In the backdrop of all these temporary fixes, I had other fleeting loves. Thus I was back to my upright, which was showing its years with each move into every humidity-variable room or basement apartment I asked it to survive in.

Then, I replaced it with an electric piano with settings for historical tunings (interesting and useful for a time because I’m drawn to microtonality, but that board, too, was ultimately also sold to yet another student). (Honeydew green was the most interesting shade that peeked out I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to have a melon green piano in the living room with me).Īfter that, I had a Wurlitzer spinet around for a while, with a sound as loud and metallic as a brass band. Then there was my first piano of my very own, an old grand upright with ornately carved legs, rose vines hand-painted on the interior soundboard, and enough chips in its surface you could see decades of past paint colors.

The roommate who came with me to each new apartment, along with my cat. Once it was inside I couldn’t stop playing it. It was the piano my mom and her sister grew up playing, and after being shipped across the country, the movers had to haul the piano–legs removed, kidney-shaped body wrapped in quilted blankets–all the way up the sharp incline of our driveway, an ordeal that took an entire afternoon. There were the pianos I grew up playing a Baldwin spinet with a squeaky, orange velvet-covered bench, and later, a Krakauer baby grand that my mom inherited after my grandfather passed away. And like shorter term relationships that “prepare” you for a more significant investment, there were many educational pianos along the way before I found her. But none so much as the vintage Baldwin grand I met and became betrothed to about six years ago.

Vintage krakauer baby grand piano