Beat by Beat
Musical flourishes in Japan’s central city of Hamamatsu beckon travelers seeking artful experiences.
Presented in partnership with the Hamamatsu & Lake Hamana Tourism Bureau
While Tokyo and Osaka top the itineraries of many visitors to Japan, there’s an oft-overlooked city halfway between that is a must-stop—especially for those with an interest in music.
Hamamatsu, in southwestern Shizuoka Prefecture, has played key parts in Japanese history more than once. In the 1570s, as the home base of Tokugawa Ieyasu—founder of Japan’s last shogunate—the small coastal town was an important stop on the road to the Edo Period (1603–1867), an era when the arts flourished.
Soon after the start of the Meiji Period in 1868, Hamamatsu became a center for textiles, silk production, and traditional crafts such as lacquerware. Emerging mechanical industries also found a home near the shores of Lake Hamana. Among those was the manufacture of musical instruments. Today, the city is home to some of the music world’s best-known brands, including Yamaha and Kawai.
In fact, music plays such an important role in modern Hamamatsu that the city was recognized in 2014 as a UNESCO Creative City of Music by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Performers from around the world descend on the city each year for the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition and the Shizuoka International Opera Competition. Both are hosted at Act City, a complex that houses two renowned concert halls. The central tower was the first thing that caught our eye as we emerged from Hamamatsu Station to begin a two-day tour of the area’s offerings.
Opening Note
We began our visit by indulging in one of Hamamatsu’s most popular culinary offerings: gyoza. The city goes dumpling for dumpling with Tochigi Prefecture’s Utsunomiya as Japan’s capital for the savory treat. Having recently visited both cities and sampled their offerings, I can confirm that this is a must-try for foodies.
Hamamatsu is also famous for eel. Lake Hamana, with its mix of freshwater and seawater, is known as the birthplace of eel farming in Japan.
After lunch, we stopped by Hamamatsu Castle—a recreation of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s historical stronghold—and recharged with a jolt of espresso from one of Japan’s 29 Starbucks concept stores, located on the castle grounds, before hitting the downbeat of our core itinerary.
The Sound of Innovation
Anyone who has played music, whether in their junior high school’s gymnasium or on the stage of Lincoln Center, knows the name Yamaha. But they may not know the intriguing story of the ubiquitous instrument maker’s origins.
It all started in Hamamatsu, in 1887, when Torakusu Yamaha was asked by Jinjo Elementary School in Hamamatsu to repair its imported reed organ. The Wakayama native, known in town for his work on medical equipment, was the only person they thought might be able to do it. While Yamaha didn’t know anything about the West’s music, a fascination with its science and technology had led him to learn about watchmaking and the inner workings of other mechanical devices.
Using his technical knowledge, he fixed the organ, and the experience ignited an interest in musical instruments. He decided to build his own organ. According to legend, he slung his creation over his shoulder and carried it across the mountains of Hakone, along the Old Tokaido Road, to the Music Institute in Tokyo, where it was resoundingly rejected as being poorly tuned.
Undeterred, Yamaha studied music theory and tuning before trying again. Today, the company he founded is one of the world’s leading piano manufacturers, and his experience overcoming that early criticism inspired the familiar tuning fork logo.
We got a firsthand look at the evolution of Yamaha’s craft when we visited Innovation Road, an expansive collection of musical instruments and audio equipment at Yamaha Corporation Headquarters. The location, about an eight-minute taxi ride from Hamamatsu Station, was previously a piano factory before the company constructed the current building to showcase its 138 years of dedication to music.
More than 30 pianos—including digital models—are on display at Innovation Road, including the CFX, Yamaha’s flagship full concert grand piano, and the rare Bösendorfer Woman in Gold Model 200, of which only 25 were ever produced.
The first piano we encountered, however, was not one of these classical masterpieces but rather an unusual prototype called Key Between People. Designed to express how we connect with one another through music, the instrument feels like a combination piano and bar. The compact shape allows a small group to gather around the instrument in an intimate setting.
Key Between People
Museum Director Seiichi Hashimoto, who guided us around the spacious exhibition, asked me to play a bit. As I pressed the keys, constellations burst across the tabletop, projected from above, in a celestial show meant to enhance the shared experience. It was an intriguing merging of melody and tech.
Hashimoto then walked us through the steps involved in crafting a piano—from shaping the soundboard and crafting the felt-covered hammers to polishing the lacquer—and shared stories about the evolution of the company’s instruments and gear.
We also saw a display of brass and woodwind instruments that brought back vibrant memories for me. Yamaha is one of the world’s rare manufacturers that produces a full range of orchestral instruments, from violins and cellos to oboes and flutes to trumpets and horns. Most companies specialize in specific families, such as Buffet Crampon’s dedication to woodwinds or Edwards’s exclusive focus on trumpets and trombones, the instrument I took up at age 10 and played for years in our city’s symphony orchestra. If you’re interested in how metal and wooden instruments are made, there are hands-on stations like that dedicated to pianos that demonstrate the process.
As we reached the far end of the main floor, Hashimoto explained the importance of audio reproduction to Yamaha’s mission. We stepped into a small theater packed with a 108.6-channel speaker system designed to demonstrate the company’s 3D audio technology. In the dark, immersive space, we watched a performance of the Yamaha Symphonic Band—a wind orchestra made up of talented company employees—on the massive 220-degree screen. The music washed over us with the same fidelity as if we were standing in the concert hall.
Next, we took a stroll down memory lane as we examined Yamaha’s creations decade by decade, starting with one of the first reed organs, built in the late 1880s, and ending with the Venova “casual wind instrument,” a saxophone-like sound innovation released in 2017 to make music more accessible to everyone. Along the way, we came across a DX7, the classic 1980s synthesizer that gave my friends and me countless hours of fun growing up as we played Van Halen’s “Jump” by ear along with the radio.
Around the corner were five “people” who yanked me from those high school years of monochrome LCDs and 16-note polyphony to the present day of supercomputers and artificial intelligence (AI).
Yamaha’s Vocaloid:AI allows Innovation Road visitors to play music together with an AI singer or saxophonist. You can instruct the AI artist using a “musical expression sensor” and it will seamlessly adapt the phrasing, use of vibrato, and more. Yamaha calls this “a bold step forward to a future where humans and AI create music together.”
The five people I mentioned are actually incarnations of a new type of speaker that Yamaha has developed. Extremely thin, the speakers excel at delivering isolated sound. In this exhibit, titled Flatone, five speakers displaying virtual vocalists combine to create an immersive audio experience. Each plays a role in an a cappella performance that blends perfectly when heard from a distance. If you walk up to each, however, you’ll hear only a single part. It’s a fascinating experience. Hashimoto led me back out to the main floor to show how the speaker technology is employed above individual exhibits to provide audio guidance.
We closed out this fascinating tour of music history at the Virtual Stage, a demonstration of Yamaha’s live performance reproduction system, called Real Sound Viewing. Against a video backdrop showing artists, real instruments are controlled by actuators that reproduce digitized sounds, sending vibrations that control drums, a double bass, and Disklavier, a self-playing piano.
Whether you perform music or just enjoy listening to it, Innovation Road is an unforgettable and enlightening experience not to be missed.
Crafted in Harmony
Hamamatsu is also home to Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Founded in 1927 by Koichi Kawai, the company focuses on pianos and has earned a reputation for quality around the world.
The son of a wagon maker, Kawai was drawn into the world of music at a young age by a man who was impressed by the pedal-driven cart the boy had built himself. That man was Torakusu Yamaha. He took Kawai under his wing and mentored him, and Kawai went on to become an engineer and a key part of Yamaha’s early success. Following Yamaha’s death in 1916, Kawai continued to refine his craft and founded his own company in 1927. Over the next few decades, his fledgling venture grew to be a key player in the industry, with annual production increasing to around 1,500 pianos per year by the early 1950s. And in 1953, Kawai became the first person in the musical instrument industry to receive the prestigious Medal with Blue Ribbon from the emperor.
To learn more about this history and get a firsthand look at how the pianos are made, we visited Kawai’s Ryuyo factory, about 15 minutes east of Hamamatsu by car. At the time of its completion in 1980, it was the largest factory in the world producing exclusively grand pianos. While it is no longer the largest in terms of size, the factory now combines the master craftsmanship of skilled artisans with the latest advancements in scientific technology to manufacture both grand and upright pianos.
The massive complex—with a total area of 168,218 square meters (1,810,700 square feet)—is known as “the workshop in the woods” thanks to the 30,000 new trees that were planted around it.
Our tour began in the Kawai Little Museum, a small space packed with big history. An array of instruments lines the walls, from a 14th-century clavichord to the futuristic Crystal Grand, a transparent piano that refracts and reflects light to surround the player in a rainbow of colors. As we moved through the centuries, we learned about the design progression of keyboard instruments and how engineers transformed the soft, thin plucks of a Medieval clavichord into the robust sound of a modern grand piano.
Building a grand piano requires a team of people and takes more than a month (and that’s not counting the time it takes the sheep to grow the wool used in the hammers). We saw each of the 11 steps in action as we walked the factory floor. Wood processing, painting and polishing, iron plate installation, stringing, tuning, and inspection are all performed by hand in this facility. In a world where so much work is done by machines, the absence of robotics was striking. Kawai grand pianos are truly handmade, and it was fascinating to watch the team craft pianos one at a time—carrying on the spirit upon which Kawai was founded.
One of the most interesting parts of the tour was the chance to touch the materials that become such a majestic instrument. It’s one thing to admire the beauty of a grand piano on a stage, but another to feel a tangible connection to its roots.
The importance of wood quality to a piano cannot be overstated. Kawai uses specially selected varieties of spruce for the soundboard, the wooden panel below the strings that amplifies the sound and determines the piano’s tone quality. After being harvested, the spruce is cut and then dried and seasoned naturally for many years. It’s a process of patience—like sitting through a Mahler symphony—but the results are worth the wait. We tested the resonance of a Kawai soundboard using a small, quiet music box. Touching it against the refined spruce filled the room with beautiful sound.
A visit to the Ryuyo factory is an enlightening experience, whether you’re a pianist or not. Although I’ve had a grand piano sitting in my living room for more than 20 years, I had never considered how complex its creation was until I stepped into this impressive workshop. When you visit Hamamatsu, don’t miss this chance to explore the process yourself.
Rhythmic Retreat
Between these visits to Hamamatsu’s musical giants, we stayed overnight at Katsuragi Hotel Kitanomaru, a resort in nearby Fukuroi City owned and operated by the Yamaha Group.
Described as “an extraordinary modern-day Japanese castle” in the English brochure, the expansive hotel’s base began its life long ago as seven folk houses in Ishikawa and Toyama Prefectures. When they faced demolition more than 40 years ago, Yamaha bought the structures, moved them here, and renovated them using wood from the company’s exclusive timber collection to create Kitanomaru.
Like most traditional Japanese buildings, the original structures were constructed without metal fasteners. While metal was used to join them on this site, many of the original wooden supports remain, and some beams running along the lobby ceiling are around 200 years old. From beneath these ancient logs, we looked out through the floor-to-ceiling window onto the gardens and golf course that are the heart of the resort.
Depending on the time of year, you can enjoy more than a dozen flower varieties, including cherry blossoms, plum blossoms, hydrangeas, Japanese maples, and wisteria, as well as a garden woven with 10,000 azaleas in shades of deep purple, pale lavender, and white.
You can also grab your clubs and take on two 18-hole courses designed by renowned golf architect Seiichi Inoue: Ukari and Yamana. The latter hosts the annual Yamaha Ladies Open Katsuragi tournament, part of the Ladies PGA of Japan Tour.
But we were here not to hit balls but to hit high notes, and we concluded our tour in the Audio Appreciation Lounge, a secluded space at the far end of the complex equipped with Yamaha’s latest high-end audio technology. We sank into the sofa, turned up the volume, and reveled in the lifelike sound enhanced by the room’s wooden structure.
Back in the lounge, we settled in with a glass of wine for one of the evening’s highlights: a mini concert by Haruna Ito. A graduate of the Aichi University of the Arts, the Hamamatsu native performed a range of pieces—from classical works to Studio Ghibli favorites—on a one-of-a-kind Yamaha grand piano. This piano is a commemorative model, the C6XA-GE, from Yamaha’s Ginza store, which opened in February 2010. The concept—Fusion of Beauty—was inspired by Ginza’s identity as a district where history and culture blend. The piano features inlays and decorations of golden clematis flower patterns, symbolizing the coexistence of Japanese and Western cultures as well as the harmony between trends and brands found in Ginza. It embodies the image of a place that combines a commitment to history with the ability to embrace new things.
After the performance, we joined Ito for dinner. The exquisite six-course meal with a seafood focus included Fuji trout marinated in koji; tuna, flounder, and cutlass fish sashimi; and deep-fried Pacific cod and cloud roe. For those like me who lack an affinity for seafood, Kitanomaru’s chefs offer a meatier menu. I absolutely loved the Tokara-style beef tataki, chicken simmered with Japanese pepper, and pan-roasted Mikkabi beef.
But especially interesting was our conversation with Ito. As a musician, I found it fascinating to hear about her journey in the arts and to discover that we both have connections to Russian mentors. Even for those without a background in music, the chance to learn firsthand what inspires performers makes for an intriguing experience far off the beaten path.
Before turning in for the night, I visited the bathhouse and open-air onsen. Soaking in hot spring water was incredibly relaxing despite the cold air, and with the late-night silence gently broken by the breeze and rustling trees, I was reminded that nature has its own music. It was a restorative way to end a very busy and fulfilling day.
Early the next morning, we tuned up with a delicious breakfast in the main dining hall, Tsubaki no Ma. As the rising sun streamed through the massive windows, we enjoyed omelets, sausage, fresh vegetables and fruit, yogurt, soy milk corn potage, and fresh juice.
It was hard to say goodbye to such a comfortable retreat, the perfect accompaniment to our musical adventure.
Final Note
Having spent two days immersed in the harmonies of Hamamatsu, we took in one more high note before catching the bullet train back to Tokyo.
Shizuoka accounts for about 40 percent of Japan’s tea cultivation, a fact highlighted by Chappaya, a tea house specializing in locally grown tea that is processed on-site. We made a stop at the quaint shop and, in addition to tasting several varieties of green tea, enjoyed a delicious bowl of roast beef over green tea-infused rice. It was the perfect bookend to the trip.
Back at Hamamatsu Station, I picked up sought-after souvenirs for my family—chilled gyoza and unagi pie, a sweet and crispy confection born in Hamamatsu. Produced by the 138-year-old Shunkado Co., Ltd., the treat is a favorite throughout the country.
Just before heading to the platform, I took in a musical performance outside the station—a final reminder of the heart and soul of this incredibly artistic city, which belongs on every visitor’s list of stops when exploring Japan.
Interested in visiting Hamamatsu or taking this tour yourself?
