Piano Music Scaling the Generations

The first significant purchase we made when we moved into our home over 34 years ago was a piano. I’ve always enjoyed the piano as a portal to joy, a means for entertainment, and an instrument for self-expression. I grew up with piano. My dad was the quintessential entertainer who never encountered a piano without the call to sit and make toe tapping music. Every summer, my family would drive to New York where my grandmother’s piano awaited the family reunion. Iconic sing-alongs etched me with familial celebration and centeredness. My dad couldn’t read a note of music, but boy could he play. Without fail, his magnetic presence hijacked a room every time he soulfully sang the old Irish ballads and then engage the room even more with his rendition of the Vaudeville hit from 1924, “Red Hot Mama.” 

Having a piano in our home was a must for me. I wanted to bridge the history of piano delight from my past and create such possibilities into my future. Our 4 children all took piano lessons. For some of them, exploring the magic of the keys was fruitful. For one of them, proficiency into the world of classical music landed him on a stage. For others, their tenure with piano lessons was a simply stone to step over. Although for them the passion didn’t stick, I wanted to at least expose my children into the world of piano. Even I revisited lessons far into my adulthood to pick up where I left off as a 12-year-old playing “Autumn Leaves” arpeggios across the expanse of the keyboard. The piano still draws me. Over the years, except for my occasional and very rusty revisit, our piano has been pretty much silent. That is, until now.

My 10-year-old granddaughter, Amelia has been taking piano lessons for a couple of years. Coincidentally, she is practicing on my dad’s piano which now sits in her family home. The keys are yellowed and the tone of the keys reveal age, but the magic of music capable from the old upright is alive and well.

Amelia visits my home quite often. Without fail, whenever she saunters in, she makes her way to the piano. Sometimes, she brings her piano lesson books eager to play her current lesson pieces. More often, however, she just sits and plays songs stored in memory or she might even pull some of my old sheet music to explore. There is nothing that gives me more heart joy than to be stilled by Amelia’s piano playing. I love to hear her mastered pieces, and I love to hear her chip away at some long-lost sheet music piece she finds tucked inside my piano seat storage. I sense playing the piano feeds her soul which feeds my soul as well.

Amelia doesn’t realize how much her piano playing is therapeutic for me. Every time her music fills my home, I’m mesmerized by the magic that happens when her fingers connect with the keys. 

I channel my dad knowing he would be moved to tears by the shared appreciation for the piano with his great granddaughter. For him, piano validated his place in the world. I see that now long after his passing which makes me so happy that Amelia’s tapping into her own magic in the world of making music. Piano has become a bridge for me, connecting two very different journeys across the ebony and ivory keys. As Amelia continues to grow into her beautiful self, I hope the piano will continue to be a source of creativity and commitment. I trust somewhere, somehow, my dad is listening.