The Forest of Wool and Steel

by Natsu Miyashita

  ‘Even if you study … and even in ten years …’ Mr Akino snorted dismissively. I decided to ignore his contempt, and walked out of the door.

  There was a shift in the air the moment we entered the spacious auditorium of the concert hall. Suddenly I found myself sensing the vastness of the forest – that selfsame forest all over again. All the commotion outside was forgotten.

  With permission from the venue manager, we sat in the middle of the hall to get the clearest view possible of the stage and the piano.

  ‘It’s a really good idea,’ Mr Itadori said, nodding, ‘to check how the piano appears from the point of view of the audience. You have to strip away your own preconceptions.’

  From our seats in the auditorium we were presented with the tableau of the piano on one side of the unlit stage. Even in its stillness, it was beautiful.

  ‘I’ll go around through the dressing room, and you can come up from here,’ Mr Itadori said, asking me to seek permission from the manager first.

  The still air, the controlled humidity and temperature, the wooden baffles lining the walls and ceiling – I wondered what the acoustics would be like in here. Slowly I approached the stage and, without taking my eyes off the grand piano, walked around to the side and up the steps, where Mr Itadori was already heaving up the lid, his tuning tools laid out on the floor.

  With both hands, he played an octave. The piano, part of the scenery until now, began to breathe. As each note was struck, the piano raised its heavy body and stretched its folded arms and legs, preparing to break into song, about to spread its wings. This was unlike any piano I’d ever seen. I pictured an enormous lion, slowly rising, eyes on its prey.

  A concert-hall piano was a creature unlike any other, the sound so different from what I’d heard from the pianos in people’s homes. As unlike as morning and night, pencil and ink.

  My palms were damp and I felt utterly overwhelmed. Getting a small personal piano in top condition and tuning a concert grand such as this – the two operations were poles apart. All I could do was stand there in awe.

  Mr Itadori pressed each key repeatedly, paused, then pressed again, listening intently to the quality of the sounds as he manipulated his tuning hammer.

  Something was approaching. What it was I couldn’t say. My heart was pounding. I had the premonition that something immense was drawing near. I could see gently sloping mountains. The scenery from the house I was born and raised in. The mountains I had never really given much thought to, nor ever stopped to look at much. But I now recalled how they would look strangely vibrant and alive the morning after a storm. And I realized that what I’d taken simply as mountains included so very much more: soil and trees, flowing water, grass growing, the blowing of the wind, animals of all kinds. One spot in the distance came into sharp focus. A single tree growing on the mountainside, its green leaves rustling.

  And so it was with the sound of the piano: the instant Mr Itadori tuned it, what had been merely an indistinct tone now became lustrous, lingering and vibrant. Single notes now began to leap ahead, entwining with the others, taking on depth in tone and timbre. From a leaf to a tree, from a tree to a forest, to the very mountains themselves. Soon it would transform into music.

  In that moment, I sensed I had been a lost child, wandering aimlessly in search of a purpose. Call it a purpose or a sign, a landmark or a feeling. I knew this was the sound I’d been seeking. As long as I had this sound, I could live – this was all I could be sure of. I recalled myself ten years earlier, how I’d felt free in the forest. Incomplete, not yet liberated from the constraints of the body, but still utterly free. The gods of my world then were the trees, the leaves, the berries, the soil. But now it was sound that guided me.

  By the time I exited the concert hall it was already getting dark. In preparation for tomorrow’s recital Mr Itadori was also heading home. Tomorrow he’d meet up with the pianist for final adjustments and the rehearsal. For the actual performance, he would remain backstage to watch over the piano. He’d be hard at work the entire day.

  The two of us walked to the car park in companionable silence. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I felt quietly exhilarated, but at the same time calm and collected.

  Fastening my seatbelt in the car, I was finally able to speak. ‘That was amazing.’

  Mr Itadori turned to me and smiled. ‘I’m very pleased to hear you say that.’

  A pause and then I asked, ‘Mr Itadori, why did you hire me?’

  It was the managing director who had the final say on hiring decisions, so I knew Mr Itadori couldn’t have been entirely responsible. Still, I suspected it was through his good offices that the Eto Music Shop had taken me on.

  ‘First come, first served,’ he said.

  ‘By first you mean—’

  ‘Whoever gets there soonest. That’s the way we’ve always done it.’

  ‘Oh.’

  So they didn’t hire me because of my abilities or prospects.

  ‘It’s important never to give up,’ said Mr Itadori simply.

  Give up at what? I wanted to ask, but swallowed back the question. I wasn’t going to give up. But I knew full well that not giving up didn’t necessarily mean you would succeed.

  Mr Itadori didn’t add any more. He just sat there in the passenger seat, quietly staring ahead. I kept quiet, too, and started the car.

  I felt I’d given up on quite a lot in my life. Born and raised in a remote mountain village, my family barely scraped by. The benefits that children in towns took for granted rarely came our way, and there were all kinds of things I had to forgo.

  But I didn’t find that particularly painful. It doesn’t hurt so much to lose out on things if you never hoped for them in the first place. What really hurts is having things right there in front of you, and wanting them, and not being able to reach them.

  I had given up on art, for example – or more specifically, on paintings. I simply didn’t understand them. At primary school, up in the mountains, there was a field trip once a year, when we were taken by bus to an art museum in a big city. They called it the Art Appreciation Outing. But even if I looked at the exhibited paintings, and thought, Isn’t that beautiful, isn’t that interesting, it never went further than that. Beyond finding some paintings beautiful, I couldn’t grasp what might be special about them.

  But maybe that was OK, after all. Simply to know what you like and not worry about why. If it made you feel good, perhaps that was enough. So I decided to stop stifling myself with such thoughts as I don’t understand art, or That’s not the way to appreciate it.

  And then, at the age of seventeen, I heard that piano in the gymnasium, and for the first time I felt like shouting aloud. Unconsciously, that’s what I’d been seeking – that instant, unambiguous emotional response.

  Back in the car with Mr Itadori, I muttered, ‘I don’t think I’ll give up.’ There was no reason to give up. I could see clearly what was needed and what wasn’t.

  Mr Akino was there when I got back to the office. ‘So how was it?’ He seemed genuinely interested rather than looking for a chance to pour scorn.

  Thoughts had whirled around in my head as I watched Mr Itadori tune but I didn’t mention any of those. If this man was going to have a retort for everything I said, I decided to keep it short and simple.

  ‘I thought the pianist and the audience must be exceedingly lucky to hear that piano in concert.’

  For a second Mr Akino’s dark eyes widened behind his glasses. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘So how did he handle the voicing?’

  ‘I don’t know the details,’ I answered honestly. ‘But it was the first time I saw in practice that changing the direction of the piano legs could adjust the projection of sound so profoundly.’

  In tuning school we’d been taught that changing the direction of the brass casters on the bottom of the legs alters the piano’s centre of gravity. Mr Itadori showed me how this works in a way that was easy to follow. If you place your hands wider
than your shoulders when you do push-ups it changes how you have to apply your strength, putting more pressure on your core. With the piano, moving the casters adds more power to the soundboard. Using this concise analogy of push-ups, Mr Itadori explained that as he moved the direction of the casters it would be like lifting the entire baseplate of the piano with his back. This alone was enough to alter the resonance dramatically.

  ‘Well, aren’t you the star pupil?’ Mr Akino’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. ‘You’re way too simplistic about things. That’s not the essence of Mr Itadori’s tuning, not at all. Were you half asleep or something? You’re too spoiled. And Mr Itadori treats you with kid gloves. He shows you every tiny thing he does, doesn’t he? By doing that isn’t he in fact looking down on you?’

  ‘Of course not. I’m still learning,’ I said and ended the conversation.

  Make Your Craft Invisible

  The following day I accompanied Mr Yanagi on a tuning job and brought up what Mr Akino had said.

  ‘Ah, Mr Akino … Don’t let it bother you.’

  As he paced along, pulling his tuning bag behind him on wheels for a change, I saw that he was smiling. I knew then that he didn’t think badly of Mr Akino.

  ‘He annoyed me at first, too,’ he continued. ‘Not to mention his claims that your average client is happy so long as you adjust things so they’re boom-snap.’

  ‘What?’ I asked, and Mr Yanagi grinned.

  ‘That sort of sound was popular with stereos for a time. A really booming bass at the lower end with a snappy, crisp sound in the higher registers. Tweak a piano so it sounded like that and people thought it was good.’

  I imagined Mr Akino was teasing him to an extent. Popularity was a factor we had to consider, and part of the tuner’s job was, after all, to adjust it to a tone the clients found pleasing.

  ‘I thought he shouldn’t say such stupid things.’ He spoke quickly as we walked through the car park. ‘I thought he was making fun of tuning and of our clients. I thought he’d just not come across any discerning clients and I felt sorry for him. Nonetheless …’ He glanced over at me as though an interesting new idea had just come to him. ‘Tomura, why don’t you try to ask Mr Akino to take you out on a job sometime?’ He didn’t miss the wry look on my face. ‘That boom-snap talk is just that – talk. Actually, he does a really good job. Despite the spiky attitude and the things he says.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  Mr Yanagi nodded. ‘I don’t know if he’s conscious of it or not, but he never cuts corners. He looks like he doesn’t care, but he does a good job. He loves and respects the piano. Though I bet he’d deny it if you asked him.’

  Even if I were to ask Mr Akino to let me tag along, I doubted he’d agree. And I couldn’t say I wanted to, either. I felt as though I was drowning in things I didn’t understand and wasn’t ready for, desperate to get purchase on the cliff face.

  I finished work on time and headed over to the concert hall. It had a different feel to it today. Yesterday it had worn the hushed air of a forest in the evening. Tonight, full of the bustle of the crowds, it reminded me of a forest in summer, alive and lush with greenery.

  The audience was considerably older than me – and rather more smartly dressed, with bow ties and shimmering jewellery – but I relaxed when I reminded myself we were all there for the same reason: love of the piano.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, spotting a familiar face crossing the foyer. Mr Akino. I couldn’t be sure whether he’d failed to see me or was simply avoiding me, but before I could call out to him, he’d left the foyer and walked in his purposeful way into the hall.

  As I strolled through, checking my ticket against the numbers on the backs of the seats, I heard someone call out my name, ‘Tomura-kun.’

  I looked up.

  ‘So you came!’ It was the managing director of our company, in a smart and well-fitting dark suit, eyebrows raised dramatically, an exaggerated smile on his face. ‘Where’s your seat?’ he asked.

  ‘It should be around here somewhere.’

  It was towards the rear of the hall, in the middle.

  ‘I’m thinking this might be your first recital in this hall?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied.

  The MD leaned over and whispered in my ear. ‘The acoustics are better by the wall.’

  ‘I had no idea.’ I raised my hands, fingers spread. I wished somebody had told me earlier.

  Seeing my disappointment, the MD glanced at the crumpled ticket in my hand. ‘If this is your first concert, you should hear it in a better seat. Shall we switch?’

  I said no, there wasn’t any need, but thanked him anyway.

  To my amusement, he looked relieved.

  When I’d finally sat down in the correct seat I spotted Mr Akino a few rows in front of me, over on the right-hand side. Which raised a question. Why would he sit so far over on the right as you face the stage? If you were keen to get a proper view of the pianist, wouldn’t you choose a seat on the left side, where you could see the movement of the pianist’s fingers and the expression on his face? I looked back towards the stage, and there was the beautiful gleaming black piano Mr Itadori had tuned yesterday, standing gloriously in the centre. From Mr Akino’s seat, the piano completely obscured any view of the pianist.

  The answer slowly dawned on me: he didn’t care if he could see the pianist – possibly it was better that he couldn’t. He wanted to concentrate solely on the sound. If you considered the direction of the lid of the piano, it was natural that the sound would resonate towards the right. I regretted picking a seat in the middle without giving this proper consideration.

  My heart contracted a little as the lights in the hall dimmed and the pianist appeared on stage. He was a silver-haired man, more imposingly built than I had imagined from listening to him on CD. The applause subsided and he seated himself elegantly in front of the keyboard. He threw the tails of his jacket over the back of the piano stool, and adjusted his feet in front of the pedals, leaving his left foot on the floor, his right foot balanced lightly and in readiness on top of the pedal. A moment of stillness. He placed his fingers on the keys, lifted his wrists, and began to play.

  In an instant any thoughts about where I was sitting were blown away. It was beautiful. Overwhelmingly beautiful. The physicality of the piano, its voice, the expression. From the black forest on stage something exquisite was flowing and filling the hall.

  I tried listening to the tone with the thought that Mr Itadori had created it but even that proved futile. If tone has colour, this one was nearly translucent, or rather the sound took on whatever colours and form the pianist desired, from one moment to the next. Together we were lifted up, as though we had become one with the music, as though we too were part of it.

  If I hadn’t known, I probably wouldn’t have thought this was a sound that Mr Itadori had called into being. But I understood. The ideal sound is in harmony with the person who plays the instrument – a sound that allows the pianist’s own talents and personality to shine most brightly. No one thinks about the skill of the tuner. And that is perfectly fine.

  As the last of the applause from the audience slowly faded away, I was left perfectly happy, even a little intoxicated. I rose from my seat and joined the flow of people exiting the hall. The MD was among them.

  ‘So how was your first concert?’ he asked.

  ‘It was wonderful,’ I said, unable to find a more colourful word to describe it. ‘The piano was amazing.’

  The boss was all smiles. ‘Loving the piano, loving music – that’s what it’s all about.’

  I couldn’t imagine that anyone listening to this evening’s music hadn’t loved it.

  ‘Though I do get the feeling that Mr Itadori is loved a little too much by the pianist.’

  I followed the MD up the curved staircase to the foyer.

  ‘The maestro depends on Mr Itadori so much, he calls him simply Itadori – I imagine he can’t relax at all during the performance.’

>   ‘Is Mr Itadori that close to the pianist?’

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ Another dramatic raising of the eyebrows. ‘Whenever he comes to Japan he calls for Itadori as his tuner. He developed a fondness for him back when Mr Itadori was training in Europe. He also accompanied him on concert tours of Europe, but unfortunately Mr Itadori hates flying. Once he had returned to Japan, he would only travel by land. He waits in this unremarkable, out-of-the-way town for the pianists to come to him.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit of a waste?’ I couldn’t help but say. ‘Wouldn’t he be able to put his skills to better use in a larger city, where he could tune pianos so that more people could hear them?’

  ‘You really think so?’ As we walked through the foyer the MD chuckled. ‘I’m surprised you think that way, Tomura-kun. Would a big city really be good for Mr Itadori? It’s a stroke of luck for us and our community that Mr Itadori chooses to stay. And for you, too, of course.’ He glanced at me, his eyes narrowing and serious now. ‘There’s such wonderful music in the world. And even people in this far-off town can enjoy it. I think it’s better that people from the big cities fly here to enjoy listening to Mr Itadori’s piano.’

  He was quite right, and it challenged the way I’d been thinking for so long. City or town. Urban or rural. Large or small. Before the penny dropped, I’d been captive to a standard that had nothing to do with value.

  I’m going to do my work right here, I decided, and I was determined to be proud of that.

  ‘It’s just that the concert was so wonderful I thought it’d be great if more people could hear it,’ I said in a small and slightly defensive voice, trying to justify myself.

  ‘I know.’ The boss nodded, smiling once more.

  It Needs to Sound Lively

  Back in tuning school, whenever I thought I’d got all the notes in tune, my instructor would sound each and every note. He’d mark an X in chalk on each key that wasn’t in tune. And it would be a row of X, X, X, X, X, X – a whole never-ending line of them. Not a single one was in tune. During the two years of training, through constant practice, gradually the number of Xs decreased, and somehow I was able to get rid of the lot by the end of the course. Finally, I was on the starting line.