piano

[truepenny]

Saturday, I fell in love again.

Yesterday, there was soul-searching and paperwork.

Today, it is official.

I have hocked my soul for a 1911 Blüthner grand. Which can't come home until August, but that's okay. Also means I'll be looking for a part-time job once Kekropia is turned in, but that's okay, too.

Preciousssss.

It's in beautiful condition, and playing it is like drinking champagne. Even though I am so very appallingly rusty and in fact play like I have been drinking champagne, and rather too much of it.

The Blüthner seems prepared to bear with me.

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

AWEsome.

And 1911 was a good year. For encyclopedias as well as pianos.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

True. Very true.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Beautiful! Congratulations.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

(btw, my husband adores your icon.)

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm. Piano porn.

I own a 1928 Mason & Hamlin AA mahogany grand - all 6'2" of it is currently being restored. I used to have it in my old, huge apartment, and now I live somewhere rather small. Once the restoration is complete, I'm actually going to need to move!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes, the grand piano does tend to impose limitations on one's lifestyle. *g*

The Blüthner's 6'2" by 4'9". It's going to have to have its own room.

Is it Mason & Hamlin that's one of the three remaining American piano companies that actually makes its pianos in America? I know Charles Walter is one (because I failed to be seduced by a Charles Walter upright this weekend), and I know Hallett & Davis isn't (because I failed to be seduced etc. etc.), but I've gone all fuzzy on the other two.

[reannon.livejournal.com]

Okay. truepenny, meet zorathenne. The two of you, independently, have back-to-back posts on my Fiends Page about your new-ish pianos, and you both called them your Precioussss.

I am very weirded out now.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Well, it is slightly inevitable that the sff fan/piano lust combination would come up with Gollum.

But I agree. That's freaky.

Oh... My...

[zorathenne.livejournal.com]

reannon told me to meet you *grin*.. So.. um.. Hi! =)

And oh my green stars and purple garters.. Your piano.. oh.. my..

along with my cousin's (very) old baby grand Steinway, yours is beautiful =)! My precious may only be a white stand up piano.. But she's still my precious *wiggle*

Congrats on your new addition!

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Oh, you mad, mad fool. It's going to want to be tuned, it's going to want to be dusted, and when you're in the midst of a sublime Mozart piece is when you're going to discover that one of the cats has taken up residence within.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I know. And the proof of my madness is, I don't even care. I'm ridiculously happy anyway.

[arcaedia.livejournal.com]

That. Is. Soooooo. Cool. :)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

You were one of the people I thought of and told my husband, We must take pictures.

Congratulations on your new baby

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

This isn't piano porn, this is baby pictures: "Aah, look at its little keys..." and we're decorating its room, ready for when it comes home...

As a non-parent, I'm a little bemused by this, but oh, so happy for the three of you! Congratulations.

[larryhammer]

Awww. He's a cutie.

---L.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

I came over from poisoninjest's journal as soon as I saw your Bluthner icon, isn't that ridiculous? I am the proud owner of a 1924 rosewood Bluthner boudoir grand, 5'6 long, utterly beautiful. The legs are the same as yours, but the music rest is slightly different, and except mine has lovely wood instead of a black case. Bluthners really do produce the most exquisite sound, I know I'm biased because I grew up with one but I still think they're the best around. Unfortunately mine's been a bit off-colour lately and the piano tuner seems to be unable to catch the mysterious - and intermittent - buzzing sounds, but we should be able to get it sorted soon. It's the love of my life, that piano. So congratulations on yours, it's well worth selling your soul for, and your first-born child while you're at it.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! Always lovely to meet another lunatic right-minded person.

I knew nothing about Blüthners until three days ago, but I was an instant convert, and ended up combing the web for information and pictures. And, of course, buying a grand piano that is embarrassingly out of budget and will have to have its own room.

But I'm not sorry. Not even a little.

Yours sounds gorgeous.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

It is, really. I was parted from it for a few years, after I first went to uni (gave in and bought a Challan upright in my second year, nice little thing), but I moved into my own flat two years ago and got the piano then, did a swap with my mother so she got the Challan. She's going on about how nice it is to have the extra space in the house, her priorities are all wrong. I still haven't quite forgiven her for neglecting the thing for years, it was too close to a radiator and a window, and she rarely got it tuned. Result, I came back from uni one year, sat down to play, and thought, "Shit, the volume is much much too low." Soundboard split. You don't want to know what it cost to get that fixed, if you replace the soundboard you have to replace the strings and a few other bits and pieces. And it came back from Bluthners and then sat in my mother's house for a couple more years, only getting played when I came to visit a couple of times a year, so it's only really been getting played in with its new stuff since it came up to me two years ago. With a funny sound on the F# above middle C and a general tendency to buzz. I really do hope they can get that fixed soon, I've been a naughty parent and left it about a year and a half between tunings but I shall now behave and get it tended to properly. Actually, I'm about to play it day and night for a few days, take notes, and then ring up the tuner and say, "Look, you've not left it in a happy state." Blasted buzzes that appear in the evening when he visits in the morning. He's meant to be the best in town, though.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Aieeeeee!

The piano I learned to play on was a beautiful old upright grand ... with a cracked soundboard (I have this tendency to want to call the soundboard the motherboard--my geekeries are contaminating each other), meaning that it stayed in tune, you know, for approximately five minutes after the tuner left the house. And the F below low C was broken--we had the hammer rattling around in a drawer somewhere. When I finally convinced my parents that, yes, I really was serious, and yes I really did need a better piano, it was cheaper to buy a new one.

Poor Bluthner. I'm glad you've been reunited with it and are loving it as it needs and deserves to be loved. And I hope the tuner can fix the buzzing. That old upright also buzzed, mostly iirc because various inappropriate things were kept on top of it (namely, the television). But I know just how exasperating that sort of thing is.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

The worst I keep on mine is piles and piles of music (those bits on either side of the music rest are far too tempting), I've just put a lamp on as well, and occasionally a metronome. Buzzes can be elsewhere in a room sometimes, the room I had my percussion lessons in had a metal Venetian blind that rattled in sympathy with the C on one of the timps, but I think these are internal.