This is a story probably a decade in the making. Long ago, my parents brought my grandmother’s piano to my house. Dad would have taken it to Colorado but it came from Missouri and the humidity change would have been too drastic. So, it came to Nebraska to hold my mail.
Many, many years ago (8? 10? wait – 6. There is documentation.), one key stopped working. (Yes, I did try to play occasionally.) When I owned a crummy thrift store piano back in Maryland, I dismantled that and put it back together, so I thought I could diagnose this, too. I took it apart, put it back together….. and eight keys were not working. Rats.
I just covered it with more mail.
Well, sometime this fall I thought I should maybe think about fixing it. My motto was, “It’s already broken – I can’t break it more.” (I obviously forgot about the one key/eight key fiasco of yore.)
I opened the hood.
I saw that some thingies were broken: they’re called bridle straps. I ordered some more that just clipped on. In this photo, the red tabs are the new straps, the grey, crumbling ones are the old straps.
Now, this is where my ADD really bogged things down. I thought I’d just have to replace a few straps, but realized that ALL EIGHTY-EIGHT straps would have to be changed. The old ones just … disintegrated when touched.
88!! UGH! Ain’t nobody got the attention span for that. I came up with a system: change five straps, get a Starburst.
That worked for three rounds, but then I needed to go watch tv. Slowly, slowly over many many days, I got most of them done.
This brings us to Saturday morning. I was up bright and early and only had 30 more straps to do…. and I just DID it. It must be what people with real attention spans feel like. When Lloyd got up, we took the action out and I worked on fixing the eight broken keys. Apparently, when I took it out all those years ago, the broken straps let pieces get all caddywompus (technical piano term), and that was the problem.
When I got to the final key – the original broken one – Lloyd helped me figure out what was wrong and helped hold everything still so we could fix it. When we put it back in, there was one injury to a damper that required some Laurening.
But, it works!! It’s not 100%, but it plays! I was so pumped, I rewarded myself with a very, very simple book to try and remember how to play.
“The Easiest Easy Piano Songs”. That sounds perfect.
Ha! I love that piano book name! And it’s so awesome that you fixed the piano! And that you sustained your attention on it. I wish there was some easy trick for accomplishing such focus. Congratulations for attaining it though.
Proud of you both, sis, especially for the perseverance to see the whole thing through. Grandmother would be so pleased. But wash your hands before you sit down to play, for her.
That is a HUGE accomplishment. I can’t wait to hear your first piano piece.