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Yoko talks about learning to improvise
“Mr. B.G.” (written by Yoko in tribute to Benny Green) I’m sure when I first started playing piano at the age of four I must have been improvising because I had no idea how to read music. I didn’t know what a scale was. I didn’t even know middle C. I remember playing all day…
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Navigating the cultural differences between Japan and the U.S.
There were many cultural differences I noticed when I moved to the US from Japan. My initial impression was that Americans were less polite than the Japanese, but they were more friendly. I never saw strangers striking up a conversation with each other in Japan, and I was shocked to learn that students called their…
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Yoko talks about playing in a piano trio
Note: In the last edition of the blog, Yoko talked about playing solo piano. In this edition, she talks about playing with her trio. The first incarnation of my own group was actually a quintet; it was piano, bass, and drums with tenor sax and trumpet. I love to hear Oscar Peterson or Bill Evans…
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