In the basement of Mohn Hall, between the kitchen and the ping-pong table, lives a piano. Upon it is a framed sign pleading, “Please LOVE this piano.” But, I must confess, I do not love it.
I’m sure the sign is merely asking us not to beat up the piano or spill a drink on it. While I will never do these things, I can’t call my feelings towards the Mohn piano love. I am not filled with the malicious desire to empty my water bottle on it, but that is not love; that is only common courtesy.
You see, this piano has committed what I think of as an unforgivable sin for pianos — one of its keys does not work. Specifically, it’s the B key closest to middle C, which makes the sound of silence.
The fact that I don’t know exactly what to call this key proves how unseriously I take my piano playing. It’s just something I do for fun. I practiced in my garage when my family kept an upright piano in there before moving it into our house. Now it’s in our house, but I’m often lazy and play sitting criss-cross applesauce on the bench. Point being, I have no business being this snobby about the Mohn piano.
Are there solutions? Yes. I could shift up or down an octave to find the B keys that actually work. I could relish in blaming the Mohn piano for how horrible I sound rather than myself. But I simply would prefer to hike somewhere else to find another piano.
I admit that this is a me problem, not the piano’s problem. I’m sure this instrument is trying its best. If I were a piano that had to live in the Mohn basement, wedged in a corner behind a ping-pong table, with a key that did not work — well, I would want someone to love me, too. I might even muster the courage to put myself out there with a sign saying “Please love me!” Perhaps one day I will grow to love the Mohn piano. But for now, I just look at the sign it so hopefully displays and think, “Sorry.”