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Please, do not email this website regarding piano prices or where to buy a piano. I would suggest that you visit a local piano dealer and discuss your requirements in person. This way, you will have a better understanding of what your needs are.

Disclaimer: if you are a sensitive individual, if sometimes you take what you read personally, if you occasionally are ever so slightly uptight about what you read, then please DO NOT read this article. This article contains exaggerated opinions and harsh, disrespectful and informal expressions to facilitate an enjoyable read. Everything below should be approached with a humorous aura. No advice below is to be followed. The following article is meant to be a humorous text only. Read at your own discretion. 

“Oh dear me, I can never afford a piano.”

“Ah, life’s unfair. Only the rich can afford a piano”.

“Boohoo boohoo, I can’t buy that piano…”

…and the moaning continues…
Who hasn’t heard those extra-boring expressions?
…Meanwhile, me with a snobbish expression: *Yaaaaawn*

Really? You can’t afford a piano? I just don’t believe you, my dearest friend! Shush! Yes, you’re lying! Read below how to “afford” that piano! And yes, I’m not talking about the Bösendorfer Imperial Grand – It’s not everything or nothing. I’m talking about the sensible upright you’re postponing buying for so long.
(Minimum values used below)

How to afford a piano

Covenant: no excuses after reading this.

In order to be able to afford a piano, you need to do some of the following:

  • STOP buying that takeaway coffee from that expensive coffee chain. Yes, you know which coffee chain I mean; the one that is full of expensive laptops and mobile phones with which people are pretending to be “working” with. Exactly. That one. You remembered? By avoid depositing your money to them you could save a minimum of £2 a day. That’s £14 a week, £60 a month or around £730 a year… And you call yourself frugal.
  • STOP buying expensive technological novelties. For instance, instead of buying that £300 phone, buy the one that costs £150 instead. (You see? Minimum values used… Some people buy even more expensive mobiles – And then they complain that they only live to pay bills.) Remember that some technological appliances such as computers and mobile phones depreciate very, very quickly. So by avoiding novelties (as I call everything that you don’t actually need), in a couple of years, you could have saved a minimum of around £400-500.
  • STOP buying “designer” things. Do you really need that “designer” bag? You worth it, uh? No, you don’t. I might be worth my weight in gold, but should I be stupid enough to believe it? No. So, let me think: £600 designer piece of leathery material (bag), vs second-hand upright? Not a difficult answer for some super-savvy and ambitious pianists that I know of.  Your choice, though. However, I don’t want to hear you later complain about why your technique hasn’t developed enough through the years.
  • STOP going on that holiday that costs £1000? You deserve that too? No, you don’t. Think again: You deserve a piano, remember? Don’t go to the Caribbean. Just go to the “other holiday”, say in Carmarthen (if in the beautiful Wales) that costs £500. And voila! Here’s a little bit more piano appearing on your doorstep out of nowhere. And if it was me, well, I would have stayed at home altogether, skipping the holiday and save myself a whopping £1000! But, I guess that’s why I have two pianos already, and I’m not rich. Read on!
  • STOP eating out. I beg your pardon, but eating out basically means that you are willing to taste every other person’s dirty hands and most of the time, “behind the scenes” there’s a dump for preparing the food, no matter how suspiciously clean it looks. Well, I’m exaggerating. But: Food at home is much, much better – your granny was always right about that. It’s tastier, healthier, lovingly made and you don’t have to face the horrible faces of the cranky waitresses and their bosses. Not that all of them are cranky, I guess, most of them are of excellent qualities, and I have to admit that some restaurants keep traditions and all, but why risking it? Plus, you save moneys by the bucket!
  • STOP naming everything you buy “tools of the trade”. You just need to stop doing that. Not everything is “tools of the trade”. I’m sick and tired, as a friend of mine used to say, of hearing this “tools of the trade” nonsense. You’re not a carpenter, you’re a pianist. Honestly, I’m going to open an office to offer free advice to the general public on how to spend their hard earned cash. Yes, tools of the trade are tools of the trade. A mobile phone, for example,  isn’t. If you want to do serious work or show off your “portfolio”(?), you need a laptop. Mobiles are not made for serious work just of yet; not in the arts, not in music creation. A passenger car is not a tool of the trade – especially a new one. A pick-up track is. I’m not saying that you should show up on your first professional meeting on a tractor, but be sensible and buy a cheap and reliable brand – and always second hand, of course. An expensive watch is not “tool of the trade”; a cheaper Casio should be enough for the trendier of us. An expensive suit combined with the “irresistible” aroma of unwashed underarms is not a tool of the trade. However, a modest suit worn after you showered and tidied yourself up, is. I hope some of this starts to make sense to you. So, just don’t buy silly “tools of the trade” and save yourself half a piano.
  • STOP exiting your house. Yes, you heard me right. Every time you leave your front door chances are that you are going to spend money. Don’t. With the added advantage that you’re not going to be run over by a car. Stay at home! Home’s great! Make yourself a nice cup of tea, and read that dusty novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez that you always meant to read. You’ll save thousands in a couple of years.
  • STOP using air conditioners and the house heating system. That alone can save you hundreds by the end of the year. Freezing cold house in the winter is great because, apparently, it kills the bugs too. Look: Just hang an outfit behind every door and you’re set. For example, wear a casual winter jacket while cooking in the kitchen and then when you’re in the living room, add a robe on top of that jacket for added connoisseurship. This way you can also enjoy your aperitif in style. During the summer, air conditioners are of course a waste of money and earthly resources. You’re excused of course if you reside in very hot countries, but still, perspiration from heat expels all the toxins from your body. Remember, for thousands of years humans survived fine without the use of air conditioning, and they even managed to write the Hamlet. So again, no excuses here.
  • STOP buying jewellery. Jewellery and other stones and metals as I call them, such as gold, silver, etc, are completely worthless. Why do you need metals hanging over your neck, it’s beyond me. Unless you sell them for profit before you die, they’re utterly worthless. Natural beauty. Simple. Keep clean and tidy and no jewellery is needed. And who likes jewellery after all? Not the pianists. Pianists have better things to do instead of buying metals and stones; they buy pianos to practise.
  • STOP texting and calling. Becoming a hard-to-find person is and was always fantastic. Plus, everybody gullibly is going to think that you are some sort of an artistic personality since you do not care about the trivial things in life. Texting and calling only costs just a bit of money, of course, but that adds up to quite a bill by the end of the year; instead, buy a pay-as-you-go phone and use the internet to communicate with everybody.  Emails and the horrid social media are great for that reason: Since everybody’s unfortunately 24/7 hooked on their social media, you can contact them at three o’clock in the morning and they’re going to jump up to get back to you. However, do avoid social media for any other use other than instant communication and perhaps building up your businesses. They’re wasting your life, really.  Calls and texts are to be limited to family and close friends only.
  • STOP treating the others when out.  Always pretend that you’ve left most of your money at home and so you “unfortunately” must buy the cheapest thing on the menu. Also, be kind enough and swiftly give the others the “pleasure” of footing the bill. Just make sure that you do not carry through this endeavour far too often, for risking to be labelled “stingy”. I know some people that have elevated stinginess to an artistic level that could be envied analogously by the greatest sculptors of the ancient times. Meanwhile, those people manage to buy their desired things far more easily than many of us.
  • STOP using paid transportation (or transportation that consumes money earned after tax). Just use as often as possible one of the greatest inventions of mankind, the bicycle. Ask my friends and acquaintances, but I used to save around eight hundred pounds a year by cycling alone. I calculated that in seven years I saved a minimum of £5000! That could have been basically a beaten-up grand, but who cares? It’s a piano after all – a most wonderful friend and companion.
  • STOP having a life. You don’t need a life, you need a piano! I’m only kidding, of course, but some things in life need sacrifices. I hope that you can get the gist of my harsh expressions and words. You are to decide which things are of importance to you and worthy of sacrifice. In our case here, piano is our ultimate goal. If not, then yes, go and buy a golden necklace.

That’s all for now. I might be adding to this list in the future. For now, I hope this article helped a little bit in your attempts to buy a piano, and take what I wrote above with a pinch of salt and not too seriously. As they inelegantly say, it’s food for thought.

Copyright © 2017 by Nikos Kokkinis

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Many thanks to Rick Harris page at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc479Xgfse8, for the image used.

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