My Piano

Artistic view of my piano

It all started in April 2013. I had played on a digital piano for years. My teacher didn't exactly like that, but she and I both dealt with it. I don't remember exactly how, but the idea of an acoustic piano popped into my head.

I wanted to teach piano, but I wasn't sure how to do it with one piano. I had three siblings at the time that needed to practice, I needed to practice, and I needed to give said siblings lessons on that one piano.  I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to teach more students and still have my siblings get their practice time in. So I did a little, half interested research into used pianos available in Portland. After my syllabus evaluation that month down at the university, my mom and I went to look at what was available at the local music store. When we got home, we talked to Dad about it and he was willing to think about it and search for an instrument. (Though at the time, I had thought a $500 piano from a dealer in Portland would be just fine.)

So my mom and I searched websites of the stores in Portland and searched Craigslist. We had a list of some that were interesting, and we planned to look at the $500 piano in Portland when I was at an OMTA recital at the store in late May. That's is when I found it.....

It was a beautifully restored upright piano. It was supposedly from a Kimball 1869, (that is what I found from my research as well, but my tuner thinks it is from the 1890's, it doesn't really matter to me), the woodwork was beautiful, the color nice and bright. Needless to say, I really, really, liked it. However, it was $1000, more than my dad would probably consent to. Well, that ended up not being so much of a problem, he was alright with that, but still cautious about the investment. I sent the link to my piano teacher. She was interested. The problem was we couldn't get ahold of the owner.  We tried, but we never got anything back.

So several weeks passed and I went to my recital in Portland. I played on all kinds of pianos, including a concert grand for my recital. My dad was now convinced, but after playing the $500 piano, we knew that wasn't going to be an option. It sounded terrible. I played another used piano, it was better, didn't cost too much, and I was interested. 

 

We had a friend of ours who is a piano tuner take a look at it.  He was favorable to it. I just still wasn't quite ready to commit to saying yes to buying it. Then she called, the owner of the beautiful Kimball piano.  She hadn't been able to get back to us because the email link was broken, so she hoped we didn't mind that she looked up our phone number. We set up a time to go see it and we took my piano teacher along. My piano teacher and I both played it. It was definitely out of tune, but it had a beautiful bass section. 

 

Back at home I was undecided.  My piano teacher liked it, I loved the woodwork, but I wasn't sure if it had a heavier action than the one in Portland. My piano teacher didn't think the action was too heavy though. I really wanted to say yes to the Kimball piano, but I just wasn't sure. I talked to my dad on the phone and he got me to admit that the Kimball is the one I really wanted.

 

It wasn't too long afterward that we made the arrangements to buy it, and had it moved to my house on June 7th! I was then the happy owner of a beautiful piano. 

 

Now I will show you the reason why I fell in love with it......

 

 

My wonderful piano with the eagle claw stool.