March 17, 2025

406: Meet TopMusicSheets Composer Kai Ono

39 minutes

After wrapping up the Assess, Plan & Execute series, I’m excited to be back hosting this week’s episode with our featured TopMusicSheets composer, Kai Ono. Kai is a versatile musician whose work spans classical, jazz, and popular styles, blending the academic with the intuitive. In our conversation, he shares insights into his creative process, the inspiration behind his bird-themed compositions, and how his diverse musical background influences his teaching and writing. Plus, you’ll hear him perform some of his incredible pieces and discuss how teachers can encourage creativity in their students. Get ready to be inspired by Kai’s unique approach to composition and musicianship!

Kai shared his background in teaching, performing, and composing.

How he learned multiple instruments to write better compositions for different ensembles.

His love for birds and how they inspire his compositions.

Why he has three keyboards, noting that he uses them for different performance settings.

His childhood music education, particularly his experience with the Yamaha Music School.

The importance of early solfège training and improvisation in developing musicianship.

His biggest musical influences, including Debussy, Stevie Wonder, and jazz pianists like Bill Evans.

His pedagogical approach to composition, writing music that helps students develop specific technical skills.

How modal harmony gives him freedom in composition and improvisation.

Kai shared his positive experience working with TopMusicSheets and how the editing process improved his work.

Links Mentioned

Learn more about TopMusicSheets here

Listen to TopMusicSheets Collections on SoundCloud

Find out more about Jam Sessions Course here

Check out TopMusicPro courses here

Guest Links Mentioned

Kai's Instagram Page: @iamokkai

Kai's Music at My-Melodies.com

Today's Guest

Kai Ono is a composer-pianist/singer-songwriter in Queens, NY. A winner of NFMC awards for his classical writing and the ASCAP Herb Alpert Award for his jazz writing, Kai commands a musical style that sways between the cathartic and the intimate, the academic and the intuitive, the traditional and the new. His current artist project, OK KAI, innervated by his neo-soul and folk influences beyond his classical and jazz writing, is his most recent project driven by his love for the marriage of compassion and intellectualism as well as singing with random people in a circle. As an educator, Kai teaches a wide gamut of skills including composition, music theory, playing and improvising popular styles, production, songwriting, and of course classical piano. You can even ask him about his book, For the Birds, which he got published recently as his way of combining all his loves in music (and birds).

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