My Piano Buying HistoryWhen I was 8, my parents bought a brand new Yamaha console in Okinawa Japan so that my sister, my mother, and I could begin taking piano lessons. The Yamaha was a shiny brown upright piano that held our dreams. Prior to the Internet age --- the easiest way to buy a piano was to go to a shop to buy a new one. Everybody else in our cozy neighbourhood did it. In London, I longed for a piano to play after work. I saw a hand-scribbled note taped on the window of a local shop in Hackney: piano for sale for 75 pounds. It was too cheap not to notice. The owners needed the space and offered to move it. Before I could say yes, they offered to further discount it by 25 STG. For the first time, I realised that a piano could become a liability. This upright piano suited me until I moved again. Luckily it fitted in a van. By then, I wanted a better piano. Through the free ads newspaper Loot, I found an upright in Stoke Newington. As soon as I played it, I knew it was too mellow and old for me. With tears in her eyes, the 60-year old owner begged me to take it. That old black piano had been in her family for several generations. She couldn't keep it because she was getting married for the first time. Reluctantly I took the piano and the matching piano stool for 150 STG. After cleaning it thoroughly inside and out, I still didn't like it. I sold the piano minus the stool for 200 STG shortly thereafter. When I moved to Houston, I considered buying a grand piano but didn't have the space or the time (as I was only there for one year). I opted to rent a Baldwin upright instead. Returning to London in summer of 1997, I felt the urge to have a grand piano of my own. ..... to
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