The Kimball upright piano had a place in our living room. When my parents remodeled, they had custom cabinets installed at the height to be above the piano for storing music. The piano sat there on an interior wall and was available for children who were taking piano lessons to practice. I confess I wasn’t the best at practicing. There weren’t many activities that I enjoyed that required me to sit with my back to the windows and not look outside.

Not having practiced, however, didn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the piano. I have no record, and not even a good concept of how many hours were spent playing “chopsticks” or “heart and soul” with my mother and siblings. We could get going with three of us on the bench and six hands at once. I still get nostalgic whenever I hear either of those two tunes. And I did manage to make it through six years of piano lessons that have served as a good musical foundation for the other instruments managed to learn to play. (After all, the trumpet is a marching band instrument and I learned to play outdoors!)

And I remain a big fan of piano music. Of course, there are certain pieces that really set me off. Hearing Pieczonka’s Trantella and some of Chopin’s Etudes can instantly transport me back to the home of my youth. The big meal of the day at our home was served at noon and my mother would prepare the mean and then sit at the piano as she waited for us to come home from school and my dad to arrive from work. I loved to run home from school for the few minutes that I would get to listen before my little brothers arrived.

With that upbringing, I have tried to be very supportive of music and musicians in my work in the church. I am well aware of the power of music to touch our emotions. I know the spiritual value of music. Our creativity is one of the parts of us that is “in the image of God,” and we do well to pay attention to the gifts that God has given.

The church has struggled with the role of music. Some of the instruments that we use in worship are expensive. It can seem like an extravagance to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on organs and pianos that are primarily used for worship, being played only a couple of times each week. Some churches, (and some theologians!) have denounced the use of instruments as a reaction to the extravagances of baroque cathedrals that were monuments to human excess and spared no expense while there were deep needs in the community. There are congregations where all of the singing is acapella and no instruments are allowed. However, some musical instruments are so expensive that it makes sense for them to be communally owned, rather than located in private homes. An instrument in a church can be played by many different musicians and enjoyed by an even larger number of people. And churches grant access to those who aren’t comfortable in concert halls and other places that while, public, attract a specific socio-economic segment of the population.

Yesterday was a good day to celebrate the instruments in our church. It wasn’t a special holiday, but a regular day in the life of the congregation. Those who worshiped with us in the morning were treated to carefully rehearsed and magnificently presented organ music. The postlude was especially stunning. We like to say that the applause at the end of our service is an expression of gratitude to God for the entire worship service, but in truth it is often a spontaneous reaction to the well-played postlude.

Then in the afternoon, we were treated to a wonderful concert by Butch Thompson. It was like a lesson in the history of jazz to listen as Butch played blues, stomps, rags and more. Working off of a list of tunes hand-written on a yellow legal pad, Butch introduced his songs with stories about the musicians who made the music. From Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag to Duke Ellington’s Mood Indigo, from Jelly Roll Morton’s New Orleans jazz to the strip piano of 1920s Harlem, Butch played a bit of so many different types of jazz that it was a special treat to those of us who love to hear the piano sing with its many different voices.

One day, however, doesn’t justify the extravagant expense of the instruments we have in our church, but it was, for me, an opportunity to reflect on those instruments. Our Blüthner 9’2” grand piano is passing an anniversary of sorts. It was ten years ago that the Keyboard Cartage truck arrived and delivered the instrument to our sanctuary. I was quickly seduced by its sound and the masterful craftsmanship of the piano’s creators. Blüthner pianos are unique in their sound. This is due, in part, to the fourth string in the treble, mounted a fraction of an inch above the hammer’s strike, that rings by harmonic vibration with the three that are struck by the hammer. But it is also a product of the Blüthner sound board and the overall quality of the instrument. The hammers are slightly more compact and their strike a bit more crisp than some other pianos.

At only ten years old, our piano is just beginning its career. Our 6’ piano, a Baldwin, is around 80 years old, and definitely will be good for another century if it is properly maintained. It had a major rebuild about 15 years ago with new strings and significant work on the action. We are fortunate that our organist is the only certified piano technician in the Black Hills and our piano is maintained to his exacting standards, often receiving multiple tunings in a week.

Many investments made by churches are relatively short lived. Sound systems and computers and projection systems become obsolete almost as soon as the equipment is installed. I know a congregation that makes major investments in video equipment every 5 years or so. In contrast, there are pianos that perform to original specifications that are 200 years old and organ pipes that have been delivering sound for more than 500 years. Amortized over the expected life of the instruments, the investment in musical instruments we have made in the past decade are a fraction of the cost of equipment other congregations have spent to play recorded and downloaded music.

From my point of view, it is an extravagance with which we can live.

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