The keyboard from heaven

Today I had a meeting in Covent Garden, so I decided to take a stroll down to Denmark Street. I usually like to have a look in all the shops and try out the guitars. I used to have a bit of a guitar fetish and at one stage had quite a decent collection. Nowadays I hardly get to play the guitar, as I spend so much time on the piano. In my basement I have a lovely piano. It's old, out of tune, the pedals are rubbish and it's in a bad condition, but I love it. I've had it now for many years, I taught myself to play on it in fact.

When you're a guitarist, you're always looking at new guitars. They are not massively expensive (apart from the very high end ones), they are easy to store, you can even hang them on the wall. As a pianist I don't think I've ever looked for a new piano. Not only because they cost thousands of pounds, but because they usually weigh the same as a small horse. Similarly I've never been interested in keyboards, I don't like the flimsiness of them. They are generally lightweight, the keys are usually plastic and they look crap. Today everything changed, in a dramatic and presently depressing manner.

Today, for the first time I fell head over heals in love with a keyboard. For dramatic effect I will talk about it as if it were a lady, the kind of thing people do when they talk about a new car or a yacht. Her name was the Korg SV-1, she had 88 keys and made me go weak at the knees (the rhyme was not intentional). I could go on describing her, but as they say, a picture speaks a thousand words, here is the link to Korg's website.

http://www.korg.com/product.aspx?pd=562

I really really really really really really really want one. I don't just want one in fact, I need one. It's all that I can think of and I can't shake it. I played it for about 5 minutes in the shop, stopping after realising there was a very good chance that I was singing/crying loudly to myself whilst playing. People were looking at me, it all went a bit weird. I left the shop disheartened after learning that they had none in stock. Neither did the 4 other shops that I phoned in the West End area. I might offer my services to Korg as their international sales person, I think that I could do a sterling job for them, if only I could stop myself from weeping ever time I saw it. I can guarantee that it would be the only thing that I played on stage.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my feelings with all of you. Here to close this email is a youtube clip of one of my favorite pianists Frank McComb playing it and talking about his similar love affair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-VptOv7I-g

Ta ta for now (ttfn)