Dear Vassar, please take my ancient keyboard

(in response to visiting the Vassar music department treasure room on Wednesday, February 3rd)

February 7, 2081
Greater Republic of California

Dear Board of Trustees and Esteemed Faculty of the Music Department at Vassar College;

As I am writing you, I am in a state of wonderful health and nowhere near the end of my long and lucrative life. However, in the event of my eventual departure, I would like to direct my estate to leave in your safekeeping a much beloved personal musical instrument of mine, hand-selected from my vast and highly prized collection. This specimen is a rare jewel in the world of musical antiques, and I can only hope that my contribution will bring much joy and enlightenment to the realm of higher education.

Here are the specs of the instrument in question:

C.K. (short for “crappy keyboard”) is a five-octave Casio manufactured in the late 1980s. He is equipped with exactly one hundred synthesized patches that can make him sound like a truly blood-curling specimen of a flute, a somewhat nauseating banjo, an almost acceptable amateur string orchestra, as well as a lovely little music box. Much like the beautiful Viennese keyboard already in your possession (the one with the pedals that provide impromptu Turkish rhythms) one can select from C.K.’s hundred and one pre-programmed dance beats, ranging from salsa to disco to three entirely different kinds of hip hop. Lastly, C.K. comes complete with a song bank that features such gems as “The Saints Are Marching In,” and the theme song from the 1988 Japanese film classic, “Totoro.” A fine specimen of late 20^th century craftsmanship!

If you are unsatisfied with what the instrument represents, allow me to demonstrate some ways in which C.K. will fit splendidly into your collection. I notice that you have in your possession a Pratensis harpsichord from 1610, which was once fashioned to look older by a reseller of vintage instruments. Much like the Pratensis, you could say C.K. has been made to seem older than he is by the broken RCA input: I have found this problem to be easily fixable by simply hanging a 20-ft coil of quarter-inch cable on top of the RCA adaptor (I am sure you have a suitable version of such a cable in your collection; I realize most instruments today can be linked wirelessly to their respective amplifiers using Google Rock). To add to the vintage feel, I will make sure that he comes into your possession extra dusty, with a set of original and perfectly authentic Duracell batteries still intact, ready for thorough academic research.

You may be wondering why I volunteer this particular instrument as contribution. What makes my little keyboard so special that he can stand alongside a 17^th century harpsichord? Well, what keeps him from such a post? All things age the same: creators die, companies vanish, production ceases and availability grows scarce. Time has a funny way of bringing mystery into things. In three hundred years, my keyboard will be a relic, and the era that created it more distant, more intriguing. Even as we near the end of the 21^st century, children are collecting mp3s in the same way that I, seventy years ago, quivered at the sight of gently-used vinyl. Is the older thing more important to us? Is it more interesting? Harder to come by, sure, and with a higher price tag, but is that fact alone enough to keep us from being fascinated by both? Or do we hold one generation’s contribution to be more important that another’s? Do we prize any one era of history above the rest?

I don’t believe we do. I believe that the real reason we value antiques like the Broadwood piano or that sweet little clavichord I remember Professor Libin playing is because of the stories they tell: stories that are older than ours, stories that will continue to evolve beyond us and perhaps in spite of us. We find comfort in this, in knowing we are one pair in a long line of hands, one owner of a thing that is too elusive to belong. We find beauty in the idea that the things we create, or perhaps even just the things we touch, will have meaning beyond us, meaning that somehow contains us–perhaps we also find peace. Anything with a history will always be valuable, because the rich and constantly turning lives of these objects is perhaps the closest we humans get to immortality.

Which is why you should take my keyboard.

Sincerely yours,
Nina Vyedin

P.S. Your new correlate in the study of Ancient Rock sounds fascinating. I believe students today will benefit greatly from studying the ways of the Masters. After all, it’s not often that you hear a college choir take on the lost works of Led Zeppelin, and I look forward to attending the performance in the newly renovated Martel Hall this spring. I hear you finally installed strobe lights! How very quaint.

Advertisement