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"Dr. Pianist" Makiko Hirata DMA
"Dr. Pianist" Makiko Hirata DMA
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The Producer of Our Album “Visions Take Flight” Wins a Grammy Award!

Recording / Makiko Hirata

“Visions Take Flight” is a debut album by River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, lovingly known in Houston as ROCO. I have been a member of ROCO since 2014, and participated in the recording of this album. It’s very uniquely ROCO in that all five pieces on the album were commissioned by ROCO, and chosen to be […]

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Can I Afford to Publish my Book?

2 Comments / Writing a book / Makiko Hirata

The working title of my book is “Why Piano Now?: How it Hurts, and How it Heals.” Loosely based on my dissertation, “To See Music in Your Mind’s Eye: The Genesis of Memorization as a Piano Performance Practice” (2017), the book sheds light on some of the dark side of the history of Western classical

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How to Think about Success

Life of a Pianist / Makiko Hirata

It’s important to celebrate success. It builds confidence. It makes your job even more fun. And it makes you look forward to the next, and beyond. And success can teach you things, too. We tend to look to mistakes and failures for lessons, but we should be able to draw as much, if not more,

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Performing at the NAMM show

Business of music / Makiko Hirata

The NAMM show is an annual event held at the Anaheim Convention Center. NAMM stands for National Association of Musical Merchants. According to Wikipedia, it’s ”the world’s largest trade-only event for the music products, pro audio and event tech industry.” And according to NAMM’s own website, this year it hosted “more than 115,000 registrants from

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The Benefit of Music for Dementia: Workshop.

On-Call Musical Doctor: Music Heals / Makiko Hirata

I promote music as a healing agent,. Music can help us become healthier, happier and more humane. This blog will talk about how music can help with dementia prevention and progression and how caregivers can use music. I also conduct workshop with this topic.  Have you heard of non-verbal dementia patients being able to sing

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