My PIGINI...

Here it is - the PIGINI. In the world of accordions, the PIGINI brand of accordion is the best you can buy. My parents sacrificed a lot in order to purchase it.

At the time I received this accordion I didn't realize that. To me, it was the ball on my chain. I practiced most days 1-3 hours. I played in a band that had practice once a week for one to two hours. I had half hour to hour lessons once a week. I competed once a year with the option to go twice but never wanted too.

Our family vacations were my competitions. (My sisters never let me forget it - trust me) If we went out of town to our relatives the accordion came with. There was no break. I lived and breathed the accordion. I was an accordion advocate. My world was the accordion simply because there was no room for anything else.

I started playing when I was nine years old. I was watching The Lawrence Swelk show and was admiring the accordion player Myron Floren (whom I got to meet) when I mentioned that I wanted to play the accordion. That Christmas, my neighbors accordion was on the couch and a certificate for lessons was in my stocking. In fact, it's the very neighbors that I will be playing for at their 50th wedding anniversary.

My mother explained to me that her sister had lessons when she was young and then proceeded to pick up the instrument and play a tune herself. I was in awe. I had no idea she could play but she taught herself when she could. Her fingers danced around the keyboard and the bellows started to move open while she played. I pratically ripped it from her so I could try it. From that moment on I was played every free chance I had.

Until I quit.

Eventually, I stopped playing. I was 19 and life was changing. Fast. I needed a break and the accordion was put away for safe keeping. I played here and there but nothing like I used too. Who was I playing for? There were no competitions - no more gigs. I had enough....

Until now.

I'm excited again to play it. It's fun now that there is no pressure to play it. I'm enjoying it for the first time in a long time if not ever and I realize the investment my parents made in my talent so long ago. My PIGINI is one of the best instruments you can buy in the accordion world. This was recently confirmed when I had it fixed. It didn't even compare to what he had in his shop.

When I visited the PIGINI website was just weird. The music you hear playing in the background are songs I grew up listening too at the studio I was taught at. A lot of the other kids (and some teachers) at the studio were competing at the world levels in Europe and those songs are songs they would play - except most were even harder.

Classical accordion. It's what I studied for so many years. The songs were masterpieces and absolutely hard as hell to play. If you visit different parts of the website you will hear two or three different songs and every one of them I am familiar with. Of course, I can't play them because I wasn't to that level just yet but I came awfully close. Very close for kid like me.

I'm pretty proud of that... now.

Thanks Mom & Dad for this wonderful gift. You supported this gift of mine when I rejected it over and over. I will be able to enjoy playing for the rest of my life if only for my own pleasure and I have you to thank for it.

You're the best!