No, you cannot buy a piano today.

We decided to buy a piano. Well, not a whole piano, an electronic piano. We’ve been working on this for a while. My wife and son are taking piano lessons and have been practicing on my electric keyboard, which is nice and all, but the keys do not feel like a real piano. No weight, no touch sensitivity. The problem becomes apparent when they go to their lessons and can’t hit the keys right because the piano keys need more force and you need to learn to put emphasis on the notes. After several months of this, we decided to make the purchase.

An electronic piano is ALOT cheaper than the full size piano, which is why we can buy it versus a real one. And it doesn’t take up as much space, and you can wear headphones and practice at night and not wake up the house. They will have all 88 keys, some have the three pedals, and will have all kinds of electronic voices and tones to add in for fun. Some of the good ones use sound sampling to make the sounds, rather than a sythesized voice, so that when you hear the “grand piano” sound, its an actual grand piano.

OK, so we go to a piano store in town. We walk in and everyone just stops what they are doing and stares. Customers, salesmen, small children, everyone. Like we just walking in on a private dinner party. Finally, this one older guy swaggers up (and I mean like a lounge singer swagger) and asks us what we are looking for.

Us: We’re looking for a piano. (duh?)
Him: We are all out. Haven’t got a thing left.
Us: What are those? (pointing to the pianos)
Him: Those are going to our big sale this weekend at Piano-U College.
Us: Can we buy them there?
Him: Yes, but you need an appointment, except if you come on the last day.
Us: Do you sell electronic pianos at Piano-U?
Him: Oh, yes we have some models on display, but the ones we sell are different, and they’re-
Us: -all at the Big Sale at Piano-U?
Him:Yup.

So he shows us the display models and tells us NOT to buy one. He shows us fancy tricks he can do on the piano, but tells us he isn’t selling that one. He gives us a DVD about the pianos he is selling and tells us to come back on another day after we have watched the DVD. Uh, ok.

So we go home and watch the DVD. Its the multi-model owner’s manual for 4 different models of electronic pianos. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

We go back to the piano store a few days later and ask to see “Jack” the lounge singer.

Saleswoman: Oh! He’s not here. Are you purchasing today?
Us: Yes, we think we’ve decided on the model but need to ask Jack-
S: -just a minute and I’ll go get your invoice.
Us: ????????????
S: (coming back) I don’t seeeee you invoice over here. Did Jack write one up for you?
Us: No, see Jack said to come see him again and-
S: Oh, he’s not here. He’s over at the Big Sale at-
Us:-Piano-U!
S: Yes, did you have an appointment?

So we tell her no and she calls the folks over there at the sale and finds that they aren’t busy and that its OK to show up and buy a piano. We drive over there following the “Big Sale” signs to Piano-U. We walk through the campus and find the building (following more signs). Inside the hallway is a woman at a small desk with a vase of flowers.

Woman: Hello. Do you have an appointment?
Us: No, we just called and they said to come down.
W: Oh, well first fill out this customer card and I’ll have Greg take you down there.
Us: (fill out card asking name, address, interests, and other stupid stuff)

Greg comes upstairs and gets us to escort us down to where the pianos are waiting. He’s very chatty and spends alot of time talking to my son. And this is something else odd about the whole thing (besides needing an appointment to buy a damn electronic piano). They are all VERY interested in talking to my son about his piano lessons. What are you learning? Do you like it? Who is your teacher? Hmmmm.

Anyway, Greg takes us to a large theatre room with a high valted ceiling and big black curtains covering all the stone block walls. The floor is wooden with wide boards and looks heavily varnished and worn. Its an old acting room with lights and a catwalk above. The room is filled with baby grands, uprights, and electronic pianos of every color, size and type. There are two other customers there and they are talking quietly with a saleman, and occassionally there’s a burst of mozart on the piano.

Greg doesn’t know anything about the pianos. He waits for Craig to come over and help us. Craig looks like the hologram doctor from Star Trek Voyager.

Craig: Please state the nature of the emergency.
Us: We’d like to buy one of these two pianos but we don’t know how the models are different.
Craig: One has twice the power, 4 times the RAM, you also get a split keyboard, and double the accompanying voices, plus a….

Craig rattles the differences off like he was a computer. He’s very impressive and I wish he was selling us the piano, but he almost immediately excuses himself to go back to his customer who is buying a $16,000 baby grand. Understandable.

Then Jack comes in. He immediately begins talking to my son. My son starts asking him about different functions that he saw in the DVD and then shows Jack how to reset the memory, but we stop him before he does it. Jack says that he has just exceeding Jack’s knowledge of this model. Oh.

Us: What about the A990 model, you told us about?
Jack: We just sold it. (points to an empty spot next to model A880)
Us: Well, then I guess we’ll buy this model A880.
Jack: Great, you can come get it in two days.
Us: Not today?
Jack: If you want the floor model you can have it now.
Us: We’ll come back to get it.

After taking our money, Jack escorts us back to the lobby area and says goodbye. Then he tells my son to come back and visit him in the store.

It was just an odd experience. Most stores you go in to buy something and you can’t stop the salespeople from bugging you. These guys seemed almost reluctant to sell you anything. Maybe that’s the hook. You are so amazed that they don’t want to sell you something, you feel almost compelled to force them. Wierd.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 14th, 2005 at 2:37 pm and is filed under Mindless musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.