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Playing it by hand
Hiroko Yasunori is embarrassed when she is called a pianist. “I am just a piano teacher,” she says modestly, referring to the lessons she gives to children. She then lays out both her hands on the coffee table in front and humorously deprecates them, finding faults in their smallness. “I knew I could never be a very good pianist. My hands are so small.”
Hiroko and Jehanara Talati had a joint performance last year in October, on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Pakistan and Japan.
Born in Sakai City in Osaka Prefecture, Japan, Hiroko began her lessons in singing and playing the piano from her mother before she turned four. Her father taught opera singing at the Osaka College of Music (OCM) which, since its establishment in 1915, has been a pioneer in the field of music education in Japan. Hiroko’s parents had both studied at the OCM and her mother taught at the high school, which belonged to that college. Considering this, one would assume that music was in her blood.
“Not in my blood but certainly in my environment,” Hiroko replies, shying away from any compliments.
For 13 years Hiroko trained with Professor Yoh Hori who was her parents’ classmate. Her father, after teaching for more than 40 years, has now retired from the OCM but her parents’ home is the office of Sakai City Opera. Her father, therefore, remains busy with its administrative work. Hiroko has been visiting Japan every year, since the time she moved to Australia in 1987, and assists with the concerts organized by the Opera.
It is indeed a shame that today, in a city of 13 million people, technicians cannot be found for an instrument such as the piano. This wasn’t the case a few decades ago. Piano ownership conveyed a sense of middle-class refinement. No Pakistani film was complete without a Waheed Murad or a Nadeem wooing his lady love with his piano-playing skills
Hiroko says that although the most natural thing for her would have been to attend the OCM, just before she was eligible for admission she changed direction.
“The biggest reason for not going there was that I didn’t want to study the theories of music. I wanted to enjoy my music and not get bogged down with its mundane features. The other reason was that OCM only taught western classical music, whereas I loved musicals more than opera.”
Hiroko went to the international seaport city of Kobe and took up Ancient Japanese History as her major. She laughs saying that although she liked the subject, she found it “totally useless.” Acquiring her Bachelor’s degree from Konan University, Kobe, Hiroko also trained to play the electric organ for six years, after which she was certified as a piano instructor. She then wanted to explore other shores and went to Australia where she spent three years in Brisbane. Hiroko had been working as master of ceremonies at concerts and various events when she was in Japan, also accompanying numerous vocalists, operas and choruses. She was also teaching piano to children there. In Brisbane, she found work at the World Expo, which was held in the city in 1988.
Hiroko then moved to Sydney where she met her future husband who was a student there. She not only taught piano in Sydney but also held many concerts. The lady says she has been lucky to accompany Wilfred Lehman, a famous violinist living in Sydney, who has been honoured by the Australian government with a national award.
Did she ever get a chance to play at the famous Sydney Opera House? Hiroko wistfully replied in the negative. She married Aamir at the beginning of the new millennium and the couple decided to move to Pakistan. Before moving here in the year 2001, Hiroko had visited Pakistan twice. As a professional pianist, how easy, or difficult, was it to live here?
“I never regret my decisions,” she replies confidently but does share the fact that she was filled with trepidation on her first visit to Pakistan as it was a huge cultural shock. “Everything here is so different.”
She says it is not always easy to practice on an upright piano and then play on the grand piano at concerts. Although both have 88 keys, the touch and sound of an upright and a grand are quite different. The last time she had a joint concert, the grand piano that had been selected was lying unused in a store and was not in perfect condition. Hiroko regretted that there was just one person in the city who could tune the piano, although recently another tuner has been found.
It is indeed a shame that today, in a city of 13 million people, technicians cannot be found for an instrument such as the piano. This wasn’t so just a few decades ago. Some of the better schools of the city either had an upright or a grand piano. So did community centres, consulates and cultural centres, and also many private citizens. Piano ownership conveyed a sense of middle-class refinement. No Pakistani film was complete without a Waheed Murad or a Nadeem wooing his lady love with his piano-playing skills.
One can recall New York’s love affair with the piano. Apparently, it has been going on for a long time, as several museums, a landmark showroom and the United States’ most famous piano factory all stand to testify to this fact. In addition, gala concerts held at the Carnegie Hall commemorate the 150th anniversary of the founding, in New York, of Steinway & Sons. The Steinway factory, operational since 1870, offers free tours showing workers assembling the approximately 12,000 parts that go into a new concert grand piano. In museums dedicated to the piano, concert programmes, posters, autographs, photographs, sheet music, record covers and newspaper clippings document the parade of pianists who have played at Carnegie and other venues.
The music that otherwise floats in Hiroko’s neighbourhood here is either a cacophony of Pashto songs blaring from some watchman’s radio, Indian film songs from another house or, at night, the rippling, melodious notes of a flute played by a chowkidar close by.
It does prove one thing: Pakistanis cannot live without music. But will Karachi ever revert to the old times, creating jobs for salesmen, tuners, movers and music teachers and provide listening pleasure emanating from pianos to scores of children and adults?
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