Piano stores closing across US as fewer children taking up instrument, some deterred by cost

[Manifestor_of_Light]

146. I have an old upright.

I bought it in the Eighties. It's a 1925 Gulbransen and about a half step low. Five feet tall. It would be good for practicing because of the heavy action. Wooden keys with ivory tops. The soundboard is not cracked and it has the original strings, which is unusual.

Twenty years ago I bought a Kurz (Kurzweil) portable synth and that's my main practice piano. The default sound is classical piano and it's weighted. Not as heavy as the upright keys. Still works well. It also has a lot of other sounds in it should I want to compose MIDI stuff and I have Sonar (formerly Cakewalk) software to run it into a 24 track recorder.

I started lessons at five years of age because we were storing my grandmother's upright and she was still working. She had grown up in the days when everybody had an upright for home entertainment. She could play a bit by ear. I was fascinated and started messing on it. The parents didn't have any talent, but saw me messing around and got me a teacher and I took lessons for 12 years until I finished high school. Then a violin dropped into my lap when I was ten from an estate, and my piano teacher just happened to also be a violinist as well, which is rare. I took lessons on both instruments from him. And it gave me something social to do, starting in sixth grade orchestra. I was completely obsessed with violin for about 15 years and then got tired of it and put it away.

I think if I hadn't been in orchestra my teenage angst would have been worse than usual. It gave me an outlet. I was obsessed with classical music and still groove on it.

I think everybody who wants to learn music should start on piano because it's laid out in front of you, on a small portable keyboard.
And you learn about sharps and flats. Many different kinds of music use piano. I think with my hands in the air, what you'd call "air piano.". My brain will not function on guitar. It doesn't work. Wrong intervals. I am very auditory and kinesthetic.

I think learning an instrument is like doing anything else with your hands, only better. It integrates your brain. I continued the fiddling in college and in community orchestras. Went to music camps in high school and all that. Became a church choir director and piano player. I know that if I practice, it helps my brain and I literally feel much better after practicing. It's very satisfying to play and hear yourself get better. I would get depressed if I didn't have a piano to practice on. And I need to do it frequently, ideally every day.

I like old interesting pop songs like Gershwin and Rodgers and Hart and Kurt Weill, as well as Mendelssohn and Beethoven.

I can't imagine what my life would be like if we had not had that upright in our house back in the 1960s, because music is my religion. There have been several people on my mom's side of the family with musical talent, including a cousin of mine who was a professional trumpet player. One of my cousins has a heavy metal power trio that does weekend gigs.

Many of the people I have known in community orchestras were either mathematicians or programmers. Math and music go together. I don't see why some kid would learn Guitar Hero when they could get a real instrument and learn from a teacher or a book.

Music and science are not either/or. They go together. Albert Einstein was quite a good violinist.

I have always loved practicing. It was never drudgery for me. I think all kids should be offered music lessons. My husband's sister took lessons and had absolutely no concept of pitch or any talent, so his mom decided that since the first kid didn't like it, the second kid wouldn't like it either. He wished his mom had been smart enough to try him out on piano when he was young and get both hands going independently. You never know which kid will enjoy it and have talent.

He played the flute first and switched to the guitar when the Beatles hit America, and he's pretty good. He introduced me to good folk music like Peter, Paul and Mary. They had much more good stuff than just Puff the Magic Dragon and Leavin' on a Jet Plane.

As someone further up the thread said, a kid has to love it and have the discipline to practice. Starting on classical music is a good foundation for going into jazz or rock (like Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman or Jean Luc Ponty or Andy Summers of The Police).

Old pianos are often much better than the new ones. I wish I had room for an old Chickering or a Mason & Hamlin or something similar.

I met my former husband in orchestra. He played string bass, I played first violin. Our child took African drumming and guitar but she didn't really stay with either one. However, she has been exposed to enough good music of all kinds that she can recognize good bands. She once told me she really liked "Revolver" and I decided my music ed program of taking her to the opera (Hansel & Gretel, The Magic Flute, Porgy and Bess) and other things was a success.

And she does like some of the geezer rock that I grew up on in the 60s and 70s and 80s.