The World's Longest Grand Piano.. is in Dunedin??

The sign jutting out onto the street did indeed state that ‘The Worlds Longest Grand Piano’ was there. I still didn’t believe it. The longest grand piano… on Earth?? Here in Dunedin? Ridiculous… That’s ridiculous.

I headed up the narrow driveway, just to the side of a big old building that is surely haunted, and went to knock on the big garage door. After a few moments, a friendly fellow opened it and welcomed me in. He introduced himself as Adrian, and I would have responded if I wasn’t completely gobsmacked by what stretched out before me. The Worlds Longest Grand Piano, like something out of a fictional story, lay there in the centre of the room. A majestic sight, to the say the least. I glanced at Adrian, astonishment probably ripe on my face. “You built this?” Adrian chuckled. “Yep, I built it.” How the heck..? How does one even start building a piano, not to mention the world’s LONGEST!? “Can I .. play it?” I asked. “Yeah go for it!” He said.

I sat before it - the Alexander Piano - and didn’t even know what to play. I felt almost unworthy. Under-practiced. I teased a few keys, and the notes spun out of the piano and filled the room whole, resonating like sonic gold. It sounded wonderful. And felt wonderful, too; the tone of the piano seemed to sink into my bones. Excitement began burrowing into my fingers, and I found myself launching into one of my groovier numbers. My hands glided about the keyboard as if they had grown minds of their own, improvising in the middle section. Jazz. Before I could stop myself, I twanged a note that didn’t belong, and soiled the lovely music like mud on a white gown. I stopped in a heartbeat. 

No.. I can’t have. I need more practice…  I rose awkwardly from the stool and looked away from the majestic piano. How foolish of me! Go ahead and to get too excited, improvise something ugly on the Worlds Longest Grand Pi.. “What was that you were playing? It was really nice!” Adrian commented with a wide grin. A compliment? That was so bad! “Oh, haha, it’s just an original. I played it pretty badly actually. I need more practice.” I started teetering toward the large door, half embarrassed. I couldn’t stay after muddying a song like that on the Worlds Longest Grand Piano, and in the presence of the guy who built it! It probably has a memory, that piano. It will remember today - the day I played a wrong note. It will remember it forever! “I gotta go,” I told Adrian, opening the door to leave. 

I was halfway out the door when I heard words I never expected to hear. “Do you want to record on this piano?” It must have been about 5 seconds before I turned to face Adrian, dumbfounded. Despite my recklessness to try and improvise on this piano and mess it all up, it was still acceptable enough to perhaps record. No. It definitely wasn’t. But… “Yeah! Yeah definitely man!” I replied. 

I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. I couldn’t say no to recording on the Worlds Longest Grand Piano.

— — — 

I marched back down the road towards my flat. It was only 5 minutes away. Of all the places in the entire world where the Worlds Longest Grand Piano could be hiding, it happened to be 5 minutes up the road from where I now lived… And now I was going to record on it! An album? Yes, definitely an album. A collection of my best tunes. A smile grew on my face, but was quickly taken down when I remembered my pitiful attempt at improvising on that piano. I had so much work to do to even consider recording on it. Practice. Hours and hours and hours of practice. That was one of my aims for the year anyway - to make practicing piano somewhat of a full time job. Well, now I had a project to work towards. 

I descended into ‘the pit’ - an apt name for our flat, sinking into a dingy corner of an old Dunedin building - and snuck into my little room before I was noticed. I was ready to sit right down and launch into my practice routine, but I couldn’t help but notice that my room was a bore. It was just a plain old room. It wasn’t a creative space. If I was hoping to make practicing piano a full time job, I needed to make my space inspiring - somewhat of a sanctuary; a place that invokes deliberate practice, creativity and improvement. So that was my first task. It was a small room, but I had a vision for what it could look like slowly bubbling up to the surface of my mind’s eye. Yes… Some lamps, pictures on the wall, a hang-over… It could look really nice. 

Within the hour, and after playing some music just for fun (there is a difference between practicing the piano and simply playing the piano), I found myself driving to Restore - one of those second hand stores that seems to have just the right thing you are looking for at just the right time. I made my way into the cluttered room and quickly picked out the perfect lamp for my space. With a little table near the base, the lamp-stand rose up in twisting vines of wood, reaching to hold the lightbulb at the top. I find that lamp-light is a much warmer tone and provides a more relaxing feeling to the creative space, much more so than an ordinary light. This one was perfect. I purchased it for 8 dollars. 

Next stop: somewhere with a printer. It took a bit of scouting around Dunedin’s main stretch, but I eventually found an Internet cafe with a printer right at the front, sputtering out documents as if it hated the taste of paper. It was a mess of a place, in a cramped box-like room, with stuff piled on more stuff haphazardly on the far wall. I took a seat at one of the computers, seemingly old for this day and age, and went ahead searching for images of my favourite jazz piano players. Cory Henry, Jacob Collier, Bill Laurence, Shaun Martin, Herbie Hancock… I had these legends on the wall of my last creative space, but had since lost those photos. It costed me 2 dollars to print them out at this dozy internet cafe - more than worth it, to have them grace my practice sessions once again. 

With the lamp and the photos of my idols in tow, I returned to my room, ready to give it a spruce up. The lamp slotted nicely next to my keyboard, and I decorated the wall with the photos as well as some other images and scenes - art pieces from Aunty Jean, and the paintings of Graham Brinsley which we had found in Arrowtown, depicting scenes of the South Island. It looked groovy. But not quite as cozy as I imagined - the roof of the room was too high. I could solve that… Digging into my stuff on the shelves, I pulled out a spare sheet that would have been clumped in there forever otherwise, and tried to figure out how I could hang this over the space. I tried duct tape first, pinning the corner of the sheet to the corner of the room with a thick wad of tape and going to do the same for the next corner, only for the weight of the sheet to rip off the tape and cover my keyboards and lamp like icing on a cake. My flatmates Tommy and Miran wondered why I was building a play-fort in my room…  

After several tries, I eventually found a hammer somewhere and nailed the sheet to the corners of the room, tying up the loose corner with a bit of string. The huge sigh I let out was almost enough to blow the sheet down again. Thankfully, it stayed. I wasn’t sure how it was going to look in the end - perhaps a little clumsy, or unkempt, I thought. But surprisingly, it looked amazing, and provided a tremendous sense of coziness. It turned my space into a bubble.

And just like that, I had a creative space. I space uniquely my own that I could escape to, seek refuge in, be inspired by, and work on my creative projects. Most importantly, it looked so warm and inviting, that when I went in to sit in front of my keyboard, I didn’t want to leave. I could find myself practicing here all day, and not even notice that the sun had already set. I see this to be such an important part of practicing a craft and being creative within our chosen field - to have the perfect creative space that reflects our own inner flare and brings the best out of our practice and creative sessions. My goal was to practice piano for 4 hours a day, to grapple with the process of Mastery. In this space, it was absolutely possible. 

My fingers sat idly on the keyboard. Now, I’ve got an album to work towards. Ideas were already flooding my mind, and I wondered when I would next play on the Worlds Longest Grand Piano. I intended to be a lot better by then… No more mistakes!! 

So, I pulled open my laptop, and loaded the online metronome. I start every practice session with scales. And Hanon.