farewell to an old friend

[pogo97]

The movers are coming today with a new old piano for me.

The old old one goes against the back wall until I call the town, who will put it outside as a public piano next summer. It will survive a season or so before it's utterly wrecked from the weather.

Thing is, my current piano was built in 1912. I don't know about its early life, but it was a music teacher's piano through the thirties to fifties, so it got a lot of use. When I got it, it had sat neglected and sometimes abused for decades in the back room of a farmhouse. And I've been playing it multiple hours a day for ten years. My tuner and tech, Owen, says it's just plain worn out.

The action is uneven and slow. The hammers have impossible grooves in them from the strings. It goes clunk a lot and the voicing is all over the place. And it has splits in the soundboard that give it a fuzzy sound when the weather is just so.

So, when a friend asked Owen about getting rid of a piano--one like mine but not-yet-worn-out--he gave me a call. It's free; it's wildly out-of-tune but clean sounding; it's even older, but it's had a much easier life and it looks gorgeous. The current owners are delighted that it will get played to death.

And, in a few weeks, I'll say goodbye to my old old piano.

 

[zzzxtreme]

Would love to see (jpeg) and hear (soundclound) both

[pogo97]

Well, here's the old one: 

 

(there are several others)

I'll start posting vids of the new one, I hope, within the month. Right now it's all over the room while I dust out its innards.

[JeffLearman]

I had a similar feeling when I donated my CP70 to a church. I was happy to get rid of it, but it had been my main piano for nearly two decades. It's time was past, but I sure appreciate the time it gave me.