Thankful Thursday: rehomed piano

/ Tracy Abell

For the past several months, I’ve been trying to find a new home for my beautiful old piano.

I don’t play nearly enough to justify paying out of state moving costs and so offered it up for free on the local Buy Nothing and Craigslist forums. Various people expressed interest over the months and one woman even came to play it. She’s used to playing a baby grand but is also moving and needs a piano that takes up less space. She asked me to play so she could hear how it sounded. HAHAHAHA I knew better than to put my “big note” skills on display for someone who’d brought her own sheet music and instead went in the other room while she played. Oh my goodness, that piano never produced such beautiful music, at least not while in my possession. And although I never heard from the woman again, I was grateful because I now knew for sure the piano had life left in it. I was more determined than ever to keep it out of the landfill.

However, our departure date was drawing closer and I was getting nervous. So I posted the piano again, this time offering to split piano-mover costs. I got exactly one response from someone who lives in a small mountain community and said he’d pick it up himself. I was skeptical on multiple levels. But today, he showed up in a car pulling a trailer rigged out with a pulley system. Zippy helped him get it on the ramp and the guy did all the rest. A friend in his community has a music studio and has been wanting a piano, but if he doesn’t want it the man would turn the piano into beautiful furniture, same  as he’s done with a bunch of other pianos over the past few years. I’m hoping his friend want this one and that my beautiful old piano has new musical adventures.

While waiting for the man to arrive this morning, I’d played one last song: Melancholy Baby. But the sadness lifted as I watched the piano leave the driveway. In addition to happiness about its potential new life in a music studio, I got a boost from the man who told us he approved of our yard signs and has a license plate holder that says “FREE PALESTINE. END APARTHEID.”

Solidarity, Mr. Piano Man! Melancholy no more.

25 thoughts on “Thankful Thursday: rehomed piano”

  1. Hi – and so glad you found the right taker for your beautiful piano. The wood on it looks in great shape too
    We got rid of one a few years ago and so I could relate to your experience on many levels.
    For us, when we finally had the right people for the piano, they came to pick it up and I came home right as they were pulling away with it (in a large van) I was able to greet them and say goodbye to the piano…. sounds cheesy – but it gave me closure.
    And it sounds like you have great closure with playing Melancholy Baby one last time….

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  5. my late mother sold our s in the seventies. mrs buckwell taught me how to read music. i played piano like a type hunt and peck. not anything you would pay to hear. sic. lmao

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    • Hello, that’s very cool you remember Mrs. Buckwell teaching you to read music. I learned from Miss McElroy. 🙂 She’d probably shake her head at how slow I am at reading the bass clef, though.

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  6. I have my (no dead) neighbor’s piano that she got when she was 13. It’s about 120 years old. I don’t play, but my daughter does. It’s a baby grand that we’re probably going to have to leave with the house if we ever move. ;0) It’s hard to give a piano away for a variety of reasons.

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