If You Can’t Be With the Piano You Love… Love the Piano You’re With!

Pianists are so misunderstood!

As an itinerant accompanist and sometime starving-pianist-without-my-own-instrument, I’ve played a lot of different pianos. A few have been very nice; most have had various issues while still being adequate; and some can only be charitably described as piano-shaped objects.

My piano encounters last weekend at Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh fell into that middle category. Now that I think about it, the “various issues” descriptor encompasses a hilariously broad range of surprises and challenges I’ve gotten to deal with over the years. And now I have two more to add to my scrapbook!

Piano lock, shown on a white piano so you can actually see it, but -- white pianos, ew!

The first obstacle your heroine was tasked to overcome was the dreaded Piano Lock. I mentioned in my previous post that I successfully deployed my charm and wily persuasion on the hotel staff so that I could gain access to a rehearsal piano. (Actually, the hotel staff were very nice and helpful with all aspects of our conference. They even let us turn the lobby into a full-on DFH hootenanny, into the wee hours of both Friday and Saturday nights!)

The sight of a locked piano always makes my heart sink. Oh, I completely get why they’re necessary, mind you. Overenthusiastic children, drunken louts, greasy fingers, overfull drinks — I understand the dangers. But pianos are made to be played, dammit! It’s such a shame to see them sitting there like large, expensive, useless furniture so much of the time.

I think it should be possible to get certified as a Bona Fide Pianist® by some international piano organization, and the certification should entitle one to a universal master piano lock key. I would vow to use it wisely — honest! 😀

Our nice shiny rehearsal piano

Anyway, the rehearsal piano was a grand, and it looked pretty nice. It was okay, but there was one key that stuck and only played if you pounded it like the devil. And it just happened to be the G an octave-and-a-half below middle C (G2 in scientific pitch notation), which was very inconvenient since all but one of the songs we were rehearsing were in the key of G! Figures! 😡

There was even more fun in store for me on Sunday morning, though. Click Mr. Readmore to see the secret toy surprise!