Meet Yukino Takenaka of Los Angelses

Today we’d like to introduce you to Yukino Takenaka

Hi Yukino, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My music journey started when I was 3 years old, that is when I began to go to piano lessons. Since then, music has always been around me and has played a big role in my life. I attended so many piano performances/piano concerts with my ensemble group or as solo ( I was a member of the ensemble group, which has around 4 to 6 people who play the piano or electone to perform songs together), and I even played the piano at school choir contest. Besides that, I was a trombonist in the marching band in the elementary school and also keyboardist in the high school band. As you can see already, I grew up around music, and I always enjoyed doing music with others and delivering it to people. So because of those backgrounds with music, it did not take me too long to realize that I wanted to work with music in the future. I personally love singing and also playing the piano, so that is how I ended up pursuing to be a music composer/ producer to get into the music industry first. Also, there is another big reason why I wanted to work with music. That is that I always wanted to have a job to help people. When I was younger, I had interests in being a nurse, police, teacher, doctor, and so on, because every time someone helped me in any situation, I always thought that it would be so cool to get a job to help people to make them happy. Then, at some point, I just realized that music is also one of those that helps people. For me, music is something that heals me, something I can express my emotions with, and something to cheer me up. I listen to music when I want to get emphasized or encouraged, and I play the piano to express the emotion that I cannot explain with my words. Music has always been here for me when I needed someone, not only by listening to them but also playing the instruments by myself. That is how I realized that I want to work with music. In order to help a lot of people in the world with music, I thought that I should be able to write the lyrics in English since it is the common language of the world. Being able to write the lyrics in English will allow my music to be listened to and understood by a bigger audience. So that is why I begged my parents to allow me to go to Canada to study English there as an exchange student for one year in high school to learn English as close as possible to the native English and also I studied music production in the U.S. So yes, this is how I get where I am today!

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
“You do what you like, so even though there are ups and downs, it should not be that hard because you chose what you enjoy doing” This can be how some people might think when they see people doing what they love/enjoy. And also, I was thinking like this when I was younger as well, I had a hard time understanding people having a job in the field that they do not like or enjoy, I even wondered why they did not choose what they really wanted to do. However, as I grew up, I am in my early 20s, I realized that choosing the path of what I love is not as easy as I ever imagined. There are several reasons for it. The first one is facing the reality. As we grew up and see more things in life, we started to see and think things more realistically rather than purely like kids do. In my case, as a lot of friends around me started to have an actual jobs and living off by themselves while I am here trying to get what I want, and it sometimes gives me a lot of pressures. If I did not choose jobs, I would probably find a job in a different field. However, I am still here walking through the tunnel that I do not know how long it takes to find an exit. What if I ended up not reaching to where I wanted to be in the future? What if music was not for me? Whatever the path I chose, I need to be financially independent, then, will I be able to afford myself with music in the future? ( I do not want to talk about money like money is in the center of everything but that is also true that we need to make money to survive ) Those questions comes up on my mind as I pursue my dreams. The second one is a fear. You might wonder what fear I have when I decided to do what I love right? Yes, I have a fear and that is hating what I love because I chose what I love. I think the biggest struggle for me is to deal with this fear. Before anything, because I grew up with music since I was a kid, I am scared to hate on it, it can be because of the frustration when I need to deal with creative crises or productive crisis, or anything that can bring me down while working in general. If I had a job in the field that I do not care, I would not have this fear. However, because I chose to go on this path, meaning I have a huge responsibility of my decisions, I am afraid of hating music but also giving up on it at the same time. Lastly, I also struggled to accept myself from the fact I actually want to work with music. What I mean is that, sometimes I get lost between two ideas of ” I want to do music because I love music” and ” I am doing music because that is what I am doing in my whole life.” It is like a love-hate relationship with music, it is hard for me to say I do music because I love music. I am not sure how I think in this way, it can be because of the lack of confidence with music or anything else. There is one thing I can clearly says, again, I am scared to lose love for music just because of those difficulties during my journey.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a music composer/ producer, who is open to work in different genres while I am still figuring out which genre I can bring myself the best. I personally enjoy making an instrumental tracks (mainly with piano) the most, I also like to make chill beats. However, I have some projects, that I had work in film scoring, composing for EDM with my friends and producing pop music. What I am good at the most in music production is coming with a melody, with more than 10 years of experience in playing the piano. Most of time, I come up with some melodies first and start building up the ideas around it.

How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Since I am good at coming up with melody, I absolutely love to work with artists, or other composers/ producers to make amazing music together. More people bring more creative ideas to the music, so I hope that I can bring the uniqueness to you and I can learn new things from you guys by working together!! I hope I can work with you guys one day 🙂

Contact Info:

• Website: https://y02takenaka.wixsite.com/website
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yukino213_/