‘You see, talent will out if you really love something. A tenacity, a fight in you that keeps you in the fray no matter what. Something like that. That’s the way I’ve come to think of it.’ Mr Yanagi spoke in hushed tones.

Don’t Give Everyone a Harley

‘Mr Akino,’ I called out, but got no response. ‘Mr Akino,’ I called out again, and he finally noticed and looked up abruptly.

‘What is it?’ He lifted his hand to his ear and drew something out.

‘What’s that?’

‘An earplug.’

The surrounding noise must bother him, I figured, but then it hit me. It’s for tuning. He’s trying to protect his ears.

‘I do have a very sensitive pair of ears, you know,’ Mr Akino said, poker-faced. ‘So what do you want?’

‘Would you let me come along with you?’

‘On what?’

I wanted to learn what Mr Akino had dubbed the boom-snap, the high-and-low-end approach to tuning. I think I felt this way because I’d become so aware of the extent of my own shortcomings. ‘I’d like to watch you while you tune, if you’d let me.’

I bowed and he pulled a long face.

‘No, thanks, I’ll find it hard to concentrate.’

‘Please. I’d like so very much to come along and see you at work.’

I bowed again and he glanced down at the yellow earplug in his hand.

‘I doubt you will find it very interesting.’

I took this to mean that, however reluctantly, he was giving me the go-ahead, and I thanked him heartily.

‘Don’t get your hopes up. It’s just plain ordinary tuning.’

It’s plain ordinary tuning that I wanted to know about – to see Mr Akino’s plain ordinary way of doing things.

‘I’m really looking forward to it.’

Still looking none too pleased, he’d already shoved the earplug back in place.

The house I visited with him the following day was, as advertised, an entirely normal one. A typical one-storey house with an upright piano, nothing special. But as I was to learn, the way Mr Akino tuned was far from ordinary.