This is an English translation of my Japanese article to appear in Nikkan San on September 19th, 2021, as a part of my bi-weekly column, “The Way of the Pianist.”
When I play my palms resonate with the vibration of the strings inside the piano. It’s a very subtle tickling sensation. When I am focused on the playing, I can never feel it. It is only at the very beginning of my daily practice session when I greet my piano with a long-held chord, or when I meet a piano for the first time and listen to the sound palate it has to offer me that I notice the tickles in my palms.
Piano is a large and sophisticated instrument. There are many steps to its manufacturing and each process involves many people. To choose and process the woods. To bring the woods to the piano factory. To make each intricate parts of the piano. To put them all together. To tune and condition the piano…When I press each key, I am releasing the dreams of all those who were involved in making the piano what it has become.
After so many years of my relationship to all the pianos and people who build and maintain them, I started thinking about other products in my life the same way. The food ingredients I use to cook. Gadgets that makes things easier in my life. Little accessories that make me happy. There are so many pretty, clever things available for little money these days. I used to love treating myself to bargains. However, now I know better about the exploitations – the violations of human rights – that are necessary for the cheap and abundant goods. “13th” was a documentary that taught me how the 13th Amendment allowed the prison labor to replace slavery as a labor force, perpetuating the legacy of the economy supported by slavery. The problems of international sweatshop labor is even more complicated because of disparate international economy and politics. “One in five cotton garments on the global marketplace is tainted by forced labor, and more than 20% of the world’s cotton comes from the Uyghur region, which the Chinese government calls Xinjiang. Forced labor is an integral part of the ethnic cleansing program being carried out by the Chinese government,” according to this Guardian article. If your convenience and fleeting amusement were products of other’s suffering…We need to seriously reflect on the ethical implications of the choices we make as consumers.
My Steinway is over a hundred years old, bought by my parents when I was thirteen years old, when I had just gotten into Juilliard PreCollege. To keep on playing on this old instrument is to succeed the dreams of all those who entrusted their dreams to this instrument.
