Ikuma Dan was born in Tokyo on April 7 in 1924 and spent his early days in Harajuku. He was determined to become a composer when he read the book, ‘Seiyō Ongaku-shi (History of Western Music)’, written by Motoo Ōtaguro. Dan began to learn the piano at the age of 7 and he composed some piano works and songs during his time as a second-year student in the middle class at Aoyama Gakuin. From 1942, Dan studied composition with Kanichi Shimofusa, Kunihiko Hashimoto, and Midori Hosokawa at Tokyo Ongaku Gakkō (Tokyo Academy of Music, now the Faculty of Music of Tokyo University of the Arts), but he was also trained by Kōsaku Yamada outside the academy. Dan joined a military band at Toyama School in 1944, at the time when the Pacific War had intensified, and he played the snare drum as well as made arrangements for brass band there.
