Me, Joplin and the Haunted Piano

My new teacher told me to scrap my intermediate version of The Entertainer and we hit the realio version, the one actually penned by Joplin himself, in earnest. I can play the first page of it very slowly. When I say very slowly, this is exactly what I mean. The chords are complex and far apart, and your left hand moves all over the place. I've tried to develop little memory tricks and visual roadsigns for my hands to find to help my fingers find the places they need to go faster and with greater assurance.

After gnawing way at Joplin for a goodly spell, we returned to Christofori's Dream and I played the first two pages of it. When I navigated my way toward the last few notes, the piano began emitting a low, groaning sound when I hit the keys. Christofi is played at the upper registers of the piano, a section seldom used by her other students apparently, and it was only the upper keys that evoked this demonic rumbling from the belly of the machine. The visceral growling disturbed my teacher, so we tried to isolate the cause of the rumbling. Her S.O. appeared and we began an investigation.

Several minutes later the piano had exhibited a foul temper by dropping its lid twice on my teacher's head. Understand that all three of us had stuck our hands, head, torso and other appendages into the creature's maw unhindered, attempting to extract a pencil which found its way onto the harp as we conducted our investigation (a long story there in itself) but only my teacher was assaulted by the ill-tempered beast. I opined the piano, for reasons of its own, harbored some resentment toward her and recommended an exorcist. This ebony Steinway, previously a friendly and cooperative apparatus, had now become a dark Mephistopheles. I inquired into its history; if she had bought it from the estate of a reclusive, shunned old party. She said her father had bought and refurbished it. This revelation added to my formerly-pleasant music lessons a new degree of terror. I suspect a Ghost in the Machine, perhaps that of the previous owner.

However, ghosts are nothing new to me. I intend to befriend the specter and enlist his or her aid in my musical endeavors. Maybe we'll go on the road together.