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[b]The Only Piano I Could Afford[/i][/b](link to article in NY Times) .....headed by this pic, presumably an 'artist's rendering,' not a photo: ![[Linked Image]](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/07/10/magazine/10lives/10mag-10lives-t_CA0-blog427.jpg) What an unfortunate story, in so many ways. (But very well written.) If he'd been on here, we would have told him to look into things more before making the trip, not to mention that he [i]had to get the piano checked out by a tech.
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The woman on the phone said that some of the keys were stuck but the wood looked fine. The wood looked fine. Wonder how much he paid for it. He should have bought an electric keyboard. I can imagine the excitement he must have felt bringing the piano home, imagining it. The picture does look nice. To him, the piano is the symbol of a failed marriage.
Poetry is rhythm
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The woman on the phone said that some of the keys were stuck but the wood looked fine. The wood looked fine. Wonder how much he paid for it.... ....and there's also this: After searching online, stuck keys didn’t seem like such a problem. Ignoring the "misplaced modifier"  ....he didn't search enough. Considering how much time and effort (and gut) he put into the rest of it, it's too bad he didn't spend some more effort looking further into this thing. First of all, there's "stuck keys" and then there's "stuck keys," and, he was way too trusting of what a seller would tell him about a piano, and not even mainly because of untruthfulness. People don't necessarily know.
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Reminds me of buying a used car without a test drive and/or an evaluation by a mechanic. Live and learn.
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Good grief!! There's no excuse, in this day and age, for making such a stupid piano mistake. I know we don't know when the purchase was made, but he found it online, so there surely would have been other info online as well that could have told he how to avoid such a mistake.
I guess it's a well-written story, but from the POV of a piano advocate, it's horrible.
[PanicVoice]what if his article gives people the impression that you can't ever find a usable acoustic piano for cheap and turns them off from even trying to learn how to play[/PanicVoice]
Alternatively, maybe the message is, had he got the piano purchase right, it would have saved his marriage... maybe people will take this to mean that everyone should buy a good piano to save their marriages.
Hmmm, I like that take away. Let's go with that one.
Started piano June 1999. Proud owner of a Yamaha C2 ![[Linked Image]](https://www.pianoworld.com/ABF_Medals/9medals.jpg) ![[Linked Image]](https://www.pianoworld.com/ABF_Medals/medal_c_3.jpg)
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I don't think we should blame the naivete of the purchaser too strenuously, nor anyone else who knows nothing about pianos. To some, a piano is just a collection of mechanical parts, and all mechanical parts can be refurbished or replaced, right? And if one really doesn't know any more than that, then research isn't necessarily an option that one might consider.
Such a pity!
Regards,
BruceD
- - - - -
Estonia 190
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if there is a moral to the story, it should be: never buy a piano for someone else to play without getting her input.
Heather Reichgott, piano
Working on:
Mel (Mélanie) Bonis - Sevillana, La cathédrale blessée
William Grant Still - Three Visions
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You're right, of course, Bruce, my reaction might have been a bit too strong. I maintain that there's enough info online that these mistakes should be avoidable, but the gentleman should be regarded with pity, not disdain.
Started piano June 1999. Proud owner of a Yamaha C2
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ShiroKuro, I think your first impression was the correct one. The author of the piece is 30 years old, so the Internet has been around for most of his life. There's no excuse for not doing some on-line homework.
![[Linked Image]](https://forum.pianoworld.com//gallery/42/medium/15854.png) Yamaha C3X In summer, the song sings itself. --William Carlos Williams
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if there is a moral to the story, it should be: never buy a piano for someone else to play without getting her input.
Yeah, it seems like communication was an issue in their relationship.
Poetry is rhythm
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if there is a moral to the story, it should be: never buy a piano for someone else to play without getting her input.
Yeah, it seems like communication was an issue in their relationship. Well, hopefully the piano was not the reason why they divorced...
![[Linked Image]](https://forum.pianoworld.com//gallery/42/medium/10968.png)
Music is my best friend.
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Stupid? The writing is too nice to support such a verdict. Actually, this is as lovely a specimen of the time-honored [since "Aesop's Fables," at least] Cautionary Tale, as I've ever enjoyed reading. And short, too. Anyone who has ever watched an episode of "I Love Lucy" or "Gilligan's Island," or even "Sex in the City" and "She-Devil" have tasted its timeless appeal. This one weighs in at five minutes--- why, you couldn't even read the headlines of "National Enquirer" and "Hollywood Confidential" in the express lane, in such a short time.
Yes, it is an old story, but, as yogi and sage have said through the millennia, "The light of the Self is ever-new." So, if you don't like the movie, don't blame the management for showing it. It will be on TV before you know it, and you can complain for free--- and in private.
Whether it's shopping for first pianos or first wives, nothing energizes the lesson like learning the hard way. If too many keys sound wrong--- or not at all--- add the bill for the first divorce to the asking price, and see if Bargain Basement still describes it. Or as Mae West observed, "She was a woman who climbed the ladder of success, wrong by wrong." Headed up or down--- does it really matter?
Nice watercolor. So few artists have ever bothered with rendering sheet metal.
Clef
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Stupid? The writing is too nice to support such a verdict. Actually, this is as lovely a specimen of the time-honored [since "Aesop's Fables," at least] Cautionary Tale, as I've ever enjoyed reading. And short, too. Anyone who has ever watched an episode of "I Love Lucy" or "Gilligan's Island," or even "Sex in the City" and "She-Devil" have tasted its timeless appeal. This one weighs in at five minutes--- why, you couldn't even read the headlines of "National Enquirer" and "Hollywood Confidential" in the express lane, in such a short time.
Yes, it is an old story, but, as yogi and sage have said through the millennia, "The light of the Self is ever-new." So, if you don't like the movie, don't blame the management for showing it. It will be on TV before you know it, and you can complain for free--- and in private.
Whether it's shopping for first pianos or first wives, nothing energizes the lesson like learning the hard way. If too many keys sound wrong--- or not at all--- add the bill for the first divorce to the asking price, and see if Bargain Basement still describes it. Or as Mae West observed, "She was a woman who climbed the ladder of success, wrong by wrong." Headed up or down--- does it really matter?
Nice watercolor. So few artists have ever bothered with rendering sheet metal. I have to admit that some of that's too metaphorical for me and I don't get it  .....but I get enough of it to think it's good.  I think the worst we can say is it's someone who at that stage of his life didn't realize that it's possible to look into things more than he did, and that sometimes you need to look more before you leap. At that age, I did a few things like that, and some of them turned out OK and fortunately none of them turned out as bad as this, but they could have.
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I agree that the article is quite well-written, maybe that's why the piano purchase made such an impact on me.
But I decided that if the author were here in front of me, I wouldn't want to say to his face that what he did was stupid, so there's no reason for me to say it at all.
Nevertheless, it was avoidable, and as someone for whom having an acoustic piano brightens beyond words my every day, it makes me sad to think that this sort of thing still happens.
Started piano June 1999. Proud owner of a Yamaha C2
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I agree that the article is quite well-written, maybe that's why the piano purchase made such an impact on me.
But I decided that if the author were here in front of me, I wouldn't want to say to his face that what he did was stupid, so there's no reason for me to say it at all.
The mistake wasn't stupid or pitiable. It just shows that most people don't know very much about pianos. One cannot and should not compare most people to those who frequent PW. Regular PW posters are piano super geeks and aficionados.
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My point, now back on the first page, was that, given all the information available online, and the fact that he looked online to find the piano that he eventually bought, it was a totally and completely avoidable mistake. Someone doesn't have to be a geek or aficionado to avoid buying a completely unusable piano.
I just googled "how to buy a used piano" and there are all kinds of excellent articles with advice.
Maybe what is needed is a definitive article that addresses "how not to buy a used piano"
Started piano June 1999. Proud owner of a Yamaha C2
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Oh, yes, the article is well written. The author is a fiction writer, so it had better be well-written. He's telling the piano story the way a fiction writer would tell a story: choosing the point of view, the mood, what to put in, what to leave out, maybe even doing what fiction writers do with real events to make them into literature.
Yamaha C3X In summer, the song sings itself. --William Carlos Williams
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Maybe this story is fiction, or fictionalized, and the piano really represents a failed marriage. Piano looks nice on the outside, has a few obvious flaws, but the author/character hopes it's nothing that can't be fixed with a little work; but then an expert says it's cheaper to buy a new piano. Did the character stubbornly court his first wife? Was the relationship rocky from the beginning; but the character hoped it might be fixed with a little work? Did they do couple counseling, and the counsellor said it might be better to move on, find new relationships? But did the first failed relationship nevertheless leave a mark in his "soul", like a piano being moved over pavement? I don't know. But I remember that in school, I was usually bad at interpreting short stories. 
My grand piano is a Yamaha C2 SG.
My other Yamaha is an XMAX 300.
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Did the character stubbornly court his first wife? Was the relationship rocky from the beginning; but the character hoped it might be fixed with a little work? Did they do couple counseling, and the counsellor said it might be better to move on, find new relationships? When you're in a relationship, there are complex issues of control, and questions of, "how do I make sure the other person won't leave?" The woman here had sacrificed things for her relationship (we all do, but in this case, she tried to use it as leverage to get the upper hand). As long as she sacrificed more, it was as if he "owed" her something. Maybe she reminded him of it verbally from time to time, even. That is why he could never satisfy her, because then he wouldn't "owe" her anything anymore, and she was afraid of that. The result was, he felt like everything he did to make her happy was wrong; very frustrating. There was also horrible communication: you shouldn't buy something at the limit of your budget without discussing it with your partner. It's the kind of thing that guarantees you won't be able to make her happy; as in this case, poor decision. The piano is a clear instance of the pattern that repeated itself over and over, and finally broke their relationship. Instead of trying to make her happy by buying her things, the author should have loved her and tried to understand her.
Poetry is rhythm
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