I can’t imagine a home without a piano.
Seriously. I just knocked out practicing tomorrow morning’s Psalm (I cantor) when it occurred to me.
We used to have a very old, large and heavy upright. I think we gave it away because we had babies and hadn’t finished the upstairs yet, so we were cramped for space. But years later, when my mother offered her spinet, I jumped at it.
Even when I was a college student considering transfer to the University of Michigan, I thought about pianos. My only options at SVSU were the piano in the dining hall — very public — or the instruments in the practice booths across campus. It was worth the trek to scratch the itch. So when I looked at U-M housing, I put down a deposit at a coop with a piano.
Now the piano gets most of its use from my son, who inherited my musical ear. About a year ago I crabbed to him that in straightening up the den as I had asked, he had hidden some of my sheet music. I badly wanted to play a shortened version of “Moonlight Sonata” and wouldn’t rest until I found it. Once I laid my hands on it, I played it twice through, itch scratched.
Ah, but there was an ulterior motive. I suspected he would love the piece as I did, and I was right. He even put it on his iPod. Now it is among his regulars.
I have promised him that when he has a home of his own, he can have the piano. He was truly grateful. My mother only wants it to stay in the family, and right now it seems it will be better off in his hands. But after a few months without, I know the itch will come again. The absence of a piano leaves a hole in my soul.