[3] His speciality was music tuition,[1] and he compiled many textbooks and piano tutors for teacher training students,[1] as well as publishing academic articles on subjects such as how to teach 'tone deaf' children to sing.
[1][4] Yamamoto composed nearly 100 school anthems[1] in addition to the Peace Song, and also performed as a choral conductor and in opera.
[1] In mid-1947, Shinzō Hamai, mayor of Hiroshima and a strong advocate for developing the city as a centre of peace, supported plans first proposed by Harushi Ishijima of the Tourism Association of the City of Hiroshima that "holding a large-scale peace festival, focused on August 6, will enable us to make a strong appeal for peace to the public, including people around the world".
[5] The Hiroshima Peace Festival Association was established in June (with Hamai as chair and Ishijima as vice-chair), and in July solicited submissions for a song, with the result that the Hiroshima Peace Song was selected on 22 July 1947.
[2] It was performed at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony for the first time that year, on 6 August, and has been sung at the event ever since apart from 1950, when the ceremony was abruptly cancelled due to pressure from the occupation forces related to the Korean War and possible use of the atomic bomb there.