My family has a piano. Its keys are weathered from touch. It has tiny marks on the top right corner where my dad used to gnaw at the wood with his baby teeth. I always knew this instrument to be special. It felt out of place in our otherwise modest family home (none of my friends had a battle-scarred baby grand in their living rooms, that’s for sure). My dad told me it had been in our family since 1905, and it was a miracle it was still in our possession and sounding beautiful. Its most prodigious player was his...