Say
you had a device which had been proven to make you smarter. It could teach
little kids numbers and letters; it could teach big kids math and physics. Say
it was made of organic material, had a shelf life of a hundred years, could
work without batteries or electricity. Wouldn’t you want such a thing around,
whether or not you could use it to play music?
Last
year I was on the losing end of a much-publicized argument over so-called
performance art which involved burning a perfectly good piano. This week I had
two calls from people wanting to get rid of their pianos. “To a good home,”
they said, as if pianos were kittens. The problem is that nobody seems to want
the pianos, and nobody seems to know what to do with them. Some of them are
turning up in landfill or being placed on the street for anybody to play.
And
people do play them. People come and listen to them play. But why aren’t they
taking the pianos home?
I
know I have an extreme view. My grand piano in the small front room takes up
the space some people might want for a proper sofa, a coffee table or a
big-screen television. I am prejudiced in favor of pianos, which are so much
more than musical instruments. I think every home and every classroom should
have a piano, whether or not anyone plays or plans to play.
Electric
keyboards have their place—I have a couple and have given away a dozen-- but
they are not pianos. There are
real pianos, and then there are mechanical pianos. If you have no choice,
living in an apartment with thin walls or needing something portable, then the
keyboards are something, though they need power, don’t blend with other
instruments, and only sound like pianos if you are next door. A real piano
changes with the weather. It is capable of nuance. It goes in and out of tune.
It is a living thing.
There
was a time in Europe and America when everyone except the poorest of the poor
could play at least a little piano music. Playing was considered a social
grace; it made young women more marriageable and young men more attractive.
Arthur Loesser in Men, Women and Pianos writes
about the piano’s role in social history.
But
pianos are going begging any more. I have not been able to learn whether “Send
a Piana to Havana”, a mission started by a Berkeley piano tuner, Ben Treuhaft, is
still operating. Treuhaft arranged for unwanted pianos to be shipped to Cuba,
which had more players than instruments. The documentary film “Buena Vista
Social Club” underscores the Cuban passion for music and the need for
instruments.
My
former student Lauren told me about
a national database for free pianos, http://www.pianoadoption.com/.
Thousands of people are trying to get rid of their old pianos, and yet a new
Steinway B will cost $110,990 next year, Mason and Hamlin pianos appreciate at
4.5 percent per year, and a new Bösendorfer will cost you $175,000 right now. I
could almost swear to you that those pianos are being purchased by people who
had some kind of piano around when they were little.
I
worry about people born around the turn of this century never achieving mastery
in anything. The ones I know are smart enough, loyal, even passionate, but they
can barely read and write (judging from Facebook) and few of them can stay with anything voluntarily for more than
a few minutes. Maybe they can bang out a few root-position chords on a Casio
keyboard, but very few of them can play a Bach Invention.
Video
games and sports are not much comfort when times are tough, but music can
always be your consolation through thick or thin, and the ability to plan an
instrument will last a lifetime, as the neurologist and pianist Oliver Sachs
has documented in Musicophilia and other
books.
Even
if that old upright is gathering dust and making you feel guilty for not
playing it, isn’t it an art object in itself? People staging houses for real
estate sales often want to borrow a harp or piano for just that reason. The top
of an upright is even better than a mantel for displaying photographs and
family treasures and the rack can old an open album for display. Piano benches
themselves are so useful that they disappear virtually on their own.
If
there’s a piano around, any toddler will try to play it, will make a personal
voyage of discovery with those keys. Whether or not that toddler becomes a
music prodigy, music will have a special meaning for him all his or her life.
It’s not too late for you. Keep your piano. Sooner or later somebody will show
up and play it. It might be wonderful. You might love it.
