Juggling Pianos

I play the piano. I've seen pianos open with their innards showing, their hammers exposed, their strings ready to be plucked by hand. I play a rather nice Steinway nearly every day. I've also played countless other baby grand pianos and - once - a big grand piano. I've seen piano keys taken out and put back in. I thought I had mastered the world of pianos.

But apparently the world of pianos is not the same as the world of keyboards.

In music today we were supposed to find a piano to share with someone else or a keyboard. Now, my school has six pianos in two rooms. We were in one room - the music room - so I thought I would have a better chance of getting a piano if I immediately went into the auditorium and claimed one of the two in there. However, a few other people had the same idea and I found myself mixed up in a crowd of four or five people, which is a lot of people when you only have two pianos. By the time I figured out what was going on both pianos were taken.

I bolted back to the music room and eyed the nearest (and worst) piano. There was only one person on the bench. But out of the corner of my eye I saw somebody else moving for it. Desperate, I launched myself at the piano bench, but, attempting to steer clear of people in the way, I missed. My competitor stared at me for a second with a somewhat worried look, then took a seat on the piano bench.

I quickly scanned the other three pianos, but they were all taken. Alas, I had no choice but to take a keyboard. There was no chance of me getting a spot on one of the pianos.

I waited in line for one of the nine or so keyboards that my school owns in addition to all the pianos. When it was my turn, only two remained: a broken one and one that was unusually large. Naturally, I was handed the unusually large one.

Handed is an understatement. In order to move that thing you needed to cradle it in your arms for extra support. Heaved would be a better word. At any rate, I was heaved the keyboard, and I grappled it, holding the large hunk of plastic with both hands and both arms.

It wasn't even that the keyboard was so heavy. On the contrary, it was rather light, and I had no trouble supporting its weight. But let me tell you, it was awkward. If I held it horizontally, it would crash into objects, people, and other keyboards as I walked, leaving a trail of ruin behind me. If I held it vertically, it would simply slide to the ground (that thing was slippery!). The only solution was an approximately forty-five degree angle. But what this lacked in inconvenience was made up for with awkwardness.

To carry a keyboard at a forty-five degree angle requires leaning slightly to the left while holding it more off to the right, taking the bottom with the right hand and supporting the top with the left. This causes a sort of limp-like walk, adorned by the occasional stumble. Even worse is what everybody knows will happen if you actually do stumble - and then fall. I don't want to be accused of manslaughter.

But I managed to carry - or lug - the keyboard to the nearest outlet, at which point I took an adapter, which had been balance precariously on the keyboard as I lugged it across the room. The teacher had put it there as I grappled the piano. I plugged the adapter into the outlet, unwinding the wire. I thought I had finally conquered the keyboard.

But when I looked for the familiar power plug on the keyboard, I found a smooth surface - they had put it somewhere strange. Back to the lifting of pianos, but this time I was on my back, holding it up with my legs while searching with my hands as well as eyes for the hole it plug the cord in.

I never did play that keyboard.

-Marianne