My Piano True-Love Was a Seven Foot 1882 Steinway Grand

My Daily Practice Series — rescued from the Medium archives

June 2, 2017- My Piano

I have an antique seven-foot Steinway grand piano which I’ve carted around from home to home since about 1973. It was built in 1882. My husband bought it for me for $1200 soon after we were married, and we’ve put a few thousand dollars into it over the years. But it has a beautiful bass range, an easy touch and I love playing on it. I wish it could talk because it’s been in Florida, Atlantic City, New Jersey, and now Maine, and probably lots of stops in between. In New Jersey, it was taken care of by a personable old Italian gentleman named Ernie Fonte who became a family friend. He did some work on the belly, replacing hammers, restrung it, kept it in tune, and such. The best part of the visit would be coffee breaks where I would feed him whatever I was baking and we would talk cooking and recipes. (I still use only celery leaves in my meatballs, Ernie, if you’re listening from the other side). I miss those visits.

June 2, 2017

At the beginning of the month, I’ve been in the habit of reviewing what I’m doing in my practice sessions and seeing where I need to put my attention this month. I moved on to a more involved version of…