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Free Pianos for Disadvantaged; In Orlando
Topic Started: Jan 7 2007, 11:00 AM (85 Views)
TomK
HOLY CARP!!!
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/or...pping-headlines

Piano Bank Pays Big Dividends

One moment, the small, crowded room is filled with excited chatter. The next, there's a sudden lull in the conversation.

That's when Gary Grimes steps up to the piano and pounds out the first bars of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." A half-beat later, everyone in the room -- friends, family, strangers -- is singing along.


Such is the power of music.

Were it not for music, four people from different parts of the Orlando community might never have connected. One of the four is Grimes, a music-business entrepreneur and philanthropist. The others are a longtime music teacher, a self-taught teen musician and a beginning music student with no piano to practice on.

"Music changed my life. It gave me direction," says Grimes, owner of Steinway Piano Galleries in Altamonte Springs and founder of the Steinway Society of Central Florida. He started music lessons at 5, worked his way through high school and college playing and teaching piano, and has been in the music business in the Orlando area since 1989.

Now, through a program that provides used pianos to talented but needy students in Central Florida, Grimes hopes music will bring focus and delight to the lives of dozens of youngsters.

Last year, he explains, the music department at the University of Central Florida traded in its old pianos for new Steinways. "I thought: Why not create a piano bank? Why not refurbish the old pianos and give them away to deserving youngsters?"

There must be thousands more pianos not being used in Central Florida, he says. "So instead of selling them, or keeping them around gathering dust, why not donate them to a good cause?"

He proposed the idea to the Steinway Society, whose mission includes nourishing the musical talents of disadvantaged youth. The society embraced the concept, and its PianoBank was born.

"Owning a piano is an impossible dream for families who are economically challenged," says Grimes. "It became our mission to find kids who are taking lessons but have no piano in the home. Then, through PianoBank, to loan them pianos for as long as they're active in music."

To that end, he enlisted the help of Gloria Green, who has taught piano to hundreds of Orlando kids for more than 30 years. Like Grimes, she believes in the transformative magic of music.

"Piano helps with everything," says Green, who also teaches music at Tangelo Park Elementary School. "It increases focus and concentration. It increases the IQ. It promotes social skills. Shy students gain confidence when they see people enjoying their music."

Last summer, Grimes and Green started identifying students who would qualify for PianoBank instruments. They also solicited recommendations from the directors at Orlando's Callahan Neighborhood Center, where the Steinway Society is funding piano lessons for children in the Parramore Kidz Zone, a program that provides learning opportunities.

In November, in a ceremony presided over by Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, the first seven recipients of good-as-new pianos were announced. They include Leamon Stubbs, 17, a self-taught musician who is helping with the Kidz Zone teaching program, and Toshmari Christmas, 11, a beginning pianist.

It was on Toshmari's PianoBank piano, delivered in late December, that Grimes gave his impromptu rendition of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

The big red D.C. Moore Moving Co. truck causes quite a stir when it pulls up outside a small white house in Orlando's Richmond Heights neighborhood.

As a gleaming piano topped with a huge red bow is unloaded onto the sidewalk, Toshmari rushes from the house. His mother, great-grandmother and little sister follow. Grimes, his wife, Kathy, and music teacher Green bring up the rear. Curious kids circle on bicycles. Neighbors gawk from front porches. And a fellow in a Santa suit alights from a green SUV, greeting everyone with a hearty "Ho, ho, ho."

The piano is rolled up the driveway, through the front door and installed in the space formerly occupied by the living-room sofa.

Toshmari can't wait for the moving team to return with the piano bench. Standing in front of his shiny instrument, he picks out the notes to his favorite tune, "When the Saints Go Marching In."

A hubbub of congratulations erupts.

Playing a real piano feels "much better than a keyboard," says Toshmari, who joined Green's roster of pupils in the fall.

"I asked and asked for lessons. I thought it would be fun. I can already play with two hands. I already played in my first recital," he says.

The boy shows real promise, says Green -- which is why she recommended him for the PianoBank program.

"It's a fantastic opportunity for students," says Green. "Music is something that will be with them for the rest of their lives. There's no age limit to music, no size limit, no color bar. Music gives you a lot of friends. It gives you a personality."

Turning toward Toshmari, she adds in a mock-stern voice: "Music teaches what hard work is about."

But the boy is oblivious. All he can hear are the notes sparking from his fingertips: "Oh, when the saints go marching in . . ."

Next, the moving van trundles to the Callahan Neighborhood Center on the western edge of downtown Orlando. Another buffed and bowed piano is unloaded. Another excited group gathers around.

Leamon Stubbs, a lanky youth with stylish braids, launches into a jazzy version of "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer." About 100 Kidz Zone youngsters sing along.

The piano "truly is a blessing for the center," says Brenda March, assistant to the director of Orlando's Families, Parks and Recreation Department. "We do have another piano, but it's ready for the piano graveyard."

Leamon will play a dual role in the center's piano program. While helping give lessons to beginners, he also will be mentored by Orlando jazz pianist Billy Hall. Although the teen has been making music for years, and can play everything from piano to trumpet, steel guitar and drums, he has had little formal training.

"When I was about 6, I found my sister's toy Fisher Price piano under the bed," recalls Leamon -- a young man Grimes calls "amazingly talented."

"All by myself, I picked out the notes for 'Mary Had a Little Lamb,' " he continues. "My parents were amazed. The next Christmas they got me a cheap keyboard."

Music has consumed his every waking minute ever since. He has been active in music programs at Winter Springs High School, where he is a senior with plans to study music at Seminole Community College. "I'm on the Internet all day and half the night, listening to jazz, funk, rock 'n' roll," he says. "I'm inspired by the jazz greats -- Duke Ellington, Count Basie. I listen to Stevie Wonder, Patti LaBelle, Sinatra, Elvis. I just love music."

He did take lessons at the Orlando Music School for a year when he was about 12, "but I could play the songs after just hearing them once," he says. "I tended to over-excel."

Since then, "I've been hanging around music stores. The musicians started mentoring me, teaching me theory, how to read music, how to compose," he says. "More than anything, I want to compose my own music."

Through the years, he has accumulated two more keyboards, a guitar and a drum set. "But just like a woman needs the right purse to match her outfit, a musician needs the right tools to make music," says Leamon.

Now he has found one of those tools, he says. It is the PianoBank piano at the Callahan Center.
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Great idea. Great story, Tom.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Hey Tom,

Thanks for sharing this article.
I copied your post to PW.
Let me know if you have a problem with that and I'll go blank out my copy there.
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TomK
HOLY CARP!!!
Axtremus
Jan 7 2007, 03:23 PM
Hey Tom,

Thanks for sharing this article.
I copied your post to PW.
Let me know if you have a problem with that and I'll go blank out my copy there.

Post it anywhere you like, Ax. :)
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
What a great program! :)
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
The story does sound strangely familiar, though. Can't quite put my finger on why.

^_^
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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