Upright Pianos

by D. Brent Sauser, AIA
July 6, 2021

I can’t recall exactly when singing became something I liked doing.  Is that something 10-year-old, fifth graders are into?  It was, at least, for me.  Singing was fun.  Other boys would shy away from singing, but not me.  Singing in the elementary school choir was a thrill for me to be with many of my friends and sing popular songs of the day.  But it all came to a crashing stop early one spring morning.

           Glenn L. Martin Elementary school was named after a famous local aviator, which I thought was kind of cool.  It was located, literally, behind our back yard.  All I had to do was hop over the back fence and I was in the school playground.  I could make it to the classroom door in less than three minutes.  The school comprised four long rows of classrooms connected by a covered walkway.  It was all open-air and was perfect for weekend roller skating and games of hide and seek.  I attended Glenn L. Martin Elementary School from kindergarten through sixth grade.  Near the parking lot was a large multi-purpose building.  In my early years there I recall the multi-purpose building serving as a cafeteria for noon lunches, complete with a kitchen.  It even had a large stage for performances.  I took a brown bag lunch to school, so I didn’t have much of an occasion to buy a lunch.

I believe it was my fourth grade year that a local school bond issue failed (again).  The multi-purpose building was soon renovated to serve as a mega-classroom, more than three times the size of a regular classroom.  No more cafeteria lunches.  This would be my fifth-grade classroom, along with a herd of other fifth graders.  Glenn L. Martin offered the opportunity to sing in the school choir for all fifth and sixth graders.  Since I was now a fifth grader, I jumped at the chance to join.  I didn’t even mind getting up an hour earlier to be there on time.  After all, I could still make it in under three minutes by hopping over my backyard fence.

We would practice every Wednesday morning.  Miss Clark was a very patient choir director.  She had a way of directing that would help us know if the next note was higher or lower.  It helped me learn to understand how musical notes work.  We would practice in the multi-purpose building in a space that didn’t required moving any of the desks.  The upright piano would need to be moved into position where Miss Clark and the accompanist could see each other.  A couple of sixth grade boys were assigned to carefully move the piano into position and return it to its place of storage after each practice.  I loved the variety of music Miss Clark chose for us to sing in preparation for the year-end performance.  Wednesdays were my favorite day of the week.

As the time approached for the school performance the Wednesday choir practices were going longer than usual.  It was during one of these practices that rehearsal went too long.  The class bell rung indicating students should be lining up in front of their respective classroom doors.  The multi-purpose room students were eager to get inside, while we all scurried to clean up.  I noticed the two sixth grade boys assigned to move the upright piano had left it in place, choosing instead to hurry to class. I thought to myself, I can move the upright piano back myself.  I walked up to it and gave it a good look and started pushing from the middle of the piano and well above the center of gravity, about music stand height.   As I gave it a mighty shove I noticed the upper portion was moving faster than the lower portion, so much so that it began to tip over without any help from me.  I quickly grabbed the closest thing to help counter the momentum, but it was too late.  A second later the most horrible, resounding 88 key chord echoed throughout the huge volume of the multi-purpose building.  All heads turned with eyes squarely fixed on me, standing there with two broken pieces of wooden music stand in my hand.  I was motionless.  The awful chord hung in the air for what felt like forever.  Finally, Miss Clark yelled out to get the principle.  Luckily, no one was near the piano as it tipped over so there were no physical injuries.  I was mortified.  My attempt at a good deed turned out terribly wrong.  To say the least, upright pianos don’t sound very good after being tipped over.  Several adults came to the rescue and stood the piano back upright and slowly moved it back to its stored position.  Throughout that day and for many days following Miss Clark was quick to flash me the stink eye.

It wasn’t too long after that the principle and a few others invited themselves into our home to demand that my mom pay for fixing the piano, not an unreasonable request I thought.  However, instead of consenting my mother asked them a few questions like: “Why did you allow one fifth grade boy to move the heavy piano on his own?”, and, “Who was in charge of supervising the piano?”, and, “Where were the sixth grade boys who were assigned to move it?”, and, “Whose fault was it that rehearsal ended so late?”, and, “Why is Brent being singled out for trying to help out?”.  She mentioned a few other things that seemed to get their attention, so much so that they excused themselves without any expectation of reimbursement from us, of any kind.

I’m not sure if I learned any lesson at the time.  Not sure even now, except, perhaps that sometimes things don’t quite work out the way you planned, even if you did have good intentions.  That doesn’t mean don’t do them.  It means putting greater thought into the planning before proceeding.