"It's lost its spirit," I said to myself as I played my piano one day five years ago. I'd only just gotten back into playing, setting myself a time each day to practice. I'd even gone through all my music books and stuck post-its on works to learn or re-learn. Gavottes, Suites, Nocturnes, Lyric Pieces. I'd gotten out "Les Barricades Mystérieuses" by Couperin, Satie's "Gymnopedie No. 3," some Mendelssohn ... plus pages of sheet music with the years I'd studied them written in pencil. 1949, 1954. And one penciled "1898" in my grandmother's hand with her note, "Studied with Miss Plesner, Grieg's first cousin." I'd be a faithful student again, I told myself. I'd practice every day, stretch my hands so I could reach the keys better. But then, playing, I began to notice that some of the keys were sticking. After I'd play them, they'd stay stuck and or come back up very slowly.
I called my piano tuner who made references to lead counterweights, the capstan screw, returning hammer blows to 1¾". What was he talking about! The problem, he said, was that the counterweights within the hammers were positioned for a grand piano. (As he pointed out, mine wasn't a grand.) He also said that the weights were put on the wrong side of the keyboard. They had to come out. Taking them out would prevent the sticking.
This was no small-change piano. This was a Steinway. A comfortable console--a small upright. Ivory keys. Steinway knew how to build a piano, I mused; they wouldn't put leads on the wrong side. But, for some reason, I followed along and let him take them out. I was skeptical enough not to let him dispose of them but to put them in a coffee can so I could stick them in my cellar. Who knew? I might want to put them back one day though they seemed to be different sizes which would complicate things.
After he left, I sat down to play. No ... no ... I was dismayed. The keys no longer stuck but the piano seemed to have lost its spirit. It was no longer the lively instrument I'd once played--that my grandmother had bought (used) in 1961 and loved for so many years. And on which she had made her living teaching piano in a small bungalow in a foggy coastal town in Southern California. (Getting something like $5 a lesson.) She made payments on that piano, it seemed, for years. She finally retired at age 89. Then after she died, I had it trucked across the country to my home where I made sure to set it on an interior wall to lessen its exposure to the Northeast's extremes temperature changes.
Distressed at having allowed the tuner to remove the weights, I called Steinway in New York and spoke with a technician. He expressed dismay (as well as derision), said that the weights had, of course, been put on the correct side and needed to be put back. He conceded that the piano had been made at a time when a liquid paraffin had been added to stabilize the action against humidity. Something that was later found to corrode the center pins. He said it would need new action parts. He said, for this era piano, it wouldn't be worth fixing. Then he said, "Give it to charity," and hung up.
Disheartened by what he told me and by my error in allowing the counterweights to be removed, I could not bring myself to sit down and play. Then, shoulder problems intervened and playing became painful. I kept the piano oiled to lubricate the wood, but I didn't play it or have it tuned for five years. I considered giving it to a church or school. I even made a note on my "to do" list, admittedly followed by a question mark.
Then, two weeks ago, I sat down and opened it up. It was so horribly out of tune that I called a tuner. A different tuner this time. He came two days ago--as the roofers arrived to pry off the old roof and hammer on a new.
I could hear the tuner downstairs, tinkling gracefully over the keys ... and the roofers overhead ripping and pounding. The tuner complained that though they'd been sufficiently quiet when he was in the piano's lower registers, by the time he began work on the more difficult upper notes, they really got started with their power drills and hammers. Nonetheless, he carried on. He would tune something, crank something, or readjust something, then play delicate Bach-like passages to test what he'd done. And as I listened, I perked up: that was my piano I was hearing ... and it had a lovely, light, airy sound. Not ponderous, not stuck, not sad. "It's a nice little piano," he said when he left. If I ever wanted the counterweights put back, he could do it. But things seemed okay without them.
I pulled out Schumann's "About Strange Lands and People" plus a Bach Minuet. My fingers moved happily over the keys. The sound was sweet, almost bright, and quite charming. "My piano's got its spirit back," I said aloud. I ran my fingers silently up and down the keys, gave it a little pat, and apologized to it for even thinking of giving it away. After all, without a piano, how would I play Christmas carols! And what would happen to all those Schirmer and Peters editions with their scotch taped covers, gold stars marking a piece well played, penciled notes in my grandmother's hand reminding me to heed a ritard or crescendo! Maybe it wasn't quite as nimble as in its younger days but it and I were about the same age, and we were both doing just fine!
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