The Forest of Wool and Steel

by Natsu Miyashita

The nuances of sound that a highly skilled tuner must be able to distinguish and what I myself had been brought up with were worlds apart. The soft hotohoto-plunk of ripe chestnuts falling to the forest floor. The rustling sharashara of leaves brushing against each other. The chorochoro trickle of snow sliding down the lengths of a thousand creaking branches. I’m not able to illustrate those sounds quite precisely enough in words: the ear recognizes sounds far beyond what can be expressed through simple onomatopoeia.

I was filled with guilt for even wishing it. The office suddenly felt cold. I shook my head vigorously to dispel all these notions. It’s the same when you’re willing someone on to win a piano competition – it means you’re hoping another person is the loser. It’s hard to condemn a wish, though – it doesn’t mean it’s going to come true. And if it does, the wish-maker can’t be held responsible. Fruit falls from a tree whether I’m there to witness it or not. Somebody laughs, somebody cries.

Music is there to help us enjoy life, not as a means to outdo everyone else. Even if you do compete and a winner is picked – the person who enjoys himself the most is always the real winner.

The glistening of the world as the morning sun rises, the glowing as it sets – who can say which is better? The morning sun and evening sun are the very same sun, yet the form of their beauty differs. That’s what I figure, in any case.

Music is no competition – and if that’s the case, it holds even truer for tuners. A piano tuner’s work lies far beyond the realm of competition. If anything, a tuner should aim for a certain state of being, rather than a place on the podium, a ranking in some race.

Bright, quiet, crystal-clear writing that evokes fond memories, that seems a touch sentimental yet is unsparing and deep, writing as lovely as a dream, yet as exact as reality.

I haven’t even seen the world yet.’ ‘Neither have I.’ But this is the world, isn’t it? I can’t see everything, but it is the world.

‘Playing the piano is not how I’ll make a living,’ Kazune said. ‘It’s how I’ll make a life.’

She isn’t giving up the piano at all. There are entrances to the forest all over. And there must be so many routes to walk through it.

How could I get better at tuning? If I knew the answer, I would leap into it with every ounce of strength I had. No matter how tough it might be, no matter how painful or trying, I would do it – if only I knew what it was. Perhaps it was the same for a pianist. Learning the basics and practising one’s technique are of course indispensable, but how do you polish your expression, your interpretation?

It was true – everything about her playing was exquisite, but those chords were indescribable. So euphonious that my body felt as if it would melt away, and if I didn’t watch myself I’d be in tears. The way she blended the notes was exceptional. I’d heard any number of people play the same piano; why was her tone so unique?

I’m not that sociable or friendly, but with a piano I could feel a closeness I lacked with people. How have you been? I wanted to say aloud. It’s been a while.

‘When a pianist plays the piano,’ he said, ‘he expresses everything in his imagination through the tone of his music. To switch it around, a pianist is unable to play any sound that does not already exist within him – but the piano enables his skill and technique to come out loud and clear.’

‘No matter what you do,’ he said, ‘you’ll never reach perfection. At a certain point you have to come to a decision, say this is it, put your tools down and give up.’

I worked outside the regular flow of time and space, my senses on full alert, my concentration unwavering.

I had thought there was nothing in the forest, nothing in the scenery around me, but now I knew: everything was there. It wasn’t that it was hidden, but that I simply hadn’t seen it.