Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Since toddlerhood, Henry has loved music, singing, dancing and humming tunes. He loves to perform songs from the great musicals that we watch over and over again at home. Songs from “Oklahoma,” “South Pacific,” “Oliver,” “Sound of Music” and “Heidi.”

Guitar was his first instrument of choice. Last year, he received a guitar for Christmas; his Aunt Jane chipped in a month’s worth of lessons and a guitar strap, and he was off and running. Only problem was, after about two weeks, the sensation of tender fingertips had overcome the fantasy of being the next Mick Jagger. He started avoiding his guitar; his teacher stated that he might as well hang it up unless he practiced. The guitar lay dormant and even, I must admit, started to warp (okay, okay, it wasn’t an expensive instrument).

Still, I couldn’t get the thought off my mind that Henry was musically inclined, and this tender age was the time to encourage that inclination. It was Meredith Lloyd who pushed me over the edge. Meredith and her husband Danny were visiting in my sunroom last June (both are musically gifted, having met as students of music at Appalachian State more than a decade ago). Piano, they said emphatically, was the basis of all music: other instruments, including guitar, even vocal work. Henry should study piano.

I reminded myself of the old maxim of when the first horse throws you, mount the second. This applies to parents as well as kids. Just because the guitar plan didn’t pan out as we’d hoped, didn’t mean piano wouldn’t.

Henry wasn’t enthusiastic when I broached the subject. But I started putting the pieces together. A piano teacher — who is reasonable, well-respected and I’ve known for over 20 years — lives right up the street, in walking distance. “Just try a few lessons this summer, and you’ll see how you like it.”

I sat in a parlor chair behind the piano for Lesson One and listened. Immediately, I realized this might just work out. My sassy son had turned earnest. There was Henry, listening attentively to every word his teacher uttered. He assumed the posture on the bench just as she directed and held his fingers on the ivories the same way. Then the magic began. His fingers danced on the ivories. On the second lesson, he played his first song, “Ode to Joy.” I couldn’t have been prouder if my son had been Paderewski performing at Carnegie Hall.

But a slight problem remained. He couldn’t practice without an instrument. I scratched my head. We had no piano, and no line item in the budget this year to buy one. Then I thought, used: we can get a used piano. I’d check the classifieds and on line. I’d check www.freecycle.com. But a friend at the music store led me to a neighbor, who had just moved in a couple of houses down the street. His home was temporary, and his childhood piano — a Kawai upright from the early 1970s — was taking up far too much space in his tight quarters. He was considering selling it, but a little ambivalent about parting with it; what’s more, he didn’t know a fair price.

A simple living solution materialized. Why couldn’t I store the piano for a year, with no money changing hands? At the end of the year, we would have three options: 1. My neighbor could take it back; 2. I could offer to buy it; 3. He could lend it for another year. A year’s time would let us find out Henry’s seriousness; it would let my neighbor decide if he can severe the ties to his piano permanently. I drew up a written agreement, which worked for us both. Should Henry drop piano the way he did guitar, I’m not out any major cash outlay. Should my neighbor want his childhood piano back, it was his.

At the moment, I don’t see a danger. At home, Henry stops by and strums on the piano randomly just for fun, inventing songs. When his friend Christian came over to spend the night, they couldn’t stay away from it.

“I like the sound of guitar better,” Henry told me, “but I prefer playing the piano.”