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.

Some artists just go and play, and I have no objections to that - but I don't like to do that. People take their very precious time to come to my concert, and they give me the opportunity to share two hours of their lives. I want to do the best I can, for visuals, sound and everything!

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

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.

Nobody wants to experience sad events but people like to listen to sad songs. That's the beauty of music.

Satisfying yourself requires challenges because when you come to a certain point, you're not happy anymore. You don't feel happy with the way you played one year ago, you have to always make progress. So that's a challenge.

I have to be very original and have a strong musical voice. I don't want to be a copycat of anybody.