Piano practice at a grand piano

The auditorium here in campus has a wonderful Yamaha grand piano which has been around for as long as I can remember. Sadly, I believe it rarely gets ever played unless there is a (classical) musical performance at the auditorium, which in itself is a rare event. I remember playing on it in my high school days and well into my college years when our high school choir (they kept me on as their accompanist for special occasions) would perform there in choral competitions.

I myself have an old upright piano here at home which still sounds good but whose keys get stuck more often than I like that I now prefer to play my Yamaha P-80, which of course sounds great. But I still sorely miss playing on a real piano, especially a grand piano. I simply love the tone (especially in the lower and upper registers) that one can't get out of an upright piano. I like the fact that when you hit the lowest A or the highest C, you can still tell it's an A or a C. Then there's the feel of the keyboard vibrating as you hit chords, something that I don't get when playing my P-80.

I had so missed playing a grand that I was ecstatic when the committee in-charge of cultural events here at the university approached me last year and asked me to practice at the grand piano to keep it in tune. Apparently they had recently forked out some funds to have all three pianos--there was also an upright and a Chickering baby grand--at the auditorium tuned and needed to keep the pianos in tip top shape as long as possible.

But as much as I looked forward to playing the grand piano there, I could barely get away from work to practice. So far I've been over to the auditorium to practice just three times these past nine months since I was first invited.

The last time though was just yesterday. As usual, I had to ask the caretaker to bring the piano bench out of storage (it's always put away for fear it would be stolen) and open the back doors to provide light and ventilation (the piano is kept backstage where it's dark and stuffy). I had to practice also despite the racket going on because there were some students hammering away on the stage trying to take apart some props from a recent theatrical performance. But I did manage to practice satisfactorily. My fingers were rather stiff though, especially those in my left hand. I got carried away practicing that I didn't notice that more than two hours had lapsed since I started. I had to cut short whatever I was playing then, close the piano and rush back to my office hoping nobody had noticed I was gone for a long time. He-he.