Sojiro's ocarina life starts out from an encounter with Hisashi Kayama. It was in 1975, at a small village in a ravine of Tochigi. The sound, played by the mentor, echoed in the air of the valley. The moment is full of great emotion, as he hears the sound of the ocarina for the first time.

After a few months, Sojiro decided to be apprentice. A charcoal hut at the outskirts of a forest, a tiny space with just a lamp. This was Sojiro's starting point. Always until dawn, he played the ocarina towards the mountains.

Later on, he moved into a house nearby using recycling wastes, and got water from a mountain stream, not so far away, by drawing a pipe several meters long. He didn't miss practice here either. Playing outside on a snowy day felt especially good. Snow erases the surrounding noise, and the sound of the ocarina in the extreme silence is unexplainable.

Being apprentice to Hisashi Kayama, he made ocarina at an ocarina atelier during the daytime, and practiced in the evening for about an hour. Back home, he practiced alone seven to eight hours every night until dawn. This intensive lifestyle lasted three years.

Sojiro's original sound would develop even further.

He moved to Motegicho at the east edge of Tochigi prefecture, and started his search for his own sound. It was a vacant house where a water mill used to be.
He created his own form, piled up bricks, and finished up, making a kiln all by himself. He fired the kiln with firewood.
Starting from four types,−−pipe C01, G02, C04, and G05,−−he continued by trial　and error for nine months.
He tried all kinds of clay, when he got the chance. He tried clay from Seto, Tajimi, and Toki around Nagoya, as well as local Tochigi and Ibaragi. He was absorbed in working sixteen hours per day.

In 1980, he moved into a closed primary school, and used it also as his atelier. Again, he made a firewood kiln, piling up bricks. His types of ocarina increased, and his challenge went on to make bigger ones, like pipe F06, C07, and G08. At the same time, particular keys, such as pipe B♭and A♭, came into being after a rather long period of trial and error. Literally, he was soaked in ocarina.

He made about a hundred and twenty pipes per month, among which about a hundred would be fired slowly for 13 hours. And another one or two weeks would be needed for fumigation, polishing, and tuning after firing. Which leads to eight firings in the kiln per year, to be able to make about a thousand pipes.
He made over ten-thousand pipes, from 1975 to when he made his CD debut in 1985.
What he is using himself, are the ten-odd pipes out of those ten-thousand.

Sojiro's sound is condensed into the first ten years after he encountered the ocarina. He uses all his energy for his ocarina.
Among the pipes he made, there are quite a few that only Sojiro could recognize. Some of them can be played only by Sojiro.
The reason for this is that he reaches towards each pipe, not on his pace, but thinking of the condition of the clay's pace. Sometimes, the work is rather simple. He looks steadily as if he is cultivating or picking out grass in a field.

This sound of the ocarina convinced Sojiro, who loved songs and in fact wanted to sing, that the lyrics were not necessary. It is the sound of the earth. There is no need for words.

Only Sojiro, who made these pipes with all his heart, can breathe life into them. Just Sojiro's own sound. No wonder so many people become so impressed.
He receives immeasurable support.
Because of Sojiro's unique sound of "Pride".

Borrowing from Sojiro's words, "Ocarina Plows the Air".