‘Simply striking the keyboard with a more confident touch gives greater clarity to the sound. I think he also recommended lowering one’s centre of gravity to put more body weight behind the fingers so as to make the effect more resonant and distinct. In other words, not via tuning but through performance technique.’

I could understand that. Even if a client asked that we make the action of the keys easier because they wanted a brighter sound, there were times when this just wasn’t possible. It’s not that there would be an issue with the keyboard itself but that the pianist’s touch was too light, so the piano would never ring out, no matter what we did.

‘A simple adjustment to the height of the seat makes for a different sound, doesn’t it?’ I said.

‘Yep,’ Mr Yanagi responded with a quick nod.

Strictly speaking, this might lie outside the purview of our job of tuning. But by tweaking the height of the piano stool, the touch on the keyboard will seem easier and the sound brighter. The optimum height for the seat is based on the height of the pianist as well as on how they use their body when they play and the angle of their wrists and elbows in relation to the keyboard.

‘I saw a film of a recital with two pianists performing a duet, supported by an orchestra. Something felt odd about it until I noticed that the two stools were set at different levels even though the pianists were of similar height.’

Mr Yanagi nodded again silently.

I continued, ‘If you looked carefully you could see that the angle at which the pianists held their arms and the way in which they extended their elbows were different. I imagine they each hit the keys with different levels of pressure, too. I don’t play the piano myself and hadn’t noticed that before. I can only give limited advice, but when I’m tuning I always ask clients to sit down and play so I can adjust the height of their seat. That one small correction seems to brighten the sound.’

‘Very true. The seat is often much higher or lower than it needs to be.’

Sometimes it’s better for them to sit closer to the piano, or further away.

‘However—’ There’s always a however. Sometimes no matter what you do or how hard you try, you cannot please the client. Often they don’t react at all. ‘Most of the time you don’t know what they want.’

‘Yeah, that happens.’ Mr Yanagi gave a small smile. ‘The thing is, we might be after 440 hertz, but that isn’t necessarily what the client is looking for. They just want a beautiful A above high C.’ He was right.

We walked on, carrying our bento meals in their plastic bags.