So I got this monster
So I got this monster, this thing, this work of art.
It is a brand new piano, a Steinway, bigger and badder and meaner and sweeter than any of the other pianos I've ever had.
It is also more delicate. A delicate instrument that allows for so much color of expression, specially when you play soft, there are levels of soft that I didn't know were possible, and this is perhaps why my wife got teary eyed when I played the delicate part of her prelude at the Steinway showroom. It was right then and there that I made my choice, I know. Because you go to the showroom to any showroom, Miami, NY, and are presented with several debutantes, you can pick one, you should pick one, if you want one. And I did and I do, I wanted this piano my whole life and when I saw this one, it was like where have you been my whole life, who knew there was one of you which could sound so soft. So I invited it to move in and it was a tough move with five guys grunting and a special dolly, be careful I thought, be careful with the building and the elevator, the piano can take care of itself, look how big and bad and mean and sweet it is, it can play so soft, your ears will melt.
But you could also feel inadequate, sometimes. This piano is faithful, it reproduceseverything faithfully and in that way it becomes an exacting, demanding master who points out limitations. I hear limitations, sometimes, and they are a dare, the life-long dare for a pianist, the dare that says: for nothing other than for the joy of it, with no promise of reward or glory, do you dare to do the mountainous work so that your fingers are just that much more elegant, and perhaps, just maybe, that much more musical? Yes I will, for you, I will.
And I will also have patience with you because you are new, so new that we are only beginning to understand each other, only beginning the dance. It is a years old dance, a decades old dance, we could be dancing forever. And we are just starting, so we don't know our preferences, we just don't know. We don't know that when we play that chord, the bass trembles just so, rich and full in the room, and we don't know that when we play that one note in that one piece, the room faintly hums. We truly don't know anything about each other so we are shy, we need to come out, our voices need to come out, specially at the treble.
So I got this monster, this beautiful thing, this work of art, a demon to paint my life with and maybe tame with work and sweat but mostly with my heart.