Killing A Piano
It has been said that each of us, if put into the wrong situation, would commit horrible atrocities that we would never consider under normal circumstances. I have long argued against this proposition, but am now living proof that it is true. Because I am about to commit one such horrible crime. And I have no choice. I have to kill a piano.
There, I have said it. Or at least committed it to, well, my screen. Yes, I have to kill a piano. It doesn’t get easier to say the second time. I have to kill a piano.
Nearly three years ago I wrote about the dilemma faced by my sister and me in our need to get our mother’s piano out of her home and into some other location. I am delighted to report that the story had a happy ending. With the help of a mutual friend, a lovely young couple adopted our mother’s piano in order to fill out their living room and to be prepared for the day when their young children are ready for lessons. Wonder of wonders, the green finish on Mom’s piano worked with their decorating, so it was a win-win.
At that time I alluded to the fact that I had a piano of my own that I preferred. I still do. The Sebastian Sommer Piano Company was one of many piano manufacturers in New York City at the end of the nineteenth century, and was known to turn out high quality instruments. Our piano was made sometime before 1896, which appears to be when their factory burned down.
These two scans of the December 26, 1896 front page of the New York Journal don’t really bring anything to this story but they are some cool history that add to this piano’s story.
This particular piano somehow found its way into a New York boarding house and eventually to the mother of some friends, who brought it to Indiana. She eventually bought a new piano and gave the old upright to her daughter, who kept it in their living room.
When our friend’s mother passed away, she took her Mom’s modern piano and needed to get the old one out of the house. It was offered to us for free if we would move it.
One of our kids had expressed interest in lessons, so a free piano seemed like a great idea. But first, I wanted to get it inspected. There is nothing worse than a free piano you pay to move into your own house, only to find that it is usable only as a massive conversation piece. One that makes clear to all that you are a Class-A sucker and a loser in a real-life game of Hot Potato.
To my surprise the expert I hired pronounced the piano to be sound (sorry) and playable as a musical instrument. We hired some professionals to move it and soon had our very own piano. This was in, perhaps, 2002 or so.
We got the old girl tuned and two of our kids took lessons on it. I even tried to scrape some of the rust off of my own keyboard skills. In going through my mother’s things I found my old piano book, so how hard could it be?
I started at the beginning and re-learned all of those little songs I had learned as a ten year old. And in the process, I learned a valuable lesson. Any keyboard skills I have are pretty much restricted to my computer. Learning a piece of music was a less lethal form of the trench warfare that defined the first world war.
One. Measure. At. A. Time. I could read the music and my fingers could hit the right notes (most of the time) but I could not really do both at once. So through pure repetition I could get to a place where I would half-read a half-memorized tune and could then play it fairly respectably. Until I got tired of hearing it, and then the same process would play out with another.
I had a few of Mom’s old music books, one of which may have been her mother’s. It contained the kinds of old chestnuts that millions of people played on pianos just like this when men like Grover Cleveland or Calvin Coolidge were in the White House.
The old upright (a miniature upright, actually) had a beautiful full sound that Mom’s more modern spinet piano could never match. It was no nine foot concert grand, but its five foot tall sound board provided the kind of tone that seemed so right playing classics like A Bicycle Built For Two or Take Me Out To The Ballgame.
Well, fast forward to the very end of 2018. It has to go because we have other plans for the room that it occupies. But there is a problem: Nobody wants it. One friend expressed interest a few years ago, but he lost his transportation, and I didn’t push because the piano got surrounded by boxes of things stacked up for staging during the process of emptying our mother’s house.
Frankly, I always imagined that as I got older I would find time to sit down at the old keyboard and try to break through my sight-reading wall. I could become the guy who would be in demand at parties and maybe even get command of some beloved jazz standards. A little Fats Waller-style stride piano would sound great on these old ivories with my left hand bringing out its robust lower register.
But back to reality. I have not sat down at that keyboard even once in the last three years. It is time to acknowledge that my gifts lie elsewhere.
I am a realist and have read more than a little on the topic. This piano, while still playable, seems to have reached the outer limits of its lifespan. It is the rare piano that remains vital beyond a century, at which time it requires a complete (and very expensive) refurbishment. And while this one has not yet reached that point, it does not have beauty going for it either. Its varnish is scraped in some places and rough and dull in others. Attractive furniture it is not.
I read a story of a company in New York that makes disposal of old pianos a large part of its business. Week in and week out the owners adopt old strays like this. Some provide useful parts, and rarely one is found that is worth a restoration. But mostly they get hauled off to the dump every week. The owner reported that they make the most awful sound when they land after being thrown from the truck.
And now I am going to be one of those people. Is this what it is like sending a dog to the pound, knowing that it will probably be killed? I have never had to put down a faithful old dog, but now I know what it feels like. This piano did everything we ever asked of it. It accompanied our kids as they learned something about music and was always ready to provide musical companionship whenever someone who could play sat down before it. But not for long.
It has been suggested to me that I could save money by renting a dumpster and dismantling it myself. But I just can’t bring myself to do it. Within the next week I am going to pay some men to come to my house and help our old piano into their truck. And from there . . . . The man from the piano company tells me that he will try to find a home for it. I suppose it is possible. Or maybe he is just trying to make me feel better.
I will admit it – I am a sentimental old fool. I am mostly Irish, so I suppose my sentimentality comes naturally. I know that a piano is just a collection of wood, wire, cast iron and a teensy bit of ivory. But my eyes are welling just a bit as I think about how this stately old piano that has lived so long has become irrelevant and valueless in our modern world. I am going to have to kill it. And even though I know that it must be done, I am not OK with this at all.
Forgive me, dear old piano. I have failed you.
J. P.'s Blog 
That is a very interesting story.
Killing your piano seems quite like having a pet put down.
I would love to give your piano a home. I have always dreamed of owning one and learning to play it.
But unfortunately we live at two opposite points of the earth. 😣
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Yes, the shipping charges would be truly epic.
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Sadly, there is nothing quite as useless as an old piano. Even the Goodwill store here says they will not accept pianos.
Repurposing it isn’t a winning proposition either unless you do something truly original like removing the internals and replacing it with an aquarium. And old aquariums are a lot like old pianos.
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I think I would rather have a plain piano than one turned into an aquarium. I would rather learn to play Three Little Fishies than have to take care of them.
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We took a piano from a friend once — we meaning me and my first wife. She had really, really wanted it. When we divorced her mind had changed and she implored me to take it. I lived in 300 square feet at the time so the answer was heck no. The boys tell me she just left it in the house when she moved out.
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I had an aunt and uncle who built a new house in 1964. Given the way the house was designed they had to move their old upright piano into the basement before some interior walls were finished on the main floor. I have sometimes wondered if it is still there, because there was no way it was coming out in one piece.
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I have suggested a Viking funeral for your green piano before, so you have probably considered and rejected that idea. Besides, I couldn’t do it either. I have a worthless and unplayable guitar at home that was given to me, I still scheme occasionally about how to fix it but have done nothing and can’t bring myself to throw it in a fire.
So, as bad as it sounds you are probably doing the right thing. As always you could build a trebuchet and fling it.
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I think adding a new music room to the house and paying for piano lessons would be more cost effective than the trebuchet.
We could arrange for it to go to Canada to augment your collection of string instruments. I will ship for free, but will have to charge you $5k for the piano. 😊
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Maybe if you deliver it in person and take that Packard when you go.
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Perhaps if you offered a package deal with the piano, a kitten, and some zucchini, someone would be interested?
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Rats, just recently I got rid of a couple of CRT television sets. They would have made such a package irresistible.
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Is there a Habitat for Humanity ReStore in your town? Our local ReStore (where I volunteered for a while) picks up donated items with a liftgate-equipped box truck (Isuzu NPR) that could easily handle the size and weight. I don’t know if your store would be interested, but we picked up some very large and heavy items … and even if it’s sold for a low price, that’s all margin which goes directly to Habitat homebuilding efforts.
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The problem here in the Midwest is that about 96 o/o of households between 1890 and 1929 bought a new upright piano and kept it forever. Exaggerating, but old upright pianos are simply everywhere around here. Now nobody wants them. I went with some piano movers because they probably have the best shot of helping to saving it if it’s truly unique.
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I fear the fate about the befall your piano may one day match that of our pool table. We bought it for our younger son, he and his brother and buddies played on it for some years, but when he moved out, the pool table fell into disuse. As it is still in our house, I have played on it maybe twice this calendar year. Ours is in great shape, having been re-clothed in its recent usage history. There are loads of them for sale on Kijiji, and people can’t seem to give them away. Sounds familiar.
My brother in law took in a piano, for free, kept it for some years, but it finally met its fate in a wonderful bonfire I believe.
As for me, I have considered taking up drums. I have heard it is a great retirement activity, is relatively inexpensive, and takes some physical and mental effort to learn and perform. My drumming to this point has consisted of two fingers playing in rhythm on my steering wheel as I drive if a good song comes on, (Inna-Gadda-da-Vida was a good example today) so I think I would have a ways to go. Then again there is all that racket that would do wonders to inflict further damage unto my hearing. Yet another conundrum.
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I had not thought about pool tables, but can definitely believe it. That was something that I always kind of wanted but never made the investment in. And now I’m glad I didn’t because it would now be sitting unused.
I suppose I could take up the trumpet, as we still have one in the basement which we bought for one of the kids during a short-lived band program at school. But I won’t. At least you can still sell a trumpet.
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We have the same problem. Our piano is not rich in heritage nor has it been played for years and years. No one wants it or will take it even for free. The one person that indicated a passing interest told the hubby that we need to be very careful taking it apart. The tension on the strings is crazy. It will blow up in your face and send wires everywhere. He offered a key to loosen the wires so then we can take it apart. He sells pianos for a living……hmmmm.
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Someone tried to convince me to rent a dumpster and pitch it piece by piece. It seemed so much easier to pay someone to take it in one piece.
Good luck with yours!
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With comedian Bob Einstein’s passing this week I was reminded on another way to dispose of your piano. (Skip forwards to 5:00)
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Yes, that would do it alright. I am not familiar with Bob Einstein, was this a Canadian thing?
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I believe Bob Einstein was Super Dave.
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This is a nice story. Thank you for sharing. I am also arranging some time in a day for playing the piano.
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Thank you. I hope you do a better job at making time for it than I did.
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Pingback: The Piano Recital | J. P.'s Blog
My estranged wife just loves pianos; not that she actually plays them. More of a snob appeal for her. The first cost me nearly seven hundred US dollars and found itself parked in our small lounge which is all of twelve feet square. It barely got played anything more than ‘chopsticks’ and took up valuable space that we needed for our four growing children.
A few years back I started renovating my home and a friend volunteered to help move the damn thing outside. His homemade dolly broke the moment we dropped the piano onto it, but rage and determination got it out the door and into a corner of my garden. It was never coming back inside and slowly rotted away in the tropical rain until the day I managed to heave the cast iron frame out the garden and into the jungle; it sits there still.
The second was her purchase; she claimed it cost sixty dollars but years later I found out she paid nearly six hundred for it. It was delivered to our 2nd home, a fifth floor walk up, in 2004 and sat there, unplayed, for the next twelve years. Again, I needed to renovate that home and dispose of it asap. I got very, very, very lucky. A couple came and inspected it with an expert in the field; happily paid me the paltry sixty dollars I asked for, and then paid removal men an additional three hundred dollars to carry it down the five floors and onto a truck to its new home.
Never again! I’ll stick to my vinyl collection.
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Yes, even a whole lot of vinyl records is much easier to manage. And it sounds like you got lucky finding someone who wanted the second one enough to pay even a little for it.
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