“If we can perform music in the middle of Shibuya without any constraints once a year or so…that would be awesome!” – from this idea, the annual “Shibuya Zunchaka!” music festival was born in 2014. This year, the Tokyo University of the Arts’ (TUA) COI Site will join for the first time. It is hard to believe but we brought the Disklavier, a piano that embodies our research and development results for those with disabilities, to the busy and bustling “Event Square” on the first floor of Shibuya Mark City! For each of the passers-by, four of our staff including Oko Arai, Group Leader, provided support to conduct the workshop “Everybody can play the piano!” according to their musical ability, where the automatic-playing function and the pedal moving system on the piano was showcased. Everybody who participated seems to have enjoyed it.

We had many comments and good feedback from those who joined the workshop that gave a glimpse of the future relationship between man and music. One person said that they “appreciated the flexibility of the system whereby the piano accompaniment is played alongside the melody, rather than just automatically replayed”; and another said that “this system is a good way to encourage anyone to play music”.

At the end of the workshop, we asked many of the passers-by to sing too! Everyone was singing alongside lovely music played by the special piano which plays the accompaniment music to the melody played with just one hand. The result of our research and developed came to fruition and rode with the music to deliver joy to the city and its people.

Click here for the details of Shibuya zunchaka