I Dreamed of a Piano & Followed it from ...

I Dreamed of a Piano & Followed it from Store to Store

Dec 24, 2021

It might sound ridiculous to some, but I once dreamed of, and still dream of, a piano that I feel I might never find. It was a red mahogany finish, a grand piano, with the most magnificent tone, like bells ringing out boldly. Yet its keys were so sensitive and soft to the touch, it could play the finest pianissimo or the boldest sforzando and seemed to sense ahead of me whichever tone was needed, and respond before the listener could anticipate what they ached to hear.

I was told this piano would outlive me, which haunted me to hear. It was a fully restored Mason & Hamlin. It was built like a tank and could last another hundred years. I played every piano in that store, and scores like them, but I kept coming back to that same red piano.

It wasn’t difficult to spot in a sea of black and brown pianos. Its color was so unique, I have never seen one in that shade before or since.

It stood out for another magical reason:

In the wood of the piano were the most beautiful flowers, like gold trailing vines that reminded me of the morning glory flowers that bloomed on vines as the sun rose outside my childhood home. Only these flowers-unlike morning glories-never shrank inward upon themselves. They were immortalized in full bloom on the sides of the piano, and I knew I would never grow tired of gazing at them as I played.

This piano was my dream piano, and only a cool $26,000.

It was gone too soon, sold, and I was frustrated again at the reality that a grand piano was nowhere in my reach. That I had a thousand things I was obligated to pay for that year and not one would be a $26,000 musical instrument that was bigger than the apartment my family was renting.

As days, months, and years rolled along I kept visiting the local stores, hoping and dreaming to get a good deal. Imagining that I could afford a Yamaha, or Kawai, or SOMETHING that could respond to my pianissimo, unlike my beloved old piano that was too tired and worn to react to my insistent practice with anything more than a warm and humble tone that hadn’t changed since my childhood.

It felt like fate, and still does when I remember it, the day I saw the Mason & Hamlin again. It was in an advertisement in a new store! I asked the owners about the piano and learned it was in fact the same piano I had seen! Since we had first met, my dream piano had been resold because the owner left the country. And I learned that although they had advertised it, the piano was actually in a showroom in their sister store, out of state. It eventually sold again and I lost touch with that magnificent mahogany Mason & Hamlin.

I’ve played everything from a $130,000 Fazioli inlaid with real gold trim to a $60,000 Kawai, and everything in between. I’ve practiced on Steinway, and Kawai, and countless other older pianos at college. I remember, before I went to music school, hopping a bus in Oahu to spend an afternoon in the piano store and practice, dreaming of one day owning a grand piano.

I am still dreaming of that Mason & Hamlin with the flowers in the lid. I’ve never seen anything like it since. If I don’t find it, I will have to find another beauty that understands me when I beg it to respond with pianissimo.

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