Scroll through an online for-sale site like Kijiji or Facebook Marketplace and you will almost always spot old upright pianos on offer, either for free or for a very, very low price.
The wooden pianos can be beautiful, but the ads tend to stay up a while because the instruments are very heavy to move and often out of tune.
“At one point in time, I thought at least every other home had a piano, because I could drive down the street and say, ‘I’ve been there, I’ve been there, I’ve been there,'” says Mike Klomp, who has been tuning and repairing pianos on Prince Edward Island for more than 35 years.
Klomp used to take free upright pianos, fix them up and sell them. Now he won’t take them, because there is no market for them.
“I couldn’t even resell it, because the amount that I would have to put into it would exceed the amount I would ever get for it. It’s unfortunate,” he said.
Space is an issue
Janine Gosbee of Cornwall, P.E.I., was given an old upright a few years ago, when her daughter started learning piano. But now her daughter is in a school band program, and has dropped piano lessons.
Gosbee has had the piano listed as free for several weeks — but the ad has garnered only three lukewarm inquiries.
Sometimes furniture makers or crafters can reuse parts of old pianos, including the cabinet or keys. (Laura Meader/CBC)
“Most of them were actually just asking about the measurements of the piano for a place to put it in their home. So that’s kind of an issue too — just people having the space in their home for it,” Gosbee said.
She is surprised there’s so little interest in a free piano, speculating that fewer people might be learning to play, or those who do play are opting for electronic keyboards that are light and portable.
There was a big explosion in manufacturing and selling upright pianos in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, Klomp said. Many people were taught to play as part of a well-rounded education, and the pianos were a social hub in many homes in the days before radio and TV sets took hold.
But now, more and more of those pianos have reached the end of their usefulness, and people are having a hard time finding places for them.
‘Send them to the dump’
Klomp said people usually put the old uprights in two places: online, or in a landfill.
“They will advertise them as free pianos, so they won’t have to spend money on moving them, or they will send them to the dump,” he said. “Some will donate them to churches, schools, different places, but the problem is those places, I’ve seen churches with five pianos, and they only use one.”
‘I would love to have hope for a piano, but pianos do have a lifespan,’ says Mike Klomp, who’s been tunring and repairing pianos on P.E.I. for 35 years. ‘I would like to see them somehow saved, but cost is generally the thing.’ (Laura Meader/CBC)
Klomp said when he started years ago, he spent 60 per cent of his time tuning old upright pianos. Now, he spends about 60 per cent of his time tuning newer Yamaha uprights.
Some of the old pianos simply need a tuning, which costs less than $200 per year. But if they haven’t been tuned annually, or P.E.I.’s varying humidity has damaged them, Klomp says it could take $1,000 to $5,000 just to repair one to the point it would be tunable.
“I just tuned one that was 120 years, and it was still viable, but just viable,” he said.
This old upright was dumped by the roadside in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Many vintage pianos are meeting an ignominious end like this. (Kris Ketonen/CBC)
He advises anyone interested in acquiring a vintage upright piano to do the research to find out if it’s worth the effort and cost of moving it.
“It is buyer beware, or taker beware. You really need to know before you move a piano that it’s even viable to tune,” he said.
I just want it to go to a home that will love it as much as we loved it. — Pat MacKinnon
A lack of space to accommodate her growing family led Pat MacKinnon of Dunstaffnage to post her family’s piano online for free, but she hasn’t found a taker yet either.
She estimates the instrument to be about 150 years old. It’s been in MacKinnon’s home for about 30 years, handed down by her parents.
Pat MacKinnon of Dunstaffnage, P.E.I., posted her family’s piano online for free because she doesn’t have the space in her home for it anymore. (Laura Meader/CBC)
She doesn’t want to see the piano scrapped — she said it might need to be tuned, but it’s in good condition and still has some life left.
“As time passes, I know that I’m not using the piano, none of my children have space for the piano, and I just want it to go to a home that will love it as much as we loved it,” MacKinnon said.
“It would make me really happy to know that some little boy or girl — or even some person who would like to have a piano and really can’t afford a new one — would take it in their home, love it and play it.”
Klomp said new acoustic pianos are still being made and have become more popular than the old uprights.
“I would say that the era for old uprights is coming to a close,” he said. “The inevitability is that one day, those pianos will be gone… The ones that have musical value — yeah, I’m sad about those.”
‘Maybe it shouldn’t leave’
Gosbee said if there are no takers for her free piano, she will hang onto it for a few years in the hope that someone will eventually take it.
In the meantime, her daughter’s interest has been rekindled, at least temporarily.
“Now that it’s Christmas, she actually started playing the Christmas carols again, and she started teaching her little brother a little bit, so I don’t know, now I’m kind of like, ‘Maybe it shouldn’t leave,'” Gosbee said.