I came across the shamisen at a pub in the Tsugaru region back in 1993, and was really taken by the sound. I was living in Tokyo at the time, and wanted to take lessons but had no idea where to look. I ended up studying nagauta shamisen for two years in Tokyo, then moved to Kyoto and studied min’yō and Tsugaru shamisen for seven years. In 2001 I came back to Canada and did a master’s degree and then a PhD in Ethnomusicology. The title of my master’s thesis is The Tsugaru-jamisen: Its Origins, Construction, and Music, and my PhD dissertation title is The Tsugaru Shamisen and Modern Japanese Identity. I teach world and popular music studies at Ryerson University in Toronto, fitting Japanese music into the curricula wherever possible, and continue to play and sometimes teach shamisen. I have also been learning shakuhachi for the last decade or so.