The piano came crashing down onto the cement floor of the basement. One of the movers had let go of the rope when the piano was halfway between the hatchway and the cellar. Nonetheless the piano survived. The movers picked it up and set it against a concrete wall where it sat comfortably for many years.
The piano had belonged to my grandmother; the grandmother I never met. She died when my father was still a young boy and he remembered how she used to sit at the piano and play in the evening. Deep within the belly of that piano, I believed, was the soul of my grandmother, gentle, compassionate and harmonious.
Mellow and rich sounds responded to the touch of my fingers and I spun the round piano bench until it was the right height for my eight-year-old legs, stretching to reach the keys. I ached to learn how to make music on it.
When my father played the piano, he only used the black keys between the whole notes. It was fun to watch like a magic trick and it amused my friends, but I knew it wasn’t the way one was supposed to play a piano.
Piano lessons were expensive and my mother threatened me that if I did not practice faithfully the lessons would end. I played the scales over and over again, learning to read the notes on the printed book propped up and resting on the tilted music stand. Plunk, plunk, plunk, I hit note after note; my fingers held in the stiff posture, parallel to the key board and flexing only at the knuckle. It was not joyful, or rewarding, and it seemed to have little to do with making music.
I was ashamed that the four-year old girl, who lived next door, could pick out any tune she had heard with accuracy, using impeccable chords and rhythms. Day after day she proved that my problem was my own, not a flaw in the piano.
It was harsh to compare my piano ability to another’s, and it eroded my self-confidence. Eventually it led me to give up on the piano lessons. I thought of myself as unmusical. I carried this image into adulthood. At church when I could hear my voice bleat a missed note, I sang with less and less confidence.
So, a few months ago when a friend told me that she was taking singing lessons, I thought I might give myself another chance. If my grandmother’s piano could survive a plunge I mused, perhaps I can too. I’ve only had two lessons so far, and I am expanding my range, both in my voice and in my spirit.
My Turn 