Having spent a disgusting amount of time checking out what I refer to as 'instrument porn' on the internet, I think I have narrowed the field to about four models. The field concerned is so massive and confusing that one wonders whether anyone has ever escaped it.
One thing that the multiple forum posts I have perused all agree on is that you have to go and physically play the things rather than drooling over 'spec sheets'. So I sponge the saliva from my computer keyboard and set course for Bonners of Reigate. A piano emporium catering to the needs of the modern connoisseur.
Now I am used to the frenetic pace and bowel loosening anxiety of the electric guitar showroom. Where lightning boys wank up and down the fretboard in dark corners, sweep picking away their middle years whilst penitents such as myself embarrassedly ask for 'a go' on whichever lump of hardwood and plastic is currently plotting to separate me from my credit rating.
I can hold my own on guitar but still succumb to 'guitar shop syndrome', where, upon picking up a prospective instrument, I instantly forget how to play even basic chords and a cold terror grips me as I wrestle with the baffling assortment of knobs and dials on unfamiliar amplifiers.
The shops are always busy and intense somehow.
Bonners was like nothing I have experienced before. A short distance off of the Dartford toll (which I am now filled with paranoia about.... have I payed? Are they watching my car with drones?) I arrive and am greeted by a seemingly empty temple to the art of piano forte and the gentle smell of well cared for wooden cabinetry.
eventually, through the maze of dazzlingly expensive grands, I find a lone shop assistant who it seems is very happy to just let me prat about with her expensive stock for over an hour.
I am sure that everyone within earshot is thoroughly sick of my multiple renditions of 'Easy like Sunday morning ' by the end. But the piano technician I speak to is very complimentary about my fledgling skills.
I am now off to pay my Dartcharge and to concoct some manner of brilliant scheme that will enable me to get one of these gorgeous creatures into my house by next February. Perhaps if I convince my wife that It will add value to our property and move her up in the all important social strata of our local primary school parental peergroup. I will promise her that it will make my hair grow back on the top of my head and stop sprouting from my nose like some tiny toilet brush was stuffed up there by an angry gnome.
No comments:
Post a Comment