Hamamatsu Japan

The lakeside city is home to Yamaha and Kawai piano makers, a leading competition... and prized local eels

- Claire Jackson

Engineers dressed in rose-pink and spring-green overalls move in formation across the spacious workshop. Delicate spruce soundboards lie in wait, ready to breathe life into the Kawai pianos. 'Tell me how they are made,' I ask innocently, knowing full well that my guide around the Japanese factory will not answer this. Kawai, like every other piano maker, never reveals too many details about its soundboards, the soul of an instrument. These ones have been aged by a traditional kigarashi process over – well, no-one really knows how long – to create a distinctive tonal quality. Adolescent pianos parade slowly along a conveyor belt, ready for basic tuning. The technician, whose approach and uniform recalls a cosmetics counter salesperson, gently and efficiently adjusts the strings. The growing instrument is packed into a piano park like a salaryman in a capsule hotel. I watch it move into its future. The beautician is already at work on the next client.

The Shiko Seion hammers take their name from the Japanese words for 'ultimate voicing', a process that is overseen by master piano artisans. The temaki (hand-wound) bass strings are precisely tightened to achieve depth of tone. On the wall there's a large noticeboard filled with letters from school children. Around 2,000 students visit the Ryuyo site each year, and many go on to work there. The smell of glue and wood mixes with the sounds of microtones; a delicious cocktail that is a Cageian piece in itself. The Shigeru concert grand goes on to an acoustic chamber for a final check.