Five Stick Friday

I just finished an hour on my Mom’s piano. It’s a 1967 Chickering Spinet. It was the very first set of keys I ever touched when I was 4 years old. It seems piano has always been a “thing” for us. My cousin, Lina Franklin Ambrose, who herself became a piano teacher, started teaching me shortly after I was walking, so I guess I touched those keys around 2. I stand corrected.

Mom’s piano has been my therapist since I sat down to formal piano lessons in 1969.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t cut out for formal learning and quit my lessons in the 2nd grade. I felt like my teacher cheated me out of one of those little ”mini-statues” of composers you get when you earn it after so many lessons. I wasn’t having it. My Mom said, ”Well, if you’re going to quit, you’ll have to call (teacher’s name) yourself!” ( believing there was no way I’d do it) And then sat in mild horror when at 7 years old I did exactly that. Reference my other posts about “fairness” and you’ll understand. I needed a teacher like Lou Ann Knight.

My brother David Henry played 3 years ahead of me. He was (and is ) an accomplished player, and my desire to “keep up with him” kept me playing without a teacher.

By my early teenaged years, I played for a minimum of an hour a day. Mostly pop… I still say Elton John and Billy Joel were my real piano teachers. Though I could play almost any Elton John. And Billy Joel’s hardest stuff I still can’t play. Let there never be a debate between those two who the better “piano technician” is… not even close.

When I started dating around the 10th grade, that piano was subjected to happiness, anger, confusion, glee, and sometimes just took a downright beating. Again, it was my therapist.

Robert Carter took a chance on me and let me play with the first edition of a “Jazz Band” DHS ever had. I grinned when the first chart he handed me was “Just The Way You Are” from Billy Joel. I didn’t even need it, except to keep up with measure numbers.

I spent a few tormented hours playing through the decision to take a music scholarship to Belmont in Nashville or go to Georgia Tech for an engineering degree. Tech won out and I never second guessed. My “therapist” had approved.

The piano and I went on hiatus while I went to Georgia Tech and rarely came home. I worked in Columbia, SC in Summer and Winter quarter, and went to school Fall and Spring… so it sat in Dalton without me.

My Mom gave it to me in 1994 when Laurie and I moved to Atlanta from Dalton. I played as much as I could, but when Erin was born in 1995, I couldn’t keep the hours I’d grown accustomed to.

In 2005, I used it to arrange “I Can Only Imagine” for my friend Jil Cain’s funeral after a drowning accident. My tears were all over those keys. One of the most emotional memories I have of playing it.

Around 2006, Mom decided she wanted it back in Dalton. And we moved it back to her home there. I replaced it with a Yamaha Digital in my studio downstairs and it kinda wasn’t the same as having real hammers hit real springs.

Around 2009, I started Erin on theory with 1-3-5 major triads and the circle of fifths.Then minor triads. Diminished. Augmented. Then major and minor 7ths. Suspension and resolution. She soaked it up like a sponge. But the “real” piano was in Dalton and she played it every chance she got when visiting her “Gran”.

It was in her home when she passed away in July of 2011. That Fall, I got to her house early for her Estate Sale and played it for hours while grieving my Mom. Then David and Jessica’s Twins came along and they jumped right on it, too.

Davis and I didn’t spend much time on a piano and I’m not sure why. And now he’s the most accomplished of all of us… so maybe he was on to something. He played a lot of soccer and really didn’t show much interest. My how that changed. He played a duet at his girlfriend’s ( Sarah Grace Battles) recital just last week.

When my brother moved to Ecuador in Summer if 2021 it came back home to me.

And tonight… I put in an easy hour just thanking God for a good season.

My piano is now 56 years old. I’m 59. While an inanimate object, it’s been a source of refuge my whole life.

I’ve come to grips it will not go to Portugal with me. One of my two kids will take it into the next generation.

And perhaps they’ll have kids someday…that bleed their heart and soul into it… and yes it can be their therapist.

So I’ve got two or so years left with the family piano. I plan on making the best of them.

And look forward to seeing who it will bless next. I doubt it’s worth much commercially. But to me? Priceless.

I’m digging through old photis now that this inanimate member, the 6th Henry if you will, has appeared in over 56 years. It’s a sweet walk down memory lane.

And until we step out the door to Portugal, it will stay right here…with me.