I promised myself that I wouldn’t turn this blog into a stationary blog, but alas. Stationary is cool so I’m going to share more of that with you. I’ll start this off with why I use pencils.

There are lots of reasons that I use pencils. Pencils are neat, shiny, affordable, erasable, and easy to spin between your fingers, if you can. As a musician and from an early age, I was trained to use a pencil while practicing. We use pencils instead of pens or anything more permanent incase there are changes that we need to make during the music learning process. Learning music or anything for that matter is an iterative process, one that requires constant experimentation and change. You just can’t do that with a pen! And before you start, no, erasable pens aren’t going to cut it either.

There’s something about the way that the graphite hits the page or the way that it runs across the paper that makes it so satisfying. There’s also this familiarity that comes with pencils. That’s how we learn how to write, how we learn to read. The satisfaction that comes with this is just unmatched.

With all of that in mind, I do have some current all-around favorite pencil. My current favorite pencil is the Mitsu-bishi Master Writing 9852 HB. They’re so comfortable to write with on any paper and show up so well. A rarity these days, the beautiful pink erasers on these pencils actually work! I’ve been purchasing them individually, but am in search of a dozen.

Well, I hope that you’ve enjoyed a deeper dive into my affection for pencils. More of these to come!

-Ciyadh

P.S. I have lots of little corners of the internet where I buy pencils and CW Pencils in NY is by far one of the best pencil shops out there. Visited there in the summer of 2019 and it was so cool.