SECTION 1
SHUUSEI [BIRTH]

2. Sparta Ongaku Kyouiku
[A Spartan Music Education]

Ever since I can remember, there was an environment around me that made it only natural that I play the piano.

I started when I was three years old. My father played the trumpet, and both of my parents had the common thought to make me learn the piano.

My house was a classical home. There were a lot of orchestral works. Later, somehow, there was chanson and tango. It's a funny story, but…

Because I couldn't watch TV, I knew absolutely nothing about rock itself.

My father also really liked Enka. However, he never listened to it in the house, but always while he was driving. His car always smelled very strongly of perfume, and to me, who got very carsick, it seemed like torture. It was definitely like being drunk. Enka was what was on during that time I felt drunk and terrible. I wanted to hurry up and get out of the car. I put my hands over my ears and just pray that I could get out. Just because of Enka, I became conditioned to do that. I really hated Enka.

Now when I listen to it, it's a nice melody. But when I was young, I didn't listen to the lyrics, and Japanese music itself was incompatible with me.

In my music textbook appear many nursery rhymes and songs and minor chords. Why is Japanese music so dark and depressing? All the melodies are sad.

Compared to this, classical orchestral pieces are violent and forceful. Bright. Inevitably, I became attracted more to foreign music than Japanese music.

The teacher who started teaching me from when I was three was a good person. I loved the piano. Maybe it was because it was fun seeing this teacher. I liked it so much that I never complained about practicing.

However, when I entered elementary school, piano lessons became unpleasant.

I started having doubts and questions when I was seven years old. Practicing piano became shameful for me.

I felt strongly, "I'm being made to do it." It was agonizing. We moved a few times, and one after another I changed different teachers, and this was one of the causes for me hating piano.

At seven years old was when I drowned in the ocean, right? From that time on, my world became an open gallery.

No matter what teacher I had at that time, they would beat me. I was slapped on the arm and the shoulder. "Do you feel like doing it?" they would say in a cold voice. In my heart, resistance would flare up. I wanted to quit piano, However, my parents wouldn't let me. I wondered how I could quit.

The only thing I could do was make my teacher hate me. I twisted a chain around his front door and tied it to the key so that you couldn't get in from the outside. He called me a stupid kid [lit: mischievous] and threw a rock at me. I made him very angry, but all I wanted to make him say was, "This child is irresponsible. Make him quit." I also wanted to make my parents think, "His teacher isn't home."

My wish came true, and I was just able to quit piano when I was 11 years old.