Our Musical Instruments Blog

This blog about our cherished instruments started in January 2022 and will be updated in each new post, until we cover all of our significant instruments. (We send the updates out through our monthly newsletter, so if you aren’t a member of our mailing list, you can join us through the link on this page below.)

FEBRUARY 2022

Mindy's Piano

I started playing piano at the age of seven. I don’t remember much about how it came to be, but my mother hired a teacher named Mrs. Bolton (no relation to Michael) who came to our house in New York once a week to give me piano lessons and also give me voice lessons. I wasn’t particularly crazy about Mrs. Bolton, but she did help me to develop my voice tremendously, for which I am grateful.

When I was ten years old, we moved to Florida, and our piano did not “accompany us,” so to speak. My parents then bought an organ instead. I never connected too much to the organ, nor to the poppy-style stuff my new Floridian teacher had me playing. At some point I told my parents that I didn’t want to continue playing the organ, and preferred piano. Lo and behold, my parents bought a new piano. That is the piano you see pictured here, and it was in my life for many years.

With the new piano came a new piano teacher – Mrs. Neu. I adored Mrs. Neu. She always encouraged me to play the classical pieces I actually enjoyed playing and if there was something I didn’t connect to, out of the repertoire it came. More than anything else though, Mrs. Neu was my friend and confidante. Pouring out my teenage heart and troubles to her was always her first priority, then came the piano lesson. I still think of her often.

My mom was a stickler for “practicing.” It was never playing, but always practicing. “Did you practice the piano?” was a repetitive daily question in our house. Funny though, when I actually did practice, that was the moment my mom chose to vacuum the house. You gotta love her logic!

I did enjoy my musically-inclined friends coming to my parents’ house and playing my piano over the years, and I happily accompanied them with my voice. I am not a natural instrumentalist like Larry. Larry’s amazing instrumental ability seems to come from a God-given place with which he was born. He loves to play, no matter the instrument, and the music he makes is simply beautiful. All of it. Mine? LOL! Not so much. I still like to play instruments when no one else is listening, but my voice is what I really use to express myself, and I adore singing.

I made Aliyah on my own at the age of 19, and my parents followed several years later, with my piano in tow. When I became a mom, I taught my son to play a little, and I loved seeing his sweet smile as we played Heart and Soul together, and other duets. My piano was always in my home, wherever that home was at the time – Hod HaSharon, Kfar Saba, Lapid, and finally - Tuval, where Larry and I live today. My piano was there through life’s many and varied events - both happy and sad.

Unfortunately, with the number of moves the piano made, it eventually came to a point where the keys stuck more than they played. We seemed to spend a lot more time cleaning and polishing it than we did playing it, and I no longer wanted to keep getting it repaired.

So, I put up a notice on Agora saying that my 48-year-old piano was looking for a loving home. A father contacted me that same day and said he would like it for his daughter, and came over with some of his friends to pick it up a few days later. That’s where it is now, making new memories for a new family, in a new home, continuing the circle of life.