Recently there was a photograph on Facebook of this beautifully designed grand piano. That reminded me of an article in the WSJ’s Off Duty section, how designers are using grand pianos, especially baby grands in their interior designs.
Growing up we always had a piano as part of our families evening entertainment. I’m talking pre-television, where after dinner we would sit in the living room, and listen as my father played for hours. He was an excellent pianist. His repertoire included, classical music, light classical, popular music, and even jazz. He read music, and he played almost every day that I remember, from my childhood until he died, when he was in his late nineties.
Our piano was an upright, which differed from the grand pianos in the article. It’s more compact than a grand, and didn’t take up too much space in the living room, which was not very big. The only difficulty with uprights, is when you have to move them to another location, which happened when I was in high school. We were living on the top floor of a five-flight walk-up apartment, and moving to a two family, second floor apartment just around the corner. All of our furniture and belongings were easily moved by traditional movers. The piano had to be moved by piano moving specialists. Unlike a baby grand piano where you can remove parts and slim down the piano, making the move easier, upright pianos were a different story. Also, with everything essentially in tacked, the piano was very heavy. So, when the movers came they first had to take out the entire living room window frame, then build a hoist from the roof above, a ramp in the living room to the window, then swing the tethered piano out the window, and lower it to the yard, five flights below. Now, this was almost an all-day project, to be repeated again at the new apartment. You can why designers are using baby grand pianos.
I always sat next to my father, on the piano bench when he played. Naturally I became interested in playing, so he taught me, and how to read music. After a while I was composing short pieces. As I grew older, I wanted to learn another instrument, the trumpet, or even the drums. Now where we lived, we had lots of neighbors with open windows. Air conditioning wasn’t available, so my father figured the sound of those two instruments, would probably disturb everyone.
I was very lucky that my father never just said no to what I wanted. There was always a reason, and he always explained why I couldn’t get what I wanted. On this occasion, he used an elitist tactic. He first explained that of all the musical instruments, the violin was the most difficult to learn. It got better. Also, in a symphony orchestra, the first violin was the most important member. If, for any reason the conductor couldn’t perform, then the first violin would conduct. So, I played the violin for eight years, and was a hit with all the neighbors, especially during the summer. After a while I gave it up to pursue other interests. I didn’t realize at the time, how music would play a part in my later life.
During my first position as a layout artist, because of the Vietnam war, I decided to join an Army Reserve unit that was stationed in Manhattan. The unit was the 77th Division, and before I left for six months of training, I was going to serve in some part of the signal corps. Before training started, I was giver a battery of tests to see what I was best suited for. One was listening to morse code. Now, from scouting, I was acquainted with morse code, but not on the level the Army wanted. It was a simple test. I listened to several letters in morse code. Then, they started to repeat them in different sequences, and at a slowly increased speed. It was only half way through basic training, when I learned that I passed the test. My father called, and told me the FBI was in our neighborhood, and investigating me. I knew then that, one of the requirements of becoming an “Intermediate Speed Radio Telegraph Operator,” was that I had to have a top-secret clearance.
It was during the ten weeks of radio school, that I finally found out how difficult it was. To graduate you had to send, and receive sixteen words a minute. Now, that doesn’t sound that hard. But this is the reality. Each word is made up of five random letters. All messages were encoded. So, sixteen words, multiplied by five characters each word, equals eighty characters per minute, or three-quarters of a second to hear each character. Now, that’s almost impossible to comprehend, unless your programed to respond automatically, without thinking about it. My class started with six-hundred soldiers, only fifty of us graduated. I don’t know if my musical background was the determining factor in my being able to qualify, but I’m sure it helped.
The other part of my life that my musical background helped, was when I began my career in post- production sound. First as a sound mixer, or how it’s actually titled, re-recording engineer, then when I became a Supervising Sound Editor, or a Post-Production Supervisor.
I guess, you really never know, how those musical lessons are going to influence your life.
