I have always liked black and white! It is simple and the colour of the piano.

Everybody improvises without noticing it. Life is about improvising. You can't control what happens in your life, I mean, you don't know what can happen in your life today. So you somehow improvise.

I started to listen to Japanese jazz musicians when I went to high school. Some people I listened to were Yosuke Yamashita, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Sadao Watanabe.

I'm always hungry to learn. I always look for something that I can study.

Work hard! Just keep working hard until you can do something you want to do! We all progress at different speeds and in different ways, so be patient and keep working hard!

My biggest musical dream is to keep playing all my life. There's nothing bigger than that and that's very challenging because you have to satisfy yourself at every stage.

Challenges are the key in life. You always have to challenge yourself and try to get to different states.