I recently decided to start including National Anthems from around the world in my trumpetensemblemusic.com site. My most recent arrangement was a wonderful composition from Mexico and I am very pleased at how it turned out. Due to the fact that I have had a fascination with Japan for several reasons, including my practice of Karate, I thought it would be fun to write an arrangement based on the National Anthem from Japan. Upon first listening to this “shortest and oldest anthem in the world” I was very disappointed. My first opinion was that it was too short, the beginning…