The old piano that came from your aunt’s house holds more practice hours than you’ll ever know. Add yours.

Objects carry accumulated effort you cannot see. Scales, wrong notes, a cousin who quit after a year, somebody’s mother practicing the same eight bars in 1958, all inside a piece of furniture that now sits in your house looking like a piece of furniture. You are not the first person to be bad at it on those keys. That is oddly freeing rather than intimidating.

Sit down and play it badly this week. Add your hours to the pile, and ask who in the family used it before you did.