pianos - (02/18/09)

i've known many pianos. there's my little upright at home, i've known and loved my whole life. it's taken me from hot cross buns to shostakovich's second piano concerto. from faber to bach. it's where my love for playing music started. it's seen me through many hard days. it was there for me when i couldn't even reach the pedals. it was there for me when the judges were horrible mean. its' a part of me. and that's just one piano. another one that sticks out in my memory is the piano in the peppers house in uganda. i only played it once. i should've played it more. it's nice to have that constant all around the world. music. lyrics change with language, but melody is constant. i played the same tune on a piano in south africa and uganda and israel and houston. it's constant. i imagine that's why everyone's attracted to music. everyone understands it. i remember all my friends pianos and the songs that have been played on them. some pianos don't like to be played boldly in large groups. but who does? they've heard some bad stuff. i'm sure they've also heard some amazing compositions though. some badly out of tune pianos. they play the classic sing along's quite well. songs that are sung out of tune anyways, so it doesn't matter that they keys aren't in tune. some hear crazy contemporary pieces that sound impressive. i don't know what they are, but they have one too many dissonant notes for me. the pianos that are learned on with blue tape peeling off on the central two octaves, the keys a little sticky. there's the many pianos from gold cup. they've been touched by countless kids anxiously shaking fingers. and there's all the pianos at the church, the slightly out of tune grand in the sanctuary, the sticky e in the kids choir room. the almost always locked nice-but-slowly-going-out-of-tune one in 212. the sticky eb in the choir room. the once-gross piano played for many a christmas recital in the great room. the out of tune upright on the 3rd floor. oh and i remember seeing billy joel's piano at forshey with mr. marsh. impressive. i've had so many good memories with these thousands of hammers and strings. i love pianos.