Resurrected!

This is truly a picture of joy. A good old friend of mine (not the piano tuner, though he is a friend as well) is being brought back from 2 decades (!) of hibernation.

My mother bought this piano in the early 1970's, before I was born. I started to play when I was 5 years old and managed to become a junior national champion at the age of 15. I could have continued to the conservatory but due to "circumstances beyond my control" I was not able to. But that is, of course, in the past. Eventually I left the country and the piano was left behind. And without anyone to look after it while I was gone, humidity, insects, and rust took its toll on the poor thing. I already had thoughts of scrapping the whole thing altogether. Fortunately my old piano teacher Teofilo was able to source a very good piano repairman and tuner from Manila who offered to repair the instrument for twelve thousand pesos (roughly NOK 1500).

Now I have yet another reason to look forward to going home in the weekends! I get to see my family, the cats, and play music, something I have not done in a really long time. I will probably be very rusty in the beginning and will probably make lots of mistakes. But with patience and lots of practice I am sure I will be able to play my favorite Chopin nocturnes and Mozart sonatas again. With thousands of hours of piano playing behind me, playing the piano is a lot like riding a bike: you never really forget how to do it. But to be good at it is, of course, another matter.

I'll be sure to post a video of myself playing as soon as I feel comfortable with the instrument again. So stay tuned.