wacky wednesday - piano blues

I begged, pleaded and made deals with my parents for over a year before they finally realized my "request" for a piano was not a passing whim. A friend of the family had an old piano they weren't using and my parents borrowed it thinking I would give it up in a few months like my older sister had with the guitar. I didn't care that the piano was old and scratched up. It was a real piano and I could play it to my heart's content!

I started taking piano lessons that summer from an "older lady" (she was probably in her 40's... I was ten...) who lived a few miles from our house. My mother didn't drive then so I had to ride my bike to and from her house once a week. It was hot but I didn't care. I loved learning to play using both hands and even my feet sometimes! And, seriously, I didn't mind practicing... ever.

I played for a couple of years until our friends wanted their piano back. I was sad to see it go but by that time I was also playing the flute in band. There are only so many practice hours in a day! However, learning to play piano is something that engages your mind like nothing else does as you read two lines of music simultaneously with your eyes while playing them with your hands. I feel fortunate to have been able to learn to play and although I cannot play very well now, I don't regret the hours spent practicing as a child. 

As a parent, I wanted to have a piano in our house. In fact, when we bought our house, I had a spot in mind for the piano. Unfortunately, a piano wasn't in our budget and our daughters were busy with other activities, including music through high school - one played the clarinet and the other played the violin. 

Years after the kids grew up and left our home, we unexpectedly got a piano. Friends of ours needed a place to store an extra piano and asked if we knew anyone who had room and would be willing to do that. I jumped at the chance to finally have a piano again and have enjoyed "fiddling around" on it.

I recently read several articles in major newspapers reporting that piano stores across the nation are closing due to lack of sales. The best year for new piano sales in the United States was 1909 when more than 364,500 new pianos found homes. In recent years, that number has dropped to less than 40,000 annually. 

There are several factors playing into the decrease in piano sales but the primary reason is fewer kids are learning to play, an indicator of a changing society. People are more interested in things that don't take much effort so playing an hour a day to learn piano is not what kids want to do. Computer technology has changed what kids are interested in. Fiddling around with a digital keyboard is fun, learning to play piano correctly is not. 

Things like smaller homes, emphasis on youth sports (rather than music studies), larger number of latch-key children and children who split their time between two parent's homes also contribute to fewer kids taking up the piano.

Despite the many reason for not playing the piano, two of our sweethearts LOVED playing "our" piano when they visited last fall! It is a joyful noise! It makes me sad, though, that pianos won't be readily available for other children to learn to play.