This Is My Piano...

...there are many like it, but this one is mine.


Say hello to my Acrosonic (by Baldwin) console piano.  I love playing piano and so my Grandmother gave this beauty to my family a few years ago.  Before that, I played a Roland xv88 keyboard which I still have in my garage.  I had the Acrosonic moved from Springfield, Missouri to my home in Los Angeles.  I hear that Grandmother really misses playing it and the way it sounds.

[Acrosonic Piano] [Canon 7D] [EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM] [10mm] [f/9] [1/8"] [ISO-1600]

In 1992, I spent the summer after my freshman year in college at my Grandmother's house and played this very instrument all the time.  I did not take tons of lessons and so my technique is far from professional.  I have a tendency to play very firmly (i.e., bang loudly) and this piano has very light key action.  As you can imagine, Grandmother was always asking me to play it like rose petals falling on the keys.  On this very piano that summer, I learned to play Moonlight Sonata, Adagio Cantable and several Billy Joel "standards" that I have pretty much forgotten by now, etc.  (Note: I did eventually exploit this talent to marry an awesome girl and now we have 2 beautiful kids).


Hey, I thought this was a photography blog!  Okay, okay.  Here is a photograph of the Acrosonic's keys with the focus way down the keyboard below.

[Acrosonic Piano] [Canon 7D] [EF 50mm f/1.8 II] [f/2.8] [1/40"] [ISO-400]

The focus is relocated near the lens in the photo below.  Note that the identical camera settings were used in these two photographs, only the AF point was changed.  It is nice to have a modern camera with 19 focus points that enables this creativity.

[Acrosonic Piano] [Canon 7D] [EF 50mm f/1.8 II] [f/2.8] [1/40"] [ISO-400]

The photograph below tightens up the aperture to reveal a larger number of nicely focused keys.  Can you say "Depth of Field"?  You can count all the sad chips on the keys.  Also all the shots featured on today's post employ a tripod.

[Acrosonic Piano] [Canon 7D] [EF 50mm f/1.8 II] [f/16] [1/8"] [ISO-2000] [Bounce Flash]

Speaking of chips on the keys, now for another angle below.  Look at that deadly sharp point on the A.  Ouch!  That key has actually drawn blood while I was attempting Beethoven's Pathetique-1st movement (I need lots more practice, by the way).

[Acrosonic Piano] [Canon 7D] [EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM] [22mm] [f/22] [1/5"] [ISO-2000] [Bounce Flash]

This piano with it's light action, ragtime tone and chipped keys is more sentimental than it is a great piano.  I would love to upgrade it to a used Yamaha U3 or even better.  However, at the same time I was considering a piano upgrade, I had been thinking about a camera upgrade.


For the last few years, I have been slumming at the bottom of the Canon DSLR product line: the Canon Rebel XT (it's okay, but not great).  I researched the internet for months and decided the Canon EOS 7D would be the most suitable upgrade for my non-pro-hobby-wannabe level.  So I worked out a bit of a trade study and selected the camera upgrade (which was certainly less expensive) over a controversial piano upgrade (that would have broken some family hearts).  I now have the 7D and it is great.


So that is the story of how this old piano and my incredible Canon 7D are forever linked.  Overall, I am very grateful I have the Acrosonic and it definitely gets used nearly everyday.