{"id":18,"date":"2007-09-08T16:21:18","date_gmt":"2007-09-08T22:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaybuena.com\/blog\/?p=18"},"modified":"2007-09-08T16:21:18","modified_gmt":"2007-09-08T22:21:18","slug":"pianos-i-have-known-and-loved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/pianos-i-have-known-and-loved\/","title":{"rendered":"Piano's I Have Known and Loved"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometime between the age of 2 and 4 years old, my parents got me a toy piano.\u00a0 It was white and shaped like a baby grand, but only had two octaves (from\u00a0 G below middle C—to G above middle C).\u00a0 I thought this was the most wonderful thing, although thinking back to how that must have effected the family, it is my guess that I was the only one with that particular thought. \u00a0My Dad taught me how to play ” St. Louis Blues” (oddly enough in the key of F#) on that little piano, which was his specialty on the piano,\u00a0having learned that one from an old black dude who hung around my dad’s family’s General Store in Appomattox, Virginia back in the 1920’s.\u00a0 This-playing the piano and singing,\u00a0I saw as\u00a0 my destiny-a pathway in a\u00a0miraculous musical direction, as I learned that\u00a0song\u00a0and played many\u00a0other popular songs (by “ear<\/em>“) over and over,\u00a0as much as I could get away with.\u00a0 I’m sure there were times when my parents were ready to toss me and that little piano out on our ears<\/em>, but they never did.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As my Dad was in the Air Force, we moved quite allot, and each time we moved we pared down our possessions as much as possible, as we never knew what or how big our ‘quarters’ would be.\u00a0 However, much to the disapproval of the\u00a0 rest of the family, that toy piano came along regardless of it’s necessity. But a tiny toy piano can take you only so far.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When I was twelve my mother found an ad in the local paper (The Orlando Sentinel) for an old upright piano ( a Wurlitzer) for $100, being sold by an old couple who used to play piano professionally back in the days of vaudeville.\u00a0 Along with this wonder came a stack of unbelievable\u00a0old great sheet music, some of which I still have, but most of which time and the salt water spray\u00a0and constant humidity of Cocoa Beach turned into crumbling unusable fragments of the past. We were in Florida for 5 years and to protect the piano from the elements, we were told to install a special light so it wouldn’t warp or get dank, which we did (both put in the lamp and get warped and dank ourselves, by and by.).\u00a0\u00a0 Then my family and the Wurlitzer were transferred to Hanscombe Field Air Force Base\u00a0in Bedford, Massachusetts, where we stayed a little over a year; and then as my Dad switched to NASA we moved to\u00a0Houston ,Texas, and\u00a0I finally\u00a0ended up here, in Austin, to attend The University of Texas.\u00a0 \u00a0In a moment\u00a0of madness, love, and generosity,\u00a0I gave my old toy piano (that I still had in my early 20’s) to\u00a0one of my best friend’s baby daughter, hoping it would inspire her as much as\u00a0it did me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Oddly enough, the man who was to become my Husband offered to get my upright real piano from Houston and bring it to Austin, so I could have it to play, long\u00a0before we were married.\u00a0 That probably clinched the deal.\u00a0 \u00a0When the first piano tuner we hired here looked\u00a0that old Vaudevillian Wurlitzer\u00a0over, he\u00a0marveled at how incredibly much used and worn down was\u00a0it’s inside workings, wondering how it still managed to sound as nice as it did.\u00a0 Of course a piano has it’s own magic, and why he wasn’t on to that is the real question.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then we and my old piano\u00a0moved to Westchester County,\u00a0New York, as my husband wanted to return to his job at IBM research there in Yorktown.\u00a0 We all stayed there 2 and 1\/2 years before moving back home, as\u00a0we couldn’t take the cold and the attitude of the locals there who really had strange and amusing accents (just joking- as we were the strangers in a strange land there-hard core Austinites that we were.)\u00a0 So, this time our old beloved Wurlitzer and our new edition, a two year old girl\u00a0 and her new toy piano and my husband and I returned to Austin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Unbeknown-st to me, my husband surprised me one year with a baby grand piano for my birthday, trading in the old Wurlitzer was part of the deal.\u00a0 I named her “Jazzebelle,” as it was a family tradition to name our pianos ( and cars.) Our daughter took piano lessons\u00a0from the time she was 6 years old\u00a0and became quite good at it, until she became a\u00a0rebellious teenager.\u00a0 And I renewed by love for the\u00a0piano and progressed in my playing through out those\u00a0years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 15 years ago we moved into our current home on a hillside with a great view of the ‘Hill Country’ and beyond,\u00a0 I continued to play Jazzebelle until her whole upper register zonked out,\u00a0when the sound board cracked.\u00a0 My piano tuner, who has so wonderfully cared for Jazzebelle for so long finally declared her no longer save-able, as only a very good friend could and would do. Her name is Mary Smith and she virtually rebuilt Jazzebelle over the years, and knows her stuff, no question; ergo : we bought a portable, affordable electric piano (we named “The\u00a0 Imposter”) as when you strike the keys with your finger, what’s really\u00a0happening is\u00a0a recorded piano’s sound of that note is made to copy that note as the internal computer is programmed to do.\u00a0 \u00a0Which, we all know- given my proclivity for cyberphobia, to say nothing for a few moments of well documented computer rage (see “Camp Carnage” on this site for evidence of this tendency,)-would never really work out.\u00a0 So my husband, in a moment of rational madness, offered to take me to the Steinway Gallery here in Austin to look for a possible match.\u00a0 I was so over come by the experience, I was unable to play any of the pianos there (*?)\u00a0even I\u00a0didn’t know why then, but the sales personage took me to a room full of Grand pianos, where I went from one to the other sitting down and putting my hands on the keys and closing my eyes at each and every one.\u00a0\u00a0 I sensed an almost magnetic connection from one particular one, out of the whole room full of gorgeous grand pianos.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This sounds so regretfully new-aged to say nothing of nuts, I’m the first to admit that;\u00a0 but I honestly felt this jolt of power, an almost magnetic connection with\u00a0that one particular Steinway Grand that we bought, being unable to play a single note (\u00a0much to my husband’s suspicion, to say nothing of the sales person’s) but trying them\u00a0 all out for comfort, like one would at a Lazy-boy furniture store or something. I don’t know\u00a0about you, but the more I think about that, the weirder it seems, no wonder I have monthly appointment with a psychiatrist, and that’s just a blip on the screen, the tip of the iceberg in truth.\u00a0 Oh well, not to worry, what with Global Warming and all.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Any Way, this Steinway Grand which is strong, and loud, and guides my hands from time to time, definitely has it’s own soul.\u00a0 All Steinway are made, each one, from one <\/strong>single tree, so I guess that isn’t all that strange of a thought really, that it has it’s own soul.\u00a0 It is alive, as it once was as a tree;\u00a0 and has quite truthfully been my salvation in times of deep depression, trouble, and strife.\u00a0 Sometimes I think It wills me to keep living and trying to do the best I can do.\u00a0 Since I’ve had him ( this piano’s name is Ruben,)\u00a0 I have had some serious and painful surgeries just to be able\u00a0to continue to walk.\u00a0\u00a0I had a fall that tore some important tendons on my right foot, which had to be fished for and re-connected which was worse than it sounds. Also in that same fall, it’s probable that I broke the head of my femur badly enough that the blood stopped pumping up through the marrow, I ended up with avascular necrosis (the bone done died in der)\u00a0that spread to my pelvis, so I got <\/em>to have a complete hip replacement as well.\u00a0\u00a0 As when one side of\u00a0the body’s shot, the other side usually takes over the load, so\u00a0I ended up with an arthritic left knee\u00a0so worn out that\u00a0the cartilage moved out or something enabling the femur to cut in to to the tubular and fibula (lower\u00a0bones of the leg, south of the knee),\u00a0making walking agonizing.\u00a0 In hopes that this would help some, my orthopedic surgeon yet again tried to drain what we thought was excess synovial fluid, as my knee was so swollen and aching and this can help, at least\u00a0temporarily; however this time what came out was mostly blood (not a good sign).\u00a0 So once again I got the grand prize of yet another joint replacement, which was not as much fun as it sounds, believe me.\u00a0 I had to re-learn to walk at least 3 times.\u00a0 (Think of me as Saint Caroline, the\u00a0 patron saint of the Lame and Insane, (kidding)).\u00a0 I am hardly Saint material, but one of the best parts of my life has been playing Ruben, and it is my firm belief that playing the piano is the closest thing to prayer I can think of, or maybe another form of prayer.\u00a0 I thank God for my life and that little toy piano my parents got me so long ago, as\u00a0learning to play the piano and playing it well, or at least pretty dang good (regardless of style) can be the most enjoyable thing a person can possibly do.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometime between the age of 2 and 4 years old, my parents got me a toy piano.\u00a0 It was white and shaped like a baby grand, but only had two octaves (from\u00a0 G below middle C—to G above middle C).\u00a0 I thought this was the most wonderful thing, although thinking back to how that must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8R4qt-i","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":577,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/in-the-land-of-the-steel-will-the-sheer-lace-emotion-can-hold-no-beauty\/","url_meta":{"origin":18,"position":0},"title":"In the land of the steel will, a sheer lace emotion can hold no beauty","author":"Kay Buena","date":"November 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I was a woman and sliped on a cold slick tile floor. I was in a hurry and turned quickly, only to find myself sprawled prone on the floor having broken my left forearm in several places and crushing my hand. I have been a singer-songwriter and a guitarist and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"but it hurts alot\"","block_context":{"text":"but it hurts alot","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/tag\/but-it-hurts-alot\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/excuse-the-procrastation-blame-it-on\/","url_meta":{"origin":18,"position":1},"title":"Excuse the Procrastation, blame it on ———–?","author":"Kay Buena","date":"August 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I have promised to have 2 new songs on the site (which is something I can do rather nicely--that is sing and play the piano\u00a0 upon occasion) however in order to get these songs recorded, Charles Sauer (said husband and chief technical manager of Kay Buena.com)\u00a0has to code the software,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/im-getting-a-tad-sick-of-this-maudlin-kiddie-crapbring-back-the-snoop-dogg\/","url_meta":{"origin":18,"position":2},"title":"Bring Back the Snoop Dogg Picture; it's a total Winner, if I do say myself.","author":"Kay Buena","date":"April 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Song of the Day: \"Moon Rise \" Lyrics, Music,Vocal, Rhythm Guitar, Slide\/Country-Slack Key Guitar: Kay Buena (AKA) Caroline Abbitt Sauer:- Bass Guitar, Recording Engineer: Dr. Charles Sauer,(PHd.comp.sci.):- Drums: The Honerable Jerry Barnett. Recorded back in 1986(?) \u00a0Oh, great swami of the computer Empire of the network here, please bring back\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Snoop Dogg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kaybuena.com\/images\/tn20080124SnoopDogg.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":40,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/that-silver-haired-however-its-mostly-dark-brown-daddy-of-mine\/","url_meta":{"origin":18,"position":3},"title":"That Silver haired (however it’s mostly Dark Brown) Daddy of Mine","author":"Kay Buena","date":"June 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Today, being father's day, it only seems appropriate that I tell you fine folks a bit (pun) about my Dad, Col. Charles Webb Abbitt (U.S.A.F.(ret.)),\u00a0who has always amazed me in many ways: How could a person, regardless of age and other factors, be so gol darned disciplined about actually doing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Truly Strange and Unusual Adventures of Kay Buena's Youth"","block_context":{"text":"The Truly Strange and Unusual Adventures of Kay Buena's Youth","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/true-and-unusual-stories\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"YouTube of That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/SDx-vqRBQNY\/default.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":601,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/betty-jane-finds-a-new-hobby\/","url_meta":{"origin":18,"position":4},"title":"15. Betty Jane Finds a New Hobby","author":"Kay Buena","date":"November 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"When last we left Kay Buena's favorite doll from her first childhood, Betty Jane she had been chastised with great disdain for her meddling with the Postal Service.\u00a0 This kind of thing\u00a0tends to happen, but as we later\u00a0figured out, She really held no guilt in the interference with the Postal\u00a0Services\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "(The) Betty Jane Chronicles"","block_context":{"text":"(The) Betty Jane Chronicles","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/the-betty-jane-chronicles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":94,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/this-august-14th-is-my-husbands-birthday-time-marcheth-on\/","url_meta":{"origin":18,"position":5},"title":"This (August 14th) is my husband's birthday. Time marcheth on.","author":"Kay Buena","date":"August 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"With that in mind (?), I am currently on hiatus from writing these stupid blogs, so I can concentrate on music, the piano and the guitar, not that that has been picked up and strummed for about 15 years, but it's different, and that's an important quality.\u00a0 One must at\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}