When I moved to New York City from Japan, I found everything much more difficult in comparison to my home country. The population is much bigger and everything goes very quickly so it’s much more difficult to settle. It’s like a rolling stone, I need too much more energy to keep on catching the moment.
For me, the most difficult and tough thing is to connection with people. Japanese people care about others first, so basically they are very responsible to others in everything they do.
They don’t walk away easily even if there is a problem and it’s a priority to get along with others. Even business is done differently. They usually prefer to work their first opportunity, they don’t cancel after once they accepted the offer, even if the other offer brings then bigger work after that. In Japan, the culture is to sacrifice themselves. It’s totally opposite to individualism and also a very big social problem currently in the country.
I wondered how can people be satisfied with connecting to others in such a super quick and instant way? How can real relationships form? As a result, I felt it was very difficult for me to build connections to others. In fact, Americans have such a strong sense of identity and mentality that in the beginning I was feeling ashamed of my weak mentality.
As I got some good friends, and as I asked them about this issue, they told me that they feel so stressful with this issue, they suffer isolation secretly, even though they look like they have so many friends.
It was a surprise to hear it but very good to know. I found in this way we are the same mentality in two very different environments.
I currently live in Long Island City NY. I spend most of my time with building up my basis in America. Learning English, culture, creating my new visions, finding strategies out to move forward, maintaining my mentality and creating new songs.
Right now I…
have some projects that I wanna try. Creating new songs for my own and for providing for other American artists, creating a study-Japanese song like ABC song for kids, and I have an original story for Broadway Musical. Might sounds so messy but I wanna try all the dream in my soul before I die and wanna show people the unlimited excitement through my adventure.
Link to play:: Garden
https://open.spotify.com/track/0XHCwL4xwsHx7E8l3ciKJ1
EP- Angel in the Garden
https://open.spotify.com/album/2kYeQwgBGVBA3787XYKLPe
Who have been the most influential in your music and why.. :
Beethoven was the most influential. I felt strong sympathy with his music when I was small,
was heavily listening to his piano sonatas and heavily playing his pieces every day.
Because I fond he is the only person who knows that strong emotions of despair, sorrow, anger to the world and the hope still remains, which I was feeling at the time.
I was bullied at the school, my parents were very strict, I had no friends to understand me, so I felt like I was totally lonely in the world but I could express those feelings by playing his music. Sometimes I just played Moonlight Sonata while I was crying over it. It was the only hope.
I overcame that hard time after that, but I guess I learned so many skills from his music very naturally. I never learned songwriting skills from someone but I think he was a big teacher for me.
When did you know that this was the right path for you? :
The final decision was when I was 17, my best friend told me that my singing is amazing, she hoped I would effect the world by my music. That was a stunning moment, it felt like I got lightning and I found that to be my mission!!
What do you like most about what you do?
Singing on the stage is the most energizing moment for me.
What do you most hope to accomplish with your influence?
I hope the people listening to my music feel the love and find the exact way to live better with deeper love. Perhaps I can remind people to connect with the people they love and develop their soul more clearly.
What is the biggest obstacle you have faced in your career, and how did you overcome it?:
Hearing issue with my deaf ear. My left ear is deaf. It suffered me to understand what I listen to verbally because right ear is sound ear and left ear is language ear. I am good at listening to everything as sound, but is very difficult to recognize as language.
This caused me alot of issues with my learning and examination in college and again, I started to suffer with this after becoming a singer songwriter.
I was good at singing as sound but not good at singing as language. People couldn’t understand my lyrics at first. That was a major hurdle I had to over come.
One day I started part time job as a telephone operator to conquer this problem.
It had been the most difficult thing for me to have conversations via phone because I just can use the right ear. It was so hard that my bosses usually gave me instructions from left side of me and I couldn’t handle the information from right side and left side, I was scolded so many times.
I got something amazing skills about words, called “Kotodama” which is the idea of Japanese traditional religion, Shinto, which says that the words have power of spirit. After that, I became really good at singing, that’s why many of my fans have been impressed by my messages. It’s been a long road to here.
Now, the message is the most important element of my music. I am now trying to get this Kotodama power in English as well.
What do you want people to remember most about you and your career?
I wanna write songs that can impress people 100 or 200 years later like Beethoven. Longevity is my goal.
What are you most looking forward to this next month?
I’m looking forward to start teaching children Japanese language and Japanese anime songs at the special program at elementary school in Brooklyn. I got this offer when I was singing at the station in May, teachers and children wanted me so enthusiastically. I never expected to become a teacher, but I decided to try as an artist. I didn’t know that many more children want to learn Japanese language because of the popularity to Japanese anime. I have been working for Japanese anime music industry for long years so I expect that this new challenge can open a new door for me. I also created a Japanese-learning song like ABC song so that anyone can learn Japanese language easily,
Website & social media links: : Official web
http://www.shihoriartist.com
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/shihori.nakane
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/shihori94
Twitter
https://www.twitter.com/shihoriNY
Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/artist/07vlETVQJk1RgSF2YCsrhr
Spotify (Garden)
https://open.spotify.com/track/0XHCwL4xwsHx7E8l3ciKJ1
Shihori Documentary (Youtube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=3crTBCEuy9w
Soundcloud
https://soundcloud.com/shihori