I came within a few synapses of buying a keyboard today. An old Yamaha, double-manual, polyphonic ensemble—portable, with a stand. No amplifier. There was a time I would have fallen all over myself to get one of these for under five hundred bucks. This one—sitting on the grass in someone’s back yard, part of the swag obtainable at the annual neighborhood yard sale we attend—was going for twenty-five bucks.
And I passed.
Couldn’t change my mind, either, a young fellow was right behind us and snatched it up.
Now, I could say that I passed on it because I never buy a keyboard without trying it out, to see if all the notes and pots work, to see, basically, if it both sounds good and feels right. …