. I felt like such a high roller waltzing into an actual piano store like I knew what I was doing! I had to play the piano in front of a stranger, who was also a salesperson and supposedly an expert on pianos. Needless to say, it took me a while to feel calm enough to actually fully appreciate the sound coming out of the pianos I played. Once that happened, I started really listening to the tone and noticing the feel of the pianos. We narrowed it down to two pianos: one was a brand new black Yamaha upright, and the other was a 30 year old orange-ish walnut Steinway upright. My Mom chatted with the saleswoman while I went back and forth between the two pianos, playing my limited selection of memorized songs to see how each piano responded. Once I started feeling the piano joy, it was an easy choice. The Steinway won. We didn't buy anything on the spot, but it was good to get a feel for the pianos.

As we were leaving the piano store, the manager invited me to play at one of their weekly Friday concerts, which is basically where a pianist comes to the store, chooses a piano, and plays it for an hour. "We stream it live on our social media!" the manager said enthusiastically. "Since you play piano well, we'd love to have you. We pay for gas for you to travel here." My instinct was to back away slowly, but I was also kind of shocked that she thought my fumbling self-conscious piano testing sounded good! I don't play the piano to perform or receive praise, but when I thought about her invitation, I felt flattered! I don't have any immediate plans to go participate in their concerts, but it felt surprisingly nice to have a third party piano expert comment positively on my scrappy playing.

The next day, my Dad called to talk over the piano store experience. I told him about the piano joy that happened when I played the Steinway. My parents are so considerate, they checked a few times to make sure they weren't offending us or overstepping by offering us a piano. As with the huge amount that they helped with our house and barn, I felt overwhelmed by their generosity, surprised and humbled to receive it, and more grateful than words could convey. Basically this piano cost the equivalent of coaching 3 cross country seasons, and I feel so amazed at the magnitude of this gift. A nice piano is not in any way a necessity of life, so a nonessential gift of that size helps me see and feel my parents' love in a different way. Sniff. Sigh. 

PIANO JOY.

Our 1993 Steinway & Sons 4510 upright piano was delivered on Thursday, January 16th. We gave our beloved old piano to a young couple from church. They picked it up on Saturday, January 18th, so we had two pianos in the same room for a day and a half, which I do not recommend.

I came down with a cold that sapped all energy from my body a few hours before our new piano was delivered, so I didn't have full energy to appreciate the piano for the first few days we had it, but even playing a few slow melancholy convalescing songs on it filled my soul with piano joy! 

A few pictures from the week:

We had a few clear days this week with actual sunrises and sunsets!

Waxing nostalgic with my old piano--every time I played it this week, I felt nostalgic for all of the many many hours we spent doing battle together.

A farewell picture of our Gulbransen piano.

Jeff and I moved our old piano on Thursday morning to prepare for the big delivery that night.

The piano delivery people pulled right up to the porch steps. I find it very stressful to watch people move heavy pianos, but I watched this because it might be the last time I watch someone move my piano. They were very careful.

After I played a celebratory (and messy--I was coming down with that draining cold) Fur Elise Jam on the new piano, Rose and Amber took turns testing it out. Jeff and Jay were at a swim meet till late that night. I took NyQuil that night and don't remember them getting home.

This picture looks like piano joy, but it was actually just pure piano cacophony. 

I didn't love the orange hue of the piano in the store, but it's so glossy and sounds so amazing that I don't care what color it is now. I think it is beautiful.

I was miserably sick, stuffy, and exhausted on Friday and spent most of the day in bed, but I did emerge for lunch and a low tempo piano session because I couldn't resist.

Jay went to a stake youth standards night last Sunday night (Rose was home sick) and he and his friends got creative with a roll of duct tape on the drive home.

Amber, all geared up to drag the trash down our long dark dirt driveway on Sunday night. When I sent this picture to my family, my sister commented that headlamps would have been so handy during our childhood when we were always hiking down to the barn in the dark to feed our horses. Amen to that! I'm glad that my kids get to have a little bit of a trial in their childhood, with the chore of dragging the trash can down the bumpy muddy driveway for a tenth of a mile in the dark, haha.

Headlamp: on!

I spent an hour at the Irrigation district office one day this week, showing them our actual property lines so they could recalculate our irrigation bill for 2025. They had this shelf full of huge booklets with detailed maps of each sector of the irrigation district. I brought my own surveyor's map of our land to prove where our property lines are, since they were trying to charge us for 13 acres worth of irrigation water instead of the 3 acres we actually own. It was quite the fascinating peek into the very old-school system that the irrigation district operates under.

Family scripture shenanigans. This week felt like a wash for attentiveness during our attempts at family scripture reading. It's not like we have toddlers anymore either!

Go big or go home? I basically cooked all of our food for the week on one day. Granola, meatballs, mega shepherd's pie, plus some meat prep for a future soup.

My granola turned out the chunkiest it's ever been! I love chunky granola.

Family movie night on Friday, complete with pizza for the dairy privileged.

Goodbye, dear old piano. You served us well. Go do the same for your next family. (That cute little girl with pink boots and blonde curls on the left is not Amber from 6 years ago; she is the niece of the family that took our piano.)

THIS SUNSET was stunning. I took this picture out the front windshield of our van--I stopped across the canal bridge from our house to take a quick picture. (Our house is on the far right behind that tall tree.)

View from our back porch: not bad, Sunnyside.