My mom’s been trying to unload my childhood baby grand piano on me since I moved out, years ago, but there was never room for it. Now that I’m on house #2, there still isn’t room for it because Mr. W and I merged our separate furniture together in a not-particularly spacious residence. We’re talking about getting rid of most the downstairs furniture (2 leather couches, 1 fabric couch, 3 coffee tables/credenzas, possibly a bookshelf or two, wooden dining table and 4 dining chairs) and starting over with coordinated sets, simplifying our spaces. Ideally, we’d be able to Craigslist off our stuff and put that money toward new furniture. This will clear room not for the baby grand, but for an electronic piano. Mr. W went shopping with his ex-neighbor buddy a couple of months ago and they were impressed by some very technology-forward keyboards that felt and sounded like real pianos, but with advanced options that Mr. W really liked, such as being able to plug into his computer so he could do sound recordings and edits with computer programs. (Yes, it’d be another one of his toys.) We then went to Thanksgiving in Vegas and saw that his Gamer Bro, who’s always at the front line of new technology and techie toys, has purchased an advanced Kawai keyboard that not only emulates the piano feel and sound impressively, but also does hundreds of other voices and sound effect combinations, connects to his computer to play downloadable midi files, will play and “teach” sheet music downloadable from a particular site on the internet through video and keyboard demo, and the sheet music will display on the screen and highlight as the notes are played so the player can follow along. It also records multiple scores so that a song can by played with one voice, then layered over with other instruments and voices and compositions, for an end result that sounds orchestral. Mr. W was salivating at the possibilities. When we returned from Vegas, he went to multiple music stores and hunted for the ideal electronic piano. He nows thinks he’s found it in a Yamaha electronic piano thousands of dollars OVER that which his brother spent (which price tag Mr. W had shaken his head at when he saw his brother’s new toy), and the sucker displays its own screen set into the piano, AND all the tons of voices are so convincingly real that on a guitar mode, for example, you can hear the metallic squeal of the strings between notes when a guitarist would run his fingers quickly over the frets on a key change. And it does karaoke. And of course, it plugs into the computer. I should note here that Mr. W wants this electronic piano really, really BADLY…and that he doesn’t play the piano. But he’s got it set in his head that the presence of a keyboard is the only thing standing between him and beautiful music on-demand, maybe even newly composed music, brought into existence by me. That’s a lot of pressure for a rusty pianist like myself. Thankfully, though, after playing with Gamer Bro’s piano for a bit, and then going to visit my parents this weekend and playing on the old baby grand, piano playing came back to me. I was able to sight-read faster and hit the notes more accurately. Mr. W said, when we were leaving, “I’m DEFINITELY getting you a piano.”

Odd little tidbit: while at the piano shop where Mr. W first played with the Yamahas, I looked at the baby grands and were surprised how much smaller they were than the one I remembered at my parents’ house. I asked the salesguy, “Did baby grands get smaller in the last, oh, 2 decades?” He said not really, but then sizes have always varied between brands and styles anyway. I hadn’t known that, I’d always thought there were regulation sizes for “baby grand,” “standard grand,” and “concert grand.” He said they have given parameters, but can vary up to quite a few inches. Hmm. This weekend at my parents’ house, I stared at the profile of the baby grand. Mr. W asked my parents something about it, and my dad said, “No! This isn’t a baby grand, this is a regular grand!” REALLY?! No wonder it wouldn’t fit in either of my two houses! I’m really surprised my parents bought their 6-year-old just learning to play the piano a standard grand! I guess I was more spoiled than I knew.