The Various Uses for a Grand Piano

You always thought that pianos were for playing on. There is an alternative and conventional view that they are very nice pieces of furniture that should be protected, especially from children. A musical version of a Rolex watch. Both are examples of a failure, as we executives say, “to think laterally” or "to think out of the box". That’s another expression that I have always wanted to use. Just don't ask me what it means.

The Bechstein piano, made by German engineers, was designed to withstand the poundings of energetic but non-German pianists such as Liszt and Chopin. They were designed to be indestructible, although I was informed by my U.S. neighbour downstairs, that in the contest between a Steinway and the U.S. East Coast Floods, the floods win. The Germans had not thought of that one. Room for improvement here.

There are other alternative uses for a Bechstein, other than as a piece of furniture or as a musical instrument.

For those of you interested in the history of our particular piano (and for those of you who are not), it was originally sold by Harrods in1937 and restored by Kevin Rowley and his colleague Richard, in 1998 for yours truly, before being driven back through Germany in 2006, probably directly past the factory where it was built, and onwards to Chez Grumpy in Thalwil.

You may wonder how a Bechstein is taken up to a second floor apartment. Easy. You find four big chaps, take the legs off the piano and they carry it up the stairs. And I thought that they would get a crane and sling it through the window.

Back to the story and a bit of lateral thinking or thinking outside the box.

The top of the Bechstein makes for a very good desk surface, when you want to work standing up. That difficult letter that you wish to compose or the report on which you need to concentrate are both best carried out on the wings of a grand piano - I think that there is a pun in German here, but I am not too sure.

The main use to which I put my Bechstein, other than driving the neighbours crazy for one hour a day with Chopin’s third ballade, is for doing jigsaws. This is not normally considered as a musical pastime, but is nonetheless a very worthy use of such a fine piece of engineering. The height is perfect, the pieces can be spread out, a 70 by 30 mm jigsaw sits neatly on the top and allows more than one person to work on it at a time, providing they can agree on who does which part. (I can never be bothered with edges to start with, despite the conventional wisdom on this topic.)

 

I don’t know if this works as well with other grand pianos. But I am going to see if I can sell the idea of a new advertising slogan to the makers of Bechsteins.  “Do a jigsaw - get a Bechstein”.  

As a final grammatical note, I am reminded that the spelling is Bechstein and not Beckstein, with an “h”, not a “k”. I don't remember who pointed out to me the error of my linguistic ways, but I am sure that he or she is on this mailing list - hands up those of you who knew the right spelling. Hands up those of you who don't care.