Growing up we always had a piano. It was a Campbell upright, and the three of us boys all took lessons and enjoyed exercising whatever talent was allotted to each. The oldest, Bob, was probably the most talented, with Allan a close second. As for me - well, in the span of a few months I managed to flunk lessons but still tinkered by ear. Even wrote a few songs, using mostly majors and triads. Ironically, of the three of us I was probably the one who enjoyed playing the most in spite of the fact that I never really learned to read music, and easily could be classified as the least talented of the brothers.
And I played every day, making use of whatever my limited talent would allow. I played church songs (How Great Thou Art being popular at home, as it was Mom's favorite hymn) and developed my own arrangements on songs, or snippets of songs, that were popular at the time, all by ear. Probably the most enduring piece has been one I wrote from scratch named "Trash". Not because the song was trash, but because I used three chords from a PSA on television featuring Ed Ames, who, portraying an Indian, was seen serenely canoeing down a river. After pulling ashore the camera angled down to show a bunch of trash being thrown at his feet. Then there was a closeup of his face, with tears streaming down in despair at what was being done to his native land. I took the three chords and expanded the song to include majors, some minors, and triads across the span of about three octaves, with a flourish at the end.
The piano was located in what we called the playroom of the house, where it could be heard clearly in the living spaces. However, after my two older brothers were out of the house at college, I inherited the back bedroom and wanted to move it there. I was a full-blown teenager and liked the privacy to do my own thing apart from whatever else was going on. But Mom absolutely would not allow it, saying that she liked hearing me play and wanted it to stay right there in the playroom. So there it stayed...for a little while.
One day after school a friend named Ronnie Mason was over, and I recruited him to help me in a scheme to get that piano moved anyway. Mom slept hard in her living room chair during the afternoons, and I saw my chance. Problem was, the only route we could take was through the living room right in front of her! And we discovered that the wheels underneath squeaked a bit. No matter, we'll just go slowly enough, and maybe she won't wake up...besides, there's not much fun in a project if there's no risk. So Ronnie and I very carefully moved the piano away from its place next to the wall in the playroom, and lifted it up one end at a time to negotiate a step leading into the living room. Once there we began to slowly roll it across the carpet, using hand gestures to direct each other in making adjustments.
Thus it was that we slowly rolled the creaking piano not two feet in front of Mom's sleeping form until we'd made it clear across the room. Breathing sighs of relief, we continued on course. The only other problem encountered was a corner that was too tight for us to round at the end of a hallway, so we had to tip it over on its side before the final stretch.
It was at this moment that Mom woke up!! We heard her get up from her place on the chair and head in our direction. My gosh, how do we handle this?? In a split second we decided to stand right next to each another between the piano and the open portion of the hallway, hiding it as much as our bodies would allow (Ronnie was big and fat, which helped). As she came around the corner we stood there as nonchalantly as possible, even giving her a cursory wave as she passed us by. To our relief she was either sleepwalking (common in our family), or was so out of it that she didn't notice our presence. Either way, she walked into her bedroom and closed the door.
It wasn't until two days later when Mom expressed surprise that she was hearing me play from another part of the house. Fortunately there was no showdown, and the piano stayed in my newly-acquired bedroom for the duration. It was there that I mustered the concentration necessary to sit down and actually write down Trash, or what I could of it considering my lack of education. One of these days I'll dig it out and sell it for a million dollars...
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