Born in a Zen temple in Sanda City, Hyogo Prefecture. He studied under Yoshio Hasegawa and others at Tokyo University of the Arts. After advancing to graduate school in 1965, he studied abroad at Berlin University of the Arts on a scholarship. He studied under Boris Blacher and also received private lessons from Ligeti. At the end of 1969, he returned to Japan after securing a full-time position at Tokyo Gakugei University. He produced excellent successors, such as the pianist Satoko Inoue, but passed away from illness in 1978. His works possess an intriguing quality where the listener can follow the limited movement of sounds. His death, occurring amidst a sincere deepening of his methodological approach with each new work, is still lamented by many.