John Arpin: Keyboard Virtuoso

JOHN ARPIN

JOHN ARPIN

Keyboard Virtuoso

Robert Popple

Copyright © Robert Popple, 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Editor: Jane Gibson

Copy Editor: Beverley Sotolov

Design: Jennifer Scott

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Popple, R.T.

John Arpin : keyboard virtuoso / by Robert Popple.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-55002-866-9

1. Arpin, John, 1936-. 2. Pianists--Canada--Biography. I. Title.

ML417.A76P66 2009 786.2092 C2009-901238-3

1 2 3 4 5 13 12 11 10 09

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

Printed and bound in Canada.

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Published by Natural Heritage Books

A Member of The Dundurn Group

Front cover: John Arpin. Courtesy Mary Jane Esplen. Back cover: John Arpin performs at the Northwood Appetite for Life Dinner in Halifax in 2000. Courtesy Mary Jane Esplen. All interior visuals unless otherwise credited are courtesy Mary Jane Esplen.

In memory of John Francis Oscar Arpin

December 3, 1936–November 8, 2007

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Preface

1 | Yamaha's Designated Artist

The Camera

Hamamatsu

A Yamaha Piano of Choice

Blind Soundings

A Faux Pas

2 | The Early Life of a Musical Genius

Marie's Birthings

The Musical Prodigy Emerges

Leo's Accident and Troubled Teenage Years

School Days and Arpin's Confectionery

Mrs. MacIsaac

A Succession of Music Teachers

Have You Thought About a Career in Baseball?

The Midland Music Festival

3 | Toronto Full-Time

The Three Johns

The St. Michael's Choir School Years

Basil, Reuben, and Others

Glenn Herbert Gould

First Jobs

The Beginnings of a Beautiful Friendship

The Romanellis

Early Days at the King Edward Hotel

The Summer of '57

4 | Breaking Away

38 Hopewell Avenue

Creating His Own Name

The Discovery of Gordon Lightfoot

The Jimmy Amaro Episode

Jobbing on Lower Yonge Street

The Ragtime Spark Ignites

The Workload Grows

Marriage Cracks Appear

5 | The Juggling Act

The Arpin-Macdonald-Fortier Trio

Enter Paulette

An Icicle Through the Heart

The Chelsea Bun

The Aftermath of Danielle's Death

A Second Marriage Comes Unglued

The 145 Wellington Street West Debacle

Toronto Music Benefactor Victor Di Bello

Midland's Budd Watson

6 | Eubie Blake and Friends

American Music History 101

Eubie Blake's Hundredth Birthday Party

A Visit to Eubie's House

Little-Known Shuffle Along Snippets

Al Rose, Jelly Roll Morton, and Eubie

Gershwin-esque Snippets

7 | Turmoil and Triumph

Another Fated Darch Intervention

The Calm Before the Storm

Maureen Forrester, A Chance Encounter, and Personal Woes

Mary Jane's Re-Entry

Musician Testimonials

The Dangers of Hands Separately

Arpin-Style Music Instruction

The One-Take Wonder

Bottoming Out

The Kitchener Closer

The Comeback

8 | The Concert Circuit

The McMichael Concert Series

Concertizing

Collector-itis

9 | And Now the End Is Near

Appendix A: John Arpin Chronology

Appendix B: John Arpin Recording Anthology

Appendix C: Tributes to John Arpin

Notes

Selected Resources

Index

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book could not have been written without the input and assistance of several people over the past four years. First and foremost among them was John Arpin himself, with whom I met for two or three days at a stretch and on several occasions. His wife, Mary Jane Esplen, was also of invaluable assistance, particularly after his passing in November 2007. She filled in the highlights of their seventeen-year marriage, provided the information on his concerts that is included in the appended chronology of his life, and supplied many of the visuals. Mary Jane and John's daughter, Jennifer, also combed meticulously through John's recordings and provided the information needed to complete the appended recording anthology of his albums. As well, Mary Jane put me in touch with several of John's associates.

The following people also contributed generously: the extended Arpin family, including son, Robert; daughters, Jennifer and Nadine; and their mothers, Anne and Paulette, all of whom I either met or spoke to or both. All spoke candidly of their experiences with, and remembrances of, John. Betty (Grigg) Macpherson retrieved the records of John's earliest public performances at the Midland Music Festival from the 1940s and 1950s. Arpin fellow musicians and performers Norman Amadio, Peter Appleyard, Guido Basso, Howard Cable, Gene DiNovi, Frank Lynch, Dean Macdonald, and Louise Pitre contributed their views on John's musical abilities and described first-hand their observations of his genius. Arpin recording associates Anton Kwiatkowski, Larry Meidell, J. Lyman Potts, and Mal Thompson supplied background on John's recording activities. Long-time Arpin friends Kathy Arab, Kay Arpin (a relative), Janette Cuesta, Bev Duncan, Pearl Duncan, Dr. David Hurst, Basil McCormick, John Miller, Rob Natale, Joyce Romanelli, and Catherine Richardson, one of John's earliest teachers, all provided information and anecdotes on a variety of John's activities. Lynn Troke helped with the development of the visuals.

The assistance of Barry Penhale and Jane Gibson in editing the manuscript and expediting the publishing of this work has been invaluable. Beverley Sotolov made several valuable comments on the final manuscript and performed meticulously as copy editor.

In particular, I wish to acknowledge the co-operation of the late John Arpin who consented to my taping of our conversations over the period of May 1, 2004, to August 19, 2007. Arpin's voice is heard throughout this book, sharing his frank opinions on various aspects of his extraordinary life.

PREFACE

Ifirst became aware of Johnny Arpin in the early 1950s when he was a competitor in the Midland Music Festival, held in the YMCA gymnasium on Hugel Avenue in Midland, Ontario, in those days. He was five years older than I was and competing in what looked to me like the stratosphere of the Royal Conservatory of Music piano curriculum — the grades VIII, IX, and X levels. Everybody at those events knew who he was because of his noteworthy musical abilities, but, given our age difference, he and I rarely if ever spoke. Nevertheless, I remember him as a wiry kid from Port McNicoll, with his hair parted and combed in a wave at the front — a popular male coiffure of the day. He would march up onto the stage with great confidence, conservatory music book in hand and already open at the applicable page, plunk the book on the piano's music stand, then proceed to pummel the keyboard with passionately delivered chords and blazing finger work. This kid meant business. His category typically had one other competitor at most — and oftentimes none because his already well-developed musical prowess knew no equal locally. Following the adjudicator's review of his performance, he would typically walk off with a first-place certificate and was generally regarded by the musical following of the festival (primarily parents and teachers of the competitors) as the star of the show.

He soon left town for Toronto but had been friends with my elder sister, Mary Ellen, also a competitor at these annual festivals, and a grade or so behind him. Arpin, of course, went on to pursue a career in music and became the most in-demand hotel musician of the Toronto scene of the 1960s and 1970s.

In the initial phase of his career, John Arpin worked as a sideman in Toronto for bandleaders such as Leo Romanelli, Stanley St. John, and Howard Cable. But shortly after he got started, and with a young family to provide for, he found himself humiliatingly unemployed as a result of rather shabby treatment from another bandleader. Once he was able to get work again, his musical reputation grew. The demand for his services increased, and in the interests of securing his family's future, he couldn't turn down work. There followed years of adhering to a gruelling schedule that resulted in a neglected, lonely wife (a prime cause of the breakdown of his first marriage). Aside from an eleven-year period during which he had his own quite successful trio, the Arpin-Macdonald-Fortier trio (a period that straddled his first and second marriages), he was to work his way through the middle years of his career essentially trying to handle all work functions primarily himself — including marketing, making bookings, planning and executing recording sessions, and performing. Admittedly, he was ably assisted by his second wife in some of the support functions, and, at times his first wife also contributed when tight deadlines were involved. But successful marketing of his talent into international stardom (which many believe it deserved) needed a New York–calibre agent, something he was never to find. Even Elvis Presley needed Colonel Tom Parker. The absence of top-drawer management (if the lamentations of several of John's fellow musicians are any indication, major quality agencies rivalling those in New York are rare in Canada) appears to be the main missing element in an otherwise remarkable career in Canadian music. Astoundingly, it was also during this middle phase of his career that he mastered virtually all remaining musical genres on the keyboard and established himself as the quintessential musician's musician. Musically, there wasn't anything that he couldn't do, from classical to jazz to pop to ragtime, and anything in-between.

The final phase of his career had a rocky beginning, something that Arpin's handle-everything-yourself approach clearly did not anticipate. In this period he focused on giving concerts that were primarily solo-piano performances yet included accompanying singers (such as Maureen Forrester or Louise Pitre); he also performed as guest artist with a variety of symphony orchestras and recorded prolifically, with some club work in the early stages between times. But by the late 1980s he was still essentially a one-man-show both on and off the stage, a style of working that continued until his health faded in 2007. His concerts were held in venues varying from Toronto's acoustically supreme Roy Thomson Hall to churches, halls, and theatres in hamlets, towns, and cities across the country, albeit the latter in fits and starts and not in well-organized concert tours that would have required that elusive New York–calibre agent. During this period his unprecedented and highly successful thirteen-year series of monthly Sunday concerts at the McMichael Canadian Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario, were given; those concerts were organized by Arpin himself.

In the spring of 1979, a cooling malfunction destroyed one reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It was the first serious accident at a nuclear power plant in the free world, and public confidence in nuclear power suffered immediately, despite the absence of any public safety effects. I came to Toronto as Ontario Hydro's spokesman in an endeavour to help restore confidence in their nuclear power program, which was then producing almost two-thirds of the province's electrical power. I was staying at Toronto's downtown Chelsea Inn, where John was playing nightly for the pre-dinner cocktail hour, and, after dinner, with his trio. As I had not yet moved my family to Toronto, John and I ate there together several times, and on the first of these occasions his encyclopedic memory did not fail him. He remembered me as Mary's little brother Bob, and there was a Don in there, too, wasn't there? Sure enough. That would be my little brother, Don. As I was to later note, John had virtually full recall of the thousands of people he met throughout his life. A down-to-earth person who was proud of his small-town roots, he remembered those early days well, and we exchanged stories about mutual acquaintances from our Huronian school days, particularly the chicks, as he called them, where they were then, who had married whom, and the like. Over the course of those dinners at the Chelsea Inn, John told me of his plans to leave club work soon with the intention of changing the focus of his career to concerts and recording. By that time he had been playing clubs in Toronto for over a quarter century. We remained in touch from time to time.

Shortly after moving to Toronto in 1979, I hired John to do a solo piano concert in Deep River, Ontario, in their Child's Auditorium, during which he delivered such a severe working over to their nine-foot Steinway that it needed re-tuning during intermission. That concert was a joint venture with the local Mount Martin Ski Club (the ski club's half of the proceeds were used to finance a new roof for their chalet), and the first of two concerts given in Deep River. Typical of John Arpin solo concerts, it was delivered extemporaneously. Once we had moved to Toronto, John came over to our house one Sunday with his young family for dinner and delivered an afternoon performance on my six-foot Steinway. It, too, was then ready for a visit from the piano tuner.

Over the next quarter century, John Arpin gave hundreds of concerts and created a volume of keyboard recordings in all musical genres that is second only in Canadian music circles to Oscar Peterson's two hundred plus albums.

In the spring of 2003, by which time I was convinced that he was a one-of-a-kind Canadian musical phenomenon and I was aware of some of the triumphs and tribulations associated with his life and career in music, I contacted him and asked him if he would be interested in collaborating on a biography. He rather jokingly indicated that he had hundreds of stories to tell but nothing that would be printable, but that he would think it over. In October of that year, he attended my book launch for Northern Belle: The Life Story of Ethel Curry at the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto. When I indicated that we could have the launch [of his biography] right in this room in a few years' time, he said, Okay, I'm game for that.

On that rather open-ended basis, we met at length on appointed dates over the ensuing four years amid the Victorian splendour of his home, with a tape recorder on for a considerable portion of the time. Those interviews formed the base of this biography. During those sessions he poured out the unvarnished story of his life into what eventually amounted to more than forty hours of one-sided conversational tapings. Although some recountings are too personal to publish, many are present in this book, and are characteristic of the masterful storytelling familiar to John Arpin concertgoers.

It is rare that one gets such an accomplished musician to outline his approach to teaching, but in this biography he does, if just briefly (see chapter 7). In that context, this book is a useful read for any parent who has a child studying piano for the insight it provides on the value of developing an understanding of the underlying structure of the music one plays — an approach that even today is rare among music teachers. That approach was a main reason for his being able to play selections from his encyclopedic repertoire impromptu.

What Wynton Marsalis, with his versatility and musicianship, is to trumpet, John Arpin was to piano. No other Canadian has matched his stupendous musical reach — either in breadth or depth, nor has, arguably, any other keyboard musician worldwide. The in-depth background on the music that John Arpin played was evident in his many onstage performances. His artful storytelling in these settings prompted the Toronto Star columnist Peter Goddard¹ to observe that Arpin has history in his fingers.

When John Arpin died on November 8, 2007, I came to realize that I knew more about this man's life than did any other living person, including his third wife, Mary Jane. Several people knew some things about him, but he had told me virtually his whole story from beginning to end and in a retrievable form. I therefore felt duty-bound to contribute to securing his place in Canadian musical history through a biography on his life. The result is this book.

Enjoy.

ROBERT POPPLE

MARCH 2009

1

Yamaha's Designated Artist

Tokyo, Japan. December 1982. The renowned Canadian pianist John Arpin, who grew up in Port McNicoll, Ontario, is onstage in the Kan'ihoken Hall before a capacity crowd of seventeen hundred. He is competing in a Yamaha-sponsored, worldwide composer-arranger-performer music festival, billed as the Second International Original Concert. When the competition started several days earlier, more than 450 competitors from thirty-nine countries had converged on Tokyo in pursuit of the coveted gold medal that would signify the best in the world. Preliminary elimination rounds were used to winnow out the top fourteen competitors, each of whom would give a final, audience-judged performance on one of two nights, each night featuring seven competitors.¹

Immersed in music from the age of four, John Arpin is the sole Canadian finalist in this mother of all music festivals. In making his selection of material, Arpin knew that it had to be something melodic, nothing angular or atonal, something that would appeal to the Japanese ear. On this occasion he is coaxing his melodious signature sound from his own composition Lyric Suite for Piano, Strings, and Percussion.² His fingers barely graze the keys of the Yamaha concert grand, yet each finger lands with astounding accuracy and effect, his unmatched technique the product of millions of note soundings over forty years of hard-won practice and performance. String players supplied by the Japan Philharmonic Symphony provide the accompaniment, together with a drummer on loan from a local swing band, who adds a background bossa-nova beat. Arpin's mop-top hairstyle, popular in the Beatles era and reminiscent of the tennis star Jimmy Connors, perhaps plays to his advantage, reminding some in the audience of the great Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa. Arpin and his ensemble execute the work flawlessly, to thunderous applause.

Some four years earlier the Yamaha Corporation had recruited John Arpin as their Designated Artist in Canada. Consistent with their corporate philosophy of relentlessly pursuing excellence, they had picked the very best. The contractual relationship was to last two more years, harmonious, even synergistic, for most of that time, but would end on a point of principle: whether the Japanese could teach Western music as well as Westerners did. An industrial colossus engaged in the production and marketing of goods ranging from guitars to motorcycles and featuring a see the quality, feel the quality, hear the quality approach throughout, Yamaha was moving abroad aggressively with their product line in 1982. Their goal was to usurp market share in all their product areas, with the particular objective of becoming the piano manufacturer of choice in North America, if indeed not the world. Innovations that set them apart from their competition in the quest for acoustical perfection included the use of modern materials such as Teflon in critical areas of the piano's action, whereas competitors were sticking dogmatically to traditional materials. The company's marketing arsenal of proactive initiatives made their competitors appear reactive, change-averse, even reluctant. One such initiative was their global composer-arranger-performer competitions.

On this evening in 1982 the corporation is featuring, of course, their nine-foot grand piano. The instrument is positioned prominently among the many other instruments in the orchestra — most of which, if not all, Yamaha also manufactures — to accompany or be played by the fourteen finalists.

Because the performances will be audience-judged, each member of the audience is equipped with a wireless electronic scorer into which are entered scores on originality, performance level, and enjoyment level.³ A central computer will collate and analyze the results. Arpin has drawn the fifth slot; only two performers will follow him on this night, seven on the following night. Unlike many of his competitors, who hope to impress the audience with their inventiveness by using eclectic combinations of instruments and unconventional chord progressions, Arpin's entry is of an easy-listening variety.

As the competition heats up, one of the finalists, Arnaud Dumond from France senses that he has been outfoxed by the versatile musical prodigy from Port McNicoll. Offstage, Dumond begins to disapprove of Arpin's choice of material. He derides Arpin's submission as being a half century out-of-date. His, on the other hand, his argument goes, is leading-edge, pushes the envelope, new stuff that's never been done before. Scarcely blinking at this affront to his choice of material, Arpin leaves Dumond poleaxed with his response: "So what? People across the world are still talking about those guys who wrote stuff fifty years ago [in the most creative era of America's musical history] — and it's never been matched. Nobody's even heard of you yet. And by the sound of some of the stuff that you are presenting likely never will." Later the conductor takes Arpin aside and comments sotto voce: "They tell me Dumond is the only one writing such far-out material — and frankly, we're hoping he is the only one."⁴

This poster-size announcement of John Arpin's participation in Yamaha's 1982 Second International Original Concert hung in Tokyo's Kan'ihoken Hall advertising Canada's sole entry in the competition.

When Dumond's turn comes, he presents a three-part composition entitled Medee-Midi-Desert, described in the program as an enigma of three mingled moods, beginning with a Greek tragedy that includes an orgy, a second movement depicting a Romanesque midday ghost's hour of mirages and delirium, culminating in a third movement of bareness, loneliness, shrieking, and, ultimately, silence.⁵

An orgy? Delirium? Bareness? Shrieking? Far-out indeed. Surprisingly, Dumond's performance must have appealed greatly to the audience, because he earns a top mark in the competition. Astoundingly, when the results for originality, performance, and enjoyment are tallied, Arpin and Dumond tie for the gold medal. As a result, an atmosphere of uncertainty descends upon the scene. This is an outcome that no one anticipated. There is no feasible way to break the tie, although if each competitor had been required to give an encore performance as a tiebreaker, Arpin would have undoubtedly risen to the occasion. One wonders whether Dumond came with comparable capabilities, but history will never know the answer.

Having struck only one gold medal, the Yamaha event organizers are thrown into discreet disarray. They cannot award two gold medals on the spot because they have only one. Since both competitors earned gold, however, they could have awarded two golds, with one to follow to the loser of a coin toss, for example. That option may have been considered but was not pursued. Having several silver medals on hand, however, they decide to award the top two finishers, Arpin and Dumond, silver medals — an option that really did not match the competition outcome, since Arpin and Dumond tied for first.⁶

Sensitive to the criticism of overpromoting a single-company-sponsored event, the Canadian media provide minimal coverage of Arpin's achievement, presumably believing that there is something wrong with such an event. But what? How much more impartially can a competition be judged than by each person in the audience inputting scores into a computer against pre-selected criteria? There was nothing to prevent a Canadian piano manufacturer from hosting a similar event in Canada. And if one had, one can only assume that the same rationale would have prevented the event from being properly covered by the media. Almost grudgingly, Canadian newspapers report the Japan event in a few brief sentences on one of their inner pages as if it is an everyday, unimportant occurrence, stating, somewhat inaccurately, that Arpin won the competition. The facts of the tie go unreported.⁷

How typically Canadian. Is it any wonder that we have so few heroes? Had that been an Olympic medal — silver or otherwise — its recipient would have been pictured on the front page of every newspaper across the country, accompanied by glowing columns of print. But in a very real sense, the Japan event was an Olympics — of music. It was a global competition for which the rules of engagement required the competing musicians to compose, arrange, and perform an original suite of music. Certainly, Yamaha's 1982 worldwide competition was not an everyday event and warranted more Canadian media stature than it received — particularly in view of the result. It is another startling example of how the achievements of our brightest, our best, our highest achievers, oftentimes are underappreciated, and sometimes even unnoticed.

The Camera

On arrival in Tokyo, Arpin had been assigned the affable Miki Yoshimori to act as his guide and interpreter for the duration of the visit.⁸ They were to become lifelong friends.

Soon after the competition, they boarded a bullet train down to Hamamatsu, site of the Yamaha piano production plant, for a tour. However, as soon as they got off the train and it had departed the station as soundlessly as it had arrived, Arpin realized that he had forgotten his newly purchased Japanese camera, a top-of-the-line Konika, which he had left sitting on his seat of the now rapidly receding train.

As Arpin's eyes frantically darted across his baggage and he felt for the neck strap upon which the camera had been dangling, Miki sensed that something was wrong.

You forget something? inquired his interpreter.

Yeah, my camera. I forgot my new camera on the train, replied Arpin.

Too bad! I not worry much! said Miki.

Marching smartly over to a manned kiosk, Miki engaged the attendant in some Japanese dialogue sprinkled with broken English, within which Arpin could decipher only … fliend … Canada … and He forgot camela on seat.

In response to the attendant's question in Japanese, Miki turned and queried Arpin, You have ticket? Arpin handed over his ticket stub. After pulling down a giant roller blind, which was a seat-by-seat layout of the train, the attendant pinpointed the seat Arpin had been sitting in and confirmed his selection with Miki.

Following the exchange of a few more remarks in Japanese, Miki turned to Arpin and said, We go to hotel now.

What about the camera? asked an apprehensive Arpin.

We wait. This man call, replied Miki.

As the two were checking into the hotel, Miki instructed the desk clerk in his snipped English, We waiting call from railway. We in lestaulant. You get call. You call me. Miki Yoshimori. Please don't forget!

Some minutes later there was a page in the restaurant for Miki. He promptly reassured Arpin, Maybe railway call. Back in two minutes. He exited to respond to the page, only to return a minute or so later sporting an ear-to-ear grin.

Ahhhhh! They find camela. You know why I not worry? Somebody touch that camela not belong to them, they go to jail. Family disown!

The camera was soon back in Arpin's hands.

Hamamatsu

The visit to the Hamamatsu floored the gifted pianist. He saw one of the most impressive manufacturing plants of the post–Second World War Japanese economic revival. The assembly line had the footprint of eleven football fields⁹ arranged in a production cluster. Arpin watched the line grind relentlessly on with Swiss-watch precision as each sub-assembly procedure dovetailed with the master train and each component was painstakingly and lovingly put in place at each stopping station. The pride of workmanship injected into each and every piano was remarkable to see.¹⁰

The woods used, vital to producing consistency of sound in the final product, were handled with the utmost of care in a series of rooms adjoining as many as four main assembly lines. The woods and the partially assembled pianos were stored in separate climate-controlled rooms, each storage room with its temperature and humidity replicating the climate of the piano's destination country. (One wonders which Canadian location was picked as representative of Canada.) The climate control even included time-of-day characteristics, peaking in humidity or temperature midday, as Yamaha research had shown to be the case. This remarkable collection of one-room micro-climates covered all the main destinations around the world. If the piano was going to Southern California, it was stored in the Southern California room. It would be removed for just-in-time arrival at the next work station of its assembly, the required assembly would be executed, then the piano would be returned promptly to the Southern California storage room, all on giant conveyor belts. If a piano was going to Great Britain, the same principles and procedures applied, and so on. Each piano had a home room in which it lived until it was packed, sealed, and crated for shipment to its destination.¹¹

Every morning at about ten-thirty, a loud whistle would sound, the conveyors would stop, and each worker would run to a predetermined area for a ten-minute calisthenics break, with all the workers falling into line in precisely sized groups. An instructor would lead each group as it exercised in lockstep, a picture of military precision. Another whistle blast signalled the end of the exercise period, whereupon all the workers ran back to their assembly-line stations and resumed their work. A similar exercise break occurred in mid-afternoon. As John noted, The idea was to prevent their muscles from becoming too relaxed. And every one of those workers lived in a house built and owned by Yamaha. As long as they worked for Yamaha, the house was theirs, for use by themselves and their family, free of charge.

Following the trip to the Yamaha piano factory, Miki took Arpin down to Kyoto, where his sister-in-law, who was married to a doctor, lived with her family. Miki also introduced John to another of his sisters-in-law, this time a beautiful young Japanese girl named Suniko, who loved music, particularly opera. John corresponded with her for a time afterward but eventually lost touch.

Being allergic to shrimp and shellfish, Arpin worried constantly over the food throughout the trip.¹² Because these items are common ingredients in many Japanese dishes, John felt he had to be on the lookout at all times. To Miki's great amusement, he handled the chopsticks like medical tweezers, examining each bite of food with great care.

The previous year, Miki had hosted the Hamilton Symphony Orchestra conductor Boris Brott, then also acting as a Yamaha adviser. As part of the extracurricular activities designed to show the esteemed gentleman Japan's finest culture, Miki's fun-loving father-in-law took Miki and Brott to a rather exquisite Japanese restaurant, and later to that great Japanese favourite, a karaoke bar. When asked to sing, Brott replied somewhat stiffly, I am a conductor, not a singer, and refused to perform. A year later, when they put Arpin in the same position, a stellar performance ensued. Over dinner a geisha, attired in traditional geisha apparel — an elaborate silk kimono, white makeup on her face, hair swept up into a huge bun and adorned with a large hairpin — attended Arpin. She looked after [my] every need while I was in that restaurant short of putting the food into [my] mouth.¹³

John taking tea with a geisha girl, Tokyo, 1982.

Just after his arrival in Tokyo, Arpin had begun lobbying Miki to take him to a high-class Japanese bathhouse. Concerned that the excitement inherent in such a place could cause his visiting musical prodigy to suffer a coronary thrombosis that would render him unable to play in the mega concert, Miki agreed to find one for him — but only after he [had] performed at the concert! Consequently, a few days after the concert, Arpin was taken to a Japanese bathhouse.¹⁴ First he was treated to a regular massage, the masseuse lovingly anointing his body with a variety of scented oils that were worked into his flesh with an oversized pair of hands that could have easily choked a grizzly bear. She used every massage technique from heavy rubbing to a series of rapid-fire judo chops up and down his back. The coup de grâce came in the form of a most unusual back treatment. With John lying on his stomach on a table, a diminutive lady entered the room, got up on the table, and walked up and down his back in her bare feet, several times, very slowly. With each step he could feel her toes digging into his back on either side of his spine. The after-effect was a never-to-be-forgotten high. When he walked out of the place, he was slightly self-conscious about the vapour trail of scented oils he was leaving behind him but felt fantastic. And his back had never felt so good.

A Yamaha Piano of Choice

As Yamaha's Designated Artist over a period of several years, Arpin was constantly meeting Yamaha piano experts from Japan, who were on a mission to improve their product. Obsessed with customer feedback and constant improvement of their product, they had one question perpetually on their lips: What is it you don't like about this piano? The question came so often that Arpin wondered what reception these visiting emissaries would receive back home if they returned without a substantive answer. Customer satisfaction was being elevated to new heights by the Japanese, and it wasn't limited to pianos — just look at their cars.

But customer feedback can be overdone. Ask enough people this question enough times, and answers that won't necessarily improve the product start to come. People answer simply because an answer is insisted upon, even if the item in question ain't broke. The process can push the product past the optimum, particularly in the case of pianos. Something like that happened with Yamaha and their C7D line of pianos.

John Arpin was not the only pianist Yamaha asked for feedback on their pianos. After polling several classical musicians across the world, Yamaha concluded that the bass on their C7D was too rough. Without Arpin's knowledge, Yamaha proceeded to build a C7E as the start of the next generation of C7s and promptly delivered one from Japan for him to try out. Familiar with the magnificent sound on the bass in the earlier version, he almost recoiled in disbelief at what he heard on the newly built C7E.

What have you done with the bass? he asked.

After hearing that feedback from various musicians had influenced the company to subdue the bass on the instrument somewhat, Arpin said, "Well, that's all in the music that they're playing. But to go from the C7D to this [the C7E] is quite a change."

You don't think this a good thing? officials asked apprehensively.

Attempting to let them down gently, he proffered, Well, there will be a contingent of musicians who like that sound, but I don't think you will sell as many of the E as you did of the D.

Once Arpin's sales prediction had come to pass the following year, Yamaha brought out a C7F, with about three-quarters of the magnificent C7D bass restored to its original glory, and quickly rushed a specimen over to Arpin for his assessment.

What you think now? they asked, nervously hoping for his approval.

Much better, was the reply. The sizing and characteristics of the C7D had somehow converged in an overall configuration that was close to the optimum, short of a grand. According to Arpin:

The C7F sold very, very well, but not many people wanted the C7E, and its sales were disappointing for Yamaha. But they still haven't made a piano as good as the C7D. It sounds like a nine-foot grand. And when I play it in a concert hall, I can always tell. The C7D speaks to the back row in the place and it always goes over better. If you are playing in a hall and the sound dies halfway back in the hall, either people can't hear it or they are only hearing selected aspects of the sound, not the full rich sound that a D produces. The D produces a sound that travels evenly across the full length and