The piano company I went to sells a number of different brands of instruments, both new and used (and some vintage). Their stock appears to consist of Steinways, Mason & Hamlin (the type of piano I previously had), Yamaha, as well as some lower end pianos.

I played on every last upright in the building. There were a couple that caught my attention (a full-sized Knabe upright as well as a console by Charles Walter), but none that were the right combination of sound, touch/feel and price. I had just about given up and had even been thinking about trying a different store, when I walked past a 5'4" Chickering grand. As one of my favorite pianists (Glenn Gould) learned on a Chickering in his youth and proclaimed it to have been his favorite piano, I sat down at this one to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised to see it was priced under the top price limit I'd set for myself. And this was a GRAND! I was sure there had to be something wrong with it.

Now, I've not played many Chickerings, so I don't have a lot of points of comparison, but I have played on numerous pianos - probably hundreds, I'd guess - so I have enough experience to at least make an educated assessment. This one was so much better, it felt so much more "right," than any I'd played up to that point during my testing. (I mean, that 9-footer was great, but it certainly wasn't in my price range!) As I said, there were a few pianos in the store that I'd played earlier that would have been fine, but there was nothing I'd really fallen in love with.

So I played on the Chickering for a bit, tested the action in different areas of the keyboard, tried different dynamic levels, and just generally played everything I could to get a feel for the instrument. It was beautiful. It just sounded so rich and warm and though the keyboard felt a bit low-set it had a nice "give" to it. It wasn't too stiff or too loose, and was just generally good.

I'd found the Chickering after Mr. Piano Salesman had left the room to check on a price and when he came back down he gave me a sort of wry smile when he saw me playing it. He had the same reaction I did, though, upon looking at the price label and playing it himself. He high-tailed it back upstairs to check on the price (he was afraid it'd been mismarked) and returned shortly thereafter with the store's head technician.

The technician told us that the piano was built in the original Chickering factory in Boston in 1928, and he'd just recently taken it in on trade. So the price was - indeed - accurate. He said he felt the piano was in excellent shape for its age and would probably last me at least 20 years before it would need any rebuilding. When we asked about the lower price, the technician guy said it had more to do with the condition of the piano's cabinet (the wood parts) than it did with the quality of the instrument. In short, the piano is in fantastic condition for being 80 years old, and was obviously well-cared for by previous owners.

Now, this piano is not gorgeous in the way my old one was and in some ways that's a bit disappointing to me. The trade-off, however, is that I get a lovely-sounding, excellently-built grand piano, and for a price I can afford!

The truth is, I'm a teeny bit disappointed about the way it looks, because I'm really kicking myself now about selling my first piano. I know all the reasons I did it and at the time it was the right decision. I'm not sure, however, whether I'd do the same thing again, given the opportunity to do it over. The learning experience here is that being without a piano is no longer really an option for me.

Anyway, so I agreed to buy it on the spot, with the only condition being that I had to be sure it would fit in my apartment before committing 100%. So we got everything ready to go and they sent me home with a paper "template" of a piano that I can lay out in different ways.

So, as you might expect, the piano DOES fit. I didn't really have much doubt about this, but I did want to leave myself with a bit of an "out." Just in case. But I just called to tell them it's a go and now I'm waiting to hear from the piano movers to find out when they're going to deliver it.

I am SO. EXCITED. about this. I can hardly believe it!! I took a couple shots of the piano with my Blackberry Pearl's camera, but as the camera sucks, they didn't turn out very well. But I stuck them up on my Flickr account anyway, along with a couple shots (with my real digital camera!) of the template layed out in my apartment.

Here's one shot, the others you can see by clicking this image:

Rest assured, when the piano arrives there will be many, many pictures posted!

[Update 1.22.07, 10:30 am: I just spoke with the piano delivery company, and my piano will arrive between 8:30 am and 12:30 pm on Wednesday!!!)