The delicate frown lines between the brows of a crying baby. The bare mountain trees beginning to bud, and the ecstasy of the moment when the tips of the branches reflect a reddish hue, casting a warm glow across the mountain. The mountain on fire with these imaginary flames would stop my breath and fill my heart to bursting.

It liberated me to have a word for these things – for the trees, the mountains, the seasons. To call them beautiful meant I could take them out any time I wished, exchange them with friends. Beauty was everywhere in the world. I had just never known what to call it or how to recognize it – until that afternoon in the school gym, when it flooded me with joy. If a piano can bring to light the beauty that has become invisible to us, and give it audible form, then it is a miraculous instrument and I thrill to be its lowly servant.

Sisters Are Cool

I remember vividly the first day I went out to tune a piano. Autumn was on its way, the sky a spellbinding blue. I’d been working with the company for over five months. Mr Yanagi was called out to tune a client’s piano and I was to accompany him as his assistant, although in reality I was less of an assistant than an observer. It was a good opportunity to study technique, of course, and how one interacted with clients – the back and forth between client and tuner.

It’s fair to say I was a bundle of nerves when Mr Yanagi pushed the intercom button outside the entrance to the white block of flats. A lady answered and her voice seemed kind. The door buzzed open, and I calmed myself with the thought that we were here for the piano rather than for her.

We took the lift to the fourth floor.

‘I’m looking forward to this one,’ Mr Yanagi murmured as we strolled down the hallway.

The door opened to reveal a woman of about my mother’s age. The piano was standing in the first room to our right, where a thick blue carpet covered the floor and luscious heavy curtains hung at the window – for soundproofing, I imagined. Two identical stools were arranged in front of the piano. The instrument itself was a gleaming black baby grand, expertly polished. Not a particularly high-end model, it was nonetheless clearly looked after with pride. When Mr Yanagi played an octave interval I could sense immediately that it was out of tune, only six months after the last tuning, which confirmed that it was regularly played.

Now I understood why Mr Yanagi had said he was looking forward to working on it. It was sheer pleasure to tune a piano whose owner loved it so much. Pianos want to be played. They are always open – to people and to music, ready to shine a helpful guiding light towards worldly beauty.