I am going to Taiwan by the end of this month for a performance tour. I am a member of “All Koenji Team” that is consists of 160 dancers and band members. I have joined the team as a flute player.

We had our first practice yesterday. Most of the songs we played were the same that I played at the Furusato festival, which was held last January. The members are familiar, too.

This team is divided to two teams. One team stays in Taipei and the other one travels from south to north. I belong to the second team, so we perform in Kaoshun which is located south of Taiwan and then move to Uinrin the middle, and finally arrive in Taipei. The last performance is going to be participated by all 160 members.

I have a very close friend in Kaoshun, and she and her daughter are going to see our perform on stage. It’s so exciting!

I started learning to play the Japanese guitar called “Shamisen” last July. My team, Suiren has no Shamisen player yet. So I decided to start playing it.

This is the first time for me to play Shamisen. It was not easy at first because I had no experience to play even the usual guitar. The difficult part for me is turning the tuning peg. I have to listen carefully and turn the peg.
While playing, Shamisen easily loosens its strings, so I have to turn it back. It takes time to get used to it.

A few days ago, my friend gave me a good Shamisen! I brought it to my Shamisen teacher to ask her to send it to an instrumental shop to have it fixed. She said it is a great one! I feel that I have to practice a lot to play it well.

I am sure that I love to play Japanese flute but I also love to play Shamisen. I can feel my progress as a beginner of Shamisen. I hope to be able to play it on a summer festival in two years.



This shamisen is under repair!