Her Magazine

Her Magazine June July 2013

Her Magazine is New Zealand’s only women’s business lifestyle magazine! Her Magazine highlights the achievements of successful and rising New Zealand businesswomen. Her Magazine encourages a healthy work/life balance.

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:short story A fine old lady I've been silent for so long that I can barely remember the sound of my own voice. On the surface, I am well looked after; I'm warm and dry and spotlessly clean. But something is missing, you could call it my heart. For what use is a piano if it is never played? I'm hoping that today will be different. There are signs that a tuner is coming: the spider plants that normally rest on top of me have been removed and a piano stool has appeared. There was talk of a tuner, I'm sure there was. But I lose track. I think it is the silence; and the solitude – it takes some getting used to. Pianos are delicate creatures, you see, and highly strung. I've been at Sunnyvale Nursing Home for seven years now. They put me in a corridor next to a window, the only place they had 110 | www. h e rmagaz i n e . c o. n z for me. I have a view across fields and trees to houses beyond. The view never changes but day by day I can feel my strings slowly sinking out of pitch. It wasn't always this way. When I was young I was at the centre of the family. I was the one who brought them all together on rainy afternoons and in the evenings after dinner. Back in 1911 is where my story begins. I belonged to the Nutbrowns then, a wedding gift from a generous aunt. Those were the golden days – nearly every household had a piano. Uprights like me were a popular and economical choice. In England they churned out more than 35,000 pianos a year, and many were exported to New Zealand. Did you know that a piano even accompanied Captain Scott on his expedition to the South Pole? It was taken to first base-camp and played on the ice. I stayed with the Nutbrowns for 60 years, through two world wars and three generations. I got to know them well. An instrument as complex and sophisticated as a piano soon becomes a member of the family and they knew all my little foibles. The way I played lazily just before a storm and how my middle octave is particularly temperamental. They had me tuned regularly and placed jars of water in my base beneath the keys to counteract the effects of central heating. I watched so many children growing up: their fumbling fingers gradually becoming practised and skilled. My sounding board hummed to the nursery rhymes then the minuets and the party pieces. Most of them soon tired of me and the discipline of daily practice, but there was one who was different.

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