Fluid and Global: Proper “World” Music

Just how important is knowing, understanding and appreciating a historical and cultural context to the realm of music? Cross culturally, I think that while it maybe helpful it is not necessary, and dwelling upon it causes the authenticity debate to rear its (ugly in my opinion) head. Nevertheless, within the context of a specific culture and then subcultures, I think that such an understanding is absolutely imperative. It is what gives music meaning and transforms into something more than spaces, lines, bars, key signatures, loops, samples and notes. It gives the music a message. Consider the use of music to further environmental causes. For me techno means club culture–more specifically those darker, more abstract folks, too artistically inclined for vocal house, not quite dark enough for deep, acid or tribal house and way to underground for trance and its massive dj followings. I would never think first to tie it with environmental activism. This is the innovation yielded by the global potential of culture. Something that started in Detroit can become an arm for change half the world around.

Also the three segments of post-techno as according to Kiku Hibino serve as an example of the global but not universal nature of music and cultural expression. The idea that techno and its various derivatives like minimal and noise could garner enough respect to be considered art museum/exhibition worthy is both incredibly awesome and unbelievable to me. I find that State Side, a general ignorance of what techno actually is and a confusion with either “dance” or trance pop commonly referred to as “euro trash” has detracted from the appreciation of electronic music as art. Were I not an avid fan of the techno (well at least various house and electro) genres and I approached the post-techno era in Japan with such an attitude I would have no understanding of its meaning in its various contexts–the opera house, museum and club. Even then, as in the case of techno and environmental activism, I do not understand it fully or comprehend the connections, meanings, representations and symbols entirely.

Thus, music can never be universal, but it can be global. The understandings, the perspectives, styles and interpretations will never be synonymous across the world because even if a french, spanish, russian, chinese and british person all speak fluent english, their english will never sound the same. But music is and will continue to have the potential of being increasingly global. It spreads like culture always has synthesizing new culture, sounds, expression like creole, cuban, afro-beat, J-pop and visual kei. And, as a dynamic art form it continues to change and evolve, escaping the static cage of category and genre. It cannot be contained, as we have seen. Somehow Detroit High School party music from the late 70s finds its way into the dark, intermittently lit, underground club in Tokyo with at least one common thread–artists who want to say something to fans who “get it.”

Kiku’s Class Visit

I thought Kiku’s work was pretty incredible. Just wanted to get that out there first…

I think what I enjoyed most about his visit was when he talked about what it was like being a young person and a college student in Japan. Kiku talked about how his grandmother, one of his great influences, was a piano teacher–and even though he wasn’t particularly talented when it came to the piano, he found other ways to make music. I never really used to think of noise as music, particularly not in the sense of Carsten Nicolai’s music. But seeing how “noise” can be used, as in “Dumb Type,” made a difference. Oto clarified a lot of issues with context that I had with post-techno music and brought to light the amount of creativity that has to go into making the smallest “bleep.” For example, before his talk, I never would have been able to properly differentiate between techno and post-techno based on their sound and feel. Additionally, the link between music and art (in terms of periods) is uncanny–I never would have thought to draw the connection.

Oto’s Master’s thesis was pretty neat, too. I never would have thought to make art on the backs of CDs just to see what it would do to the sounds–and that wasn’t even what his thesis was really about. Collage music, like collage art, is a very creative way to put together a myriad of objects and concepts until they become their own whole. It was also interesting to see how his interests and projects have expanded since then.

Did anyone else really enjoy his explanation for “why noise?” as well? The thought that people are reverting to noise music as a way to reminisce and be nostalgic about the sounds of analog music struck me as something a person from the current college generation would never say. Oto’s theory does bring to mind, though, the thought that not everything that is newer is better.

You know, our university has some pretty awesome people working for it…

- Jorie

Nori’s “English Diary”

Nori’s new diary in English!

English Diary

-Tomomi

Music, Art, Society, Authenticity

I’m having a difficult day of communicating, no question. Here goes:

What I’m trying to do is recognize that when we talk about music in the context of authenticity, institutionalization and in its role as part of popular culture in general, (at least) two primary conceptions of music are at work: music “as art” and music “as society.” Music as art is seen as an artist’s (or hegemonic productive force: producer, company, audience, etc.) expressive product; when we say, “music should be judged for its aesthetic value rather than who’s producing it; music has no nationality,” that is music as art. Music as society highlights the aspect of music that serves as the center of certain social interactions for various groups; when Ryoji Ikeda says that his music is a reflection of the audience, he seems to be extolling the primacy of social consumption of music and the secondary nature of its “material” content.

Japanese Music: J-Pop and Beyond

Julian, Alex, Sean and I did a presentation on Japanese music on Wednesday, April 11, 2007.  We also had a great guest speaker, Kiku.  His “stage name” is Oto and he produces post-techno music.  It was interesting to learn about the difference between techno and post-techno, and it was also great to hear about Kiku’s interest in this kind of music.

It was very difficult to keep the presentation “short and sweet.” When we met to discuss what we were going to talk about, I remember that we had a lot of ideas and a lot of bands and a lot of facets of Japanese music that we wanted to discuss.

We ended up presenting a brief history of Japanese music.  We went over the huge popularity of Jazz music from the 1950s to the incorporation of Rock and Roll (think Elvis!) and Folk music through the 1980s.  Japanese music was largely influenced by American bands at this time, and the change from a sort of “imitation music” to J-Pop occured from the late 1980s to the 1990s.

We played various songs from bands like Pizzicato 5, Cornelius, Utada Hikaru, Zeebra, and Scha Dara Parr.  Sean talked a lot about Shibuya Kei, which is a sub-genre underneath the greater picture of Japanese music.  Julian liked the sounds of the hip-hop artist Zeebra (and he was also interested in the history of Japanese music in general) and we compared “party rap” to the “serious rap” of Zeebra.  Alex played some songs by Bearsuit, which isn’t a Japanese band, but has songs that are Japanese “influenced” and  he also discussed “cutesy” Japanese music.  I myself am a huge K-Pop fan, so I covered  K-Po/J-Pop crossover artists, like BoA and Rain.

I think from our presentation, we learned that Japanese music is just more than “J-Pop.”  Japanese music is everything from J Hip-Hop to Jazz to Techno to Rock.  Not only does Japanese music have a huge impact in Japan, it has fans from all over the world and not just from East Asian countries.  Japanese music is creative and fun as well as inventive.  We definitely had fun with our presentation and wish we had more time to discuss every aspect of Japanese music!

Here are some links:

http://www.jpopmusic.com

a site for J-Pop fans

http://www.cyberjapan.tv/contents/tokyoclubguide/indexE.html

this goes hand-in-hand with the discussion of “genbas” in Ian Condry’s book, “Hip-Hop Japan”

http://www6.islandrecords.com/utada/site/home.php

Utada Hikaru’s website

-Tiffany

Nori Comes to Chicago

I was very excited to meet student activist, Noriaki Imai. I was already excited about taking a Pop Culture In/Out of Japan course and to start off the quarter with a meeting with a student activist was a privilege. I thought that his campaign to inform Japanese youth about international politics and events to be very courageous. I do think there is a problem today with today’s younger generations being uninterested in politics, domestic and international. It was different to hear about someone my age who took the responsibility to go to Iraq in order to gain first-hand experience of the perils of depleted uranium and its consequences, all for the sake of trying to get the rest of my generation to pay attention to global politics.

I will never forget Nori’s visit. It was also a great pleasure to show him around campus and to talk to him about his college life. It was very hard for him to talk about his experiences in Iraq, but I respect his causes and hope that he comes back to Chicago someday.

-Tiffany

response to Nori’s visit

I was definitely a bit star-struck to meet someone I’ve seen in international news. It was a great opportunity to hear Nori’s own account of his experiences in person, without much mediation aside from his language barrier. However, I was disappointed that he didn’t provide much insight regarding the entire episode; rather than sharing his etiological understanding of the hate crime phenomenon that occurred after his return to Japan, he just described the very surface layer of what happened. It would have been an enriching and truly relevant experience for students in this course to have a profound look at this peculiar aspect of Japanese pop culture (i.e. the prominent trend of anonymous slander via collective internet fetishization). Of course, I realize that it is hard for anyone to discuss in detail the traumatic events of his life, but this difficulty should not take away from our ethical responsibility to construct a coherent comprehension of the bad things that happen to us. Furthermore, I also hope that Nori will eventually continue his work in anti-DU advocacy. For a cause he once felt so strongly about, he really shouldn’t give up so easily. Even considering the potential for further villainization, there is a myriad of low-key work that could be done for the purpose of ending the use of DU. That said, I did thoroughly enjoy his visit.

-Tina