Wherein I Get Chills

I feel like I just got a phone call from a long-lost friend and we picked up almost right where we left off.

I shudder to think of how abominably I've cared for this piano. We got it when I was 12 and it was my go-to friend, my confidante, my punching bag through the perils of adolescence. Having said that, I think we only got it tuned once as it sat in our chilly basement in my parents' old house. Then I took it with me when I moved out, and moved again, only getting it tuned one more time. That's twice in about 25 years. Somehow setting aside $100 for a tuning just never figured in as a priority.

The kids have started piano lessons; Trevor last year and Amy this past fall. And it was becoming downright painful to listen to, especially when Trevor started practicing chords. CRINGE! I finally called a piano tuner and he worked his magic for a couple of hours. He told us things I never knew about our piano, such as it was manufactured in the mid-70's in Quebec, and was later sold in a store in Manitoba (we got it second-hand from another family when we lived in Portage la Prairie). I started feeling like it was a neglected and misunderstood old dog or something; I had started to take it for granted as a heap of wood and strings in the corner of our living room. I hardly ever get to play since we had kids. When I did play it just didn't sound so great...but it wasn't the piano's fault, and I wasn't THAT rusty, we were just out of sync.

Once he finished tuning it, I thought I'd try it out to hear the difference. I picked out something easy and tonal: Imagine by John Lennon. Just the first few bars. It was warm and delicious and was ringing around in my ceiling and my head long after I finished playing it. I can bring up the sensation just thinking about it. It made me resolve to get my old friend tuned up annually and to sit down and practice a little bit more regularly so she never gets so run-down again.

p.s. Did you know not everyone gets chills from listening to music? I was SHOCKED to learn this from my husband while we were dating. He looked at me like I had sprouted an antenna when I showed him my goosebumps from listening to a particular passage or chord. His family is all the same.

More's the pity for them.