There he was influenced by listening to hymns and received lessons for piano, violin, music theory and singing.

Sugahara gave the advice to Sugata that composers such as Shiro Fukai were better than the works of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Ottorino Respighi and Darius Milhaud to study.

As a result, Sugata wrote two major orchestral works in a style that can be described as "Oriental Stravinsky", namely "Yokohama" (1932) and "Symphonic Fantasia" SAKURA "(Cherry Blossoms)" (1933).

In 1933 he returned to German-tinted music and studied with Klaus Pringsheim Sr., a teacher in the neoclassical style and a former pupil of Gustav Mahler, who at the time was a professor at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.

In 1935 his piece Japanese Picture Scroll, won a composition competition held by the Imperial Household Agency.