A dream come true...

Michael's sister Karyn has been visiting with us for about three weeks.
She has forever been a GROUNDING FORCE in my musical world.  Yesterday we went to dinner at a restaurant I really like. The Water Front.  After a wonderful meal we walked to the NEW SOFETEL HOTEL...  She stood in this amazing lobby beside a grand piano.  "Would just play one tune?  Please?"  well, of course I would.

This piano is a Steinway & Sons Vintage 1875 grand.  Ivory KEYS!  This piano loves me!  I fell in love with it.  I have experienced pianos that actually hate me!!!  Laugh but, unless you are a pianist you would not understand what I mean...

Steinway's have a "personality".  Each and every Steinway is different...  just like people!  I have discovered over the years that all pianos "CHOOSE YOU!"  If you are a "sensitive" you will know if a piano loves or actually hates you.  Pianos are made out of such amazingly natural and sacred elements...  WOOD!  The frame and shape of a grand piano... metal, wool, the sounding boards are always the reflection of every composer...

Not many years ago we were looking for a car wash and drove by a piano shop.  Stopped... I could have had any piano I wanted.  Some were beyond my price range but, credit ratings help one to purchase such "black whales" of the deep seas and waters of music...  I played every piano in the shop and I could not stop going back to a KAWAI baby grand... this piano could whisper.  It could SING, it could clip clop, it could make liquid vibrations, dry sounds beyond imagination... Bartok, Prokoffieff... sparkle like stardust... Debussy, Beethoven, Schumann and a confussing sound that I associate with only Brahams...  Jazz was magic... it had everything I ever dreamed of a piano being able to give me and was half the price of the concert grand... I paid cash for it.  It sits by my bedside in WY.  It is an extension of my very being...  I bless my piano every autumn when I depart from her.  COLD DOES NOT HARM A PIANO!  HEAT IS LIKE OPENING THE JAWS OF HELL ON A PIANO.

Acoustic pianos only work with the "laying on of hands" and the vibrations we caress upon it's keys...  Piano are ultra sensitive... they long to be "TOUCHED"  "PLAYED"... if and just IF a pianist has the right "touch" a piano will respond like a LOVER.  It will reach out to you...

Today and last night I experienced such a glorious blessing.  My piano teachers in NY both have Steinway's...  the one I love is in Huntington NY on Long Island.  Carol Montparker owns a wonderful Steinway...  this piano thrills me.  I have performed Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Granados, Bach and Grieg at performance classes inside Carol's home on this gorgeous piano.  I always CHOOSE and only ONE PIANO when I am in her home.  She owns two Steinways...  The older piano loves me!  Years ago when I first played for Carol I chose this piano.  She warned me to NOT HAMMER THE KEYBOARD!  PLEASE DO NOT HURT THE PIANO!  I was a pretty well built man then and had about 15" arms...  How can you harm something that REACHES OUT TO YOU and WANTS AND DESIRES YOUR TOUCH???

The blog before this is about a young man that was pounding the hell out of a wonderful grand piano!
Read it.  I stopped him from destroying something delicate and yet stronger than anything in the universe.  Pianos paint STORMS, WINDS, LASHINGS OF LIGHTENING and POUNDING WATERS, one has to know how to 'touch" the keys... the greatest thing they express:  EMOTIONS.

When I talk about a piano and it's secrets I am speaking about:  the way a pedal will stick slightly if you press more toward the left or right.  How a certain key will DELAY or respond differently.  How it can caress and whisper to you without loosing it's voice.  The VOICE!  The language of GOD.  Music is the language angels use to communicate...

The piano at the Sofetel will be my new love affair for the next two months!

Every year one needs a WORD to get through the year... my word this year is SYNCHRONICITY...  last year it was two words:  acceptance and forgiveness...  I keep finding all kinds of mysteries unfolding before and around me.  Today when I was playing the Steinway a young Asian woman came up to me and said:  I love that piece of music.  I asked her: WHY?  Her eyes lifted toward the sky and she whispered something I did not understand.  I asked her again WHY?  She smiled and said:  You of all people should and do know!  I touched her hands and bowed.  She was right.  It holds the unexplainable emotions and life we cannot describe in words...  I hope I meet her again.

Meet me at the Sofetel some afternoon between 1 PM and 3 PM.  If your not there in person you are there in my thoughts...  magic is real.