I used to pause in the doorway just to take it in, and late at night I pictured it there, a monster standing on three legs, with enormous stringy mouth. She calls it the largest, heaviest, most beautiful thing in her house, shows her students the scale, says it’s the mother of chords, and chords can bring you tears or smiles. But no one listens to scales, or praises the lines they cling to. Every line a steppingstone, good for climbing up and down. Boy, is climbing fun, she says, does it ever get you jazzed, fine-tuned and ready for chords. So I fingered the scales, walked the lines, harmonized chords, and never got jazzed. The terrible Yamaha, its wide stage, white spears and black daggers, those monstrous teeth. She never said they’d chew me up.