After eleven years living, dancing, teaching tango, and writing in Buenos Aires, I came home to L.A. in 2014, where I'm reconstructing my life.

Friday, June 20, 2008

A Piano At Last!



I learned to read music before I learned to read words, before kindergarten. And so I grew up with a piano, the one my grandmother sacrificed to buy in the Depression for her children. It was a small upright, a "Crown." She paid $200 for it new in the 30's, and it followed me everywhere -- to UCLA, to my first apartment in Hollywood as a married woman, to the 70's when I antiqued it red, to my big beautiful home in Los Feliz, CA. But in 1978 I got a Knabe parlor grand, and sold the upright for--$200! to a young musician who was starting his own band.

My life has always included a piano. When I lived in San Miguel de Allende and my Knabe grand was in storage in L.A., I was able to get the key to a Bosendorfer concert grand in a hotel, and went there as often as possible to play.

I'm not a "musician," but an amateur who loves to play, a person who expresses herself through music, not to be heard but to play. What do I play? the blues, jazz, French music hall songs, tangos!

When my kids were little I accompanied them on their horns for scholarship auditions and recitals. One such moment being a high point of my life, and for which I took lessons for the first time in decades.

When I moved to Caballito in Buenos Aires, destiny united me with a woman in Martinez who had a studio upright for rent. A lovely piano I enjoyed so much for two years and which I tried to buy from her. But it wasn't to be, and so when I moved to Boedo on the 8th floor, I was without a piano for the first time ever. (The Knabe parlor grand was sold at auction when I moved to Argentina.)

This past February I was having a low point, and one night when I couldn't sleep, I went on line looking for a GEM RealPiano. Ruben and I heard one played one night at La Nacional by Los Reyes de Tango, and gosh if it didn't sound acoustic. So I searched where I might buy one here in Buenos Aires. I never even played an electronic keyboard, but the GEM seemed to be the answer to my prayers of getting a piano up all those flights of stairs.

No one in Argentina sells them though, and so I logged on to eBay--and bought one!!
To make a long story a little shorter, I had it shipped to my son Jason in L.A., and when I was there in April, I brought it home on the plane with me to Boedo.

A few little problems later, and voila! Now it's working, I'm playing, Ruben is singing, and I am SO VERY happy!!

5 comments:

Holly said...

Can´t wait to hear some french music hall and tango songs!

NYC Tango Pilgrim said...

I will sing along over some champagne and Ruben empanadas.

AlexTangoFuego said...

That's great Cherie! Isn't technology amazing!? Congratulations!

karey m. said...

buenos aires?! you lucky thing! so glad there's music in your home again. and the photo below? i love it so much. thanks for all of it...

tangocherie said...

Ah, you guys make me feel so good that you are happy for me!

One day there will be a fiesta here, full of asado and empanadas Tucumanas and live music with singing and dancing!

Just let me know the best dates for you!! :)
(Summertime might be good!)

Gosh, Alex, I DO so love technology!