Piano Paino

July 27, 2026

Greetings from the ivories,

We were renting a house last week, and a friend thought maybe she knew the place from forty years ago.  “Does the house have an old piano in it?” she asked.   Yes.  Yes, it does.

I hardly noticed the piano, except my grandchildren started banging on the keys, performing the traditional piece that all small children play, performed with fists and elbows and a fortissimo forehead finale.  It was that kind of piano.

Pianos are a complicated addition to your family.  They are a commitment, in many dimensions.  Somewhere in the purchase of a piano is the promise of time and money and emotion, but most of all, the commitment of floor space and gravity.

When I was growing up I was forced to take part in an experiment where I would be subjected to weekly piano lessons.  My sister also took part in this experiment as the control group.  The hypothesis was that I would learn how to play, which turned out to be incorrect. It was just a coincidence that my sister learned to play. It was also a coincidence that our piano teacher quit within months of my first lessons.

We grew up with a piano in our house, which I suppose is what inspired the experiment. The last time I saw the piano, fifty years ago, it was in our basement.  I will bet all the money my parents spent on piano lessons that it is still there.  It was that kind of piano, and in fact, all pianos have the potential to be that kind of piano.

When my children were young, they were taught to play the piano, because I felt like they should not be spared the trauma I suffered. Well, my wife didn’t say it exactly that way, but I think we were in agreement. Anyway, somehow, they all went on to be successful musicians with a variety of instruments.  I think it’s because they had fluoride in the water and I inhaled DDT when I was young.

Somewhere in this process we developed a space in my den where it seemed a piano should rest.  My mother and her husband had a piano, and one day she asked if we would want it.  After some discussion we gratefully accepted the offer and hired a mover to haul it to our house, hired a piano tuner to make it sound like a piano.  These costs were vastly more than I was prepared to spend on childhood trauma, and softened only slightly by the fact that we got the piano for free.

Some months later, my mom called. “We were just wondering, when do you think you will be able to pay us for the piano?”  My response was a spate of silence just long enough for my mom to mistake for weakness. Then she suggested that $500.00 might be a reasonable amount, which was exactly $1000.00 more than I was thinking would be a reasonable amount.  I don’t know if this is really a trauma, but there was a piano and my mom was involved so I think it qualifies.

All of my children learned to play the piano but none of them took it with them when they moved out, which I thought was a reasonable expectation.  (If I’m honest I was hoping to replicate my mother’s diabolic negotiation ploy.) My children went on to live interesting lives, unburdened by large heavy musical instruments, or the secret surprise debt they can carry.

There was a decade or so of dust gathering before we decided to sell the piano, which was met with a resounding indifference by the Used Piano Marketplace.  Ultimately, we decided to give the piano away to some deserving person, which was met with resounding indifference by the Deserving Person marketplace. (Find them on Facebook)

Instead, these other people showed up to take the piano. I don’t want to be unkind, but in spite of their large number, they did not seem prepared to move a piano.  After some Three Stooges antics, they got the piano moved as far as the middle of my living room, which is where I predicted it would be until we were all dust and the house collapsed under the weight of good intentions borne by one musical instrument.  The undeserving people left, taking with them whatever good intentions.

Ultimately someone took the piano away, and I have never thought about it again, which is how I handle all trauma in my life because that’s what’s healthiest.

Until this week when someone asked about the old piano on which my grandchildren were composing the soundtrack to an argument between two crows.  Then it all came rushing back, all of the crying and whining and complaining and procrastinating.  Really, learning how to play the piano prepared me for many other parts of my life.

If there is any value in today’s message, which up until now is unlikely, it might be that pianos are like sailboats: the happiest two days in a family’s life is the day you get a piano and the day someone hauls it away.  Well, you can’t sail a piano. And you can’t tune a fish.  Maybe I was thinking of something else.

Hope this finds you plinking,

David

This essay was written by the author and does not include Ai content.

Copyright © 2026 David Smith