EMR: What role has Japanese cultural tradition played in yourself as an artist?
JY: This is a very difficult question to answer. For me, the most important thing is not using official material, for instance simple use of traditional instruments - the way of thinking is most important. It is apparently related to time and space, and it is this point that is related to Japanese tradition.
TN: I think, too, this question is quite difficult to answer. Some Japanese cultural traditions are, to some extent, effective, sure. I have not been conscious of this until age of thirty or so. As you know, we're educated mainly in Western music like ...Bach, Vivaldi etc. I have been educated in Western music. After 1950, I noticed that unconsciously, I have been affected by Japanese culture and tradition very much. After that, I consciously have interest in this culture. Yesterday, you heard my music, which includes the result of me being affected very much by my cultural tradition.
MM: My father is a calligrapher, and I learned from him the importance of space, especially landspace. I think that helped me in composing my music. The fact that I can accept and compare notes might have something to do with that. Probably here, I started a strong feeling that I am Japanese. When we criticize each other, you might refer to me, or it ... I did not feel I'm a Japanese, only a man.
Translator: Japanese fail to consciously think they're Japanese.
EMR: Which aspects of Japanese traditional music have you drawn upon in your music?
JY: For most Japanese musicians, it is natural that in terms of musical sense, we are not quite Japanese. We are in between two ...Mozart, Bach, and so on. When I was primary school age, about ten years old, I happened to have a chance to learn noh chant. I continued for four to five years. But at the same time, I loved Western music very much. So after I became a composer, I wonder why or how on one hand I knew some spirit of Japanese traditional music through noh chant, and at the same time I knew the spirit of European music. And I started, actually...my first piece still has tonality; it has bitonality. And then after a few years of my experimental work, I wonder how my feelings are split into two - very unnatural - so that after that, when I was aware of it, I tried to integrate the different two into one.
KT: In the first piece?..........
JY: It's a kind of representation of the idea, but one piece before that, is a chamber work for 7 players, I wrote in 1955; 3 years after my debut as a composer. I tried very badly to express my Japanese feelings through twelve-tone technique. I studied twelve-tone technique for three years by myself. After all, I hated it because I realized that twelve-tone technique is based on European ideas or ways of thinking (especially by Schoenberg). But I like Webern's music better than Schoenberg, and I have been influenced... by Webern, especially on space and timing, which is similar to some points of Japanese traditional music. With regard to the second question, the most important thing is the issue of spatial tempo. In my case, it is dedicated to notes and patterns.
EMR: I'm sure most of us are aware of Mr. Yuasa's articles, a couple of years ago, in Perspectives of New Music about his music and musical ideas.
TN: I have never had such an experience as learning noh chant. At the same time, ..... it affected me very much, and I composed twelve-tone music which was affected very much by the sound...of noh theater. (He does a queue call.) Usually it is rather simple, but some percussion players use complex voices, from low to high. That is very fascinating for me. As I told you yesterday, the line of melody which goes down by glissando, that is also in noh chant and shakuhachi music; that kind of characteristic music, and Japanese folk song - sliding voice.
JY: I think that kind of character is very important musical information in Japanese traditional instrumental music. Japanese traditional music is not based on the same musical system as Western music, so that even a simple melody has to have other musical information to change slightly - pitches, connections, crescendo or portamento, as well as changes of timbre in one simple melody line. This is all very essential musical information, not ornamental.
TN: Yes, I agree with you. So the bells, and singing of bunraku is very fascinating, because of some burst-like singing. At the same time, a shamisen player, who plays a three-string Japanese banjo, plays almost the same melody but..... not quite.
JY: In case of ensemble, for three different instruments - shamisen, shakuhachi and may be koto -... even though all of them play the same melody, there is quite important staggering between this melody.
MM: A few years ago, when I received some information about new clarinet techniques (timbre fingerings, microtones, multiphonics) from Professor E.M.Richards, I felt the sensitivity of traditional Japanese music close to a concept of modern European music (because of Professor Richards). I was very interested and surprised. I used some of them in the new piece this afternoon, affected by his technique.....very spatial.
EMR: These other questions are somewhat related.
KT: For this symposium, we especially asked the composers to discuss some of their works which have some Japanese traditional hogaku influence, but of course they are not writing only this kind of music. Some of the pieces have nothing to do with Japanese philosophy. But, again, when you grew up in that kind of traditional, sort of rural environment, and then, as Matsuura mentioned, the fact that Japan totally stopped its relationships with outsiders for 250 years - definitely Japanese developed some kind of unique characteristics. Now, all the younger generation study European musical tradition, and always struggle how to combine Eastern and Western points of view and find one voice to be able to persuade an international audience. The next question is: Under what circumstances can one succeed when using sources outside of one's own culture?
JY: This is also a very difficult question to answer. I want to speak about something related to this question. I believe that music is apparently the impression of composers on cosmology. Cosmology is formed by, so to speak, two elements. Cosmology has a universality .... this is in common with all people on earth. The other is traditional-oriented culture or local circumstances. I intend to compose my music between the two paratheses, and I don't think these paratheses are standing against each other, but linked together, like two ends of a circle. And in my case, one by one depending on what kind of piece I write, even a very universal piece, perhaps in its very deep base - I still believe there must be some Japanese idea and way of thinking, but superficially it is very difficult to recognize what is Japanese. On the contrary, some other pieces have very obvious Japanese characters. I am quite conscious of the different kinds of music from European tradition, for instance, to use gesture and movement of sound and for instance tempo and structure is quite different. Sometimes it is based on uncountable time (unlike European music) so that the result becomes quite different from a traditional European way of thinking.
TN: I feel like I have never succeeded. For instance, I have tried to compose from outside material that was North Indian music. Their singing, under the drone or above the drone (he demonstrates), is very long, and then they have a totally different concept of time.... different from Western and Japanese concepts. If I have my way, there are three steps: my first goal is to find music that is very interesting and fascinating. Next, I observe and watch this music, and material, carefully. The third step is making an abstraction with some imagination and concept of music. At the same time, it is very important that when we compose by Asian materials or sometimes African materials... the way employed is that which we have learned from Western music - our knowledge or our sense is basically educated by Western concepts.
KT: An example that I can think of that explains this simply is some American or European composer who tries to use some kind of Asian cultural or musical part and ends up writing something that sounds like a commercial for frozen Chinese food - something like that; totally weird from an Asian's point of view. Or, some Japanese taking, say, Japanese folk songs and setting them to nineteenth-century European harmony. That must sound really weird to a European's ears. So, how can one succeed to borrow from other cultures? Of course there is some point that they must be fascinated in... some aspect, when they learn.
TN: To just directly quote....is very silly. The important thing is to abstract information.
MM: I think that it is very important to know your own country or culture... of course, Japan for me. In Japan most of the musicians grow up in the Western musical tradition and do not pay much attention to traditional Japanese music. This also applies to me.
KT: It is a sort of a separate existence....saying that in school there is European music. People who play instruments can just play that type of music and not expand outward.
MM: Also, many Japanese musicians are in many parts of the world. Maybe it is difficult ....some of them are pretty certain they do not have emotions playing European music. This might be due to lack of communication of tradition and culture.
EMR: Maybe now we will open up for questions.
Audience Member: I was wondering: we've heard and discussed traditional Japanese music a great deal in connection with contemporary music. What are your thoughts about the future of Japanese serious music?
JY: I think most composers are looking for what they should do in the future, but my own idea is perhaps different from most of them. There is some movement, like world music, now. But I don't think that is a very possible way - taking all different kinds of music into one kind of broader characteristic kind of music. We end up having an excess of information, so that it is more difficult to select the necessary information. What I'm thinking is that under these circumstances, I have to go back archaeologically to the real genesis of music - that is genesis of culture, genesis of human beings... and to think at that point what music is; what role does music play for human beings. From that point, perhaps, I might write music that is accepted by people who even do not know Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, but can still accept music at the very depth of their heart. That is my hope.
TN: Before thinking about the future of Japanese music, or music of myself, I worry about the future of human beings ....we have many problems. Next, I worry about the future of, for example, orchestras... its running cost is high. Nowadays, economic concern is worse and worse. It is often pointed out that Japan has much money; in Tokyo, there are eleven professional orchestras. But in the future, in twenty years or so, I wonder whether they will still exist or not. If we can't run an orchestra for twenty years, then what can we do? I would like to write, to compose for orchestra very much. But after twenty years, they vanish, so then it is not useful.
KT: (towards audience member who asked the question) How do you think about it yourself?
Audience Member: I'm mostly concerned, probably, with maintaining high quality in music, no matter what kind of music it is. And I'm afraid to some extent, what we all do, and we're all interested in, and why we are all in this room, may get lost culturally. I'm worried about American universities; worried about the tremendous build-up of rock music. It's funny, because I think there may be positive things and influences that can come from rock music, or any other kind of music. But I also worry that things are bad, and it will get lost. We all think of our students in that way.
Audience Member #2: I was wondering how much of your formal education in Western music was music of the twentieth century, rather than eighteenth and nineteenth century European music?
JY: I do not know much about the situation in Japan, but I have a feeling that they are still very conservative. I did not go to any music school. I do not have any formal music education.
MM: After I went to music school from my hometown, my teacher taught me French style harmony - Debussy, Ravel, Messiaen, and also Bartok, Stravinsky... but afterwards I taught myself.
EMR: Much is studying scores on your own.
TN: I basically think that a composer should be self-educated, and then depend on a professor. My professor taught me nothing about composition, and we learned twentieth century music from Bartok and Stravinsky.
KT: I'd just like to say that some of the performers here ideally have studied..... my teacher taught me Beethoven, Chopin, etc. - that's it. So, when I came to this country, I was completely lost. How far did you go?
Female Member of Audience: I came here for college. My teacher graduated from Julliard, so ......
Matsuura: I had a twentieth-century survey, and that covered quite up-to-date.
Audience Member #3: I have a question about analysis. Today and yesterday, in every discussion about Japanese composers, we say this is this composition, and this is how it works. When people do this to your music..........
JY: Before answering your question directly, I have to say that I have a relatively big problem with musical analysis. As far as I know, most of the methods of analyzing music are based on European music, and especially, I would say, on tonal music. What I feel is that we must have a more comprehensive, broader method to analyze all kinds of music of the arts - Tchaikovsky, Beethoven from the same point of view. You cannot analyze Tchaikovsky's music with an atonal system, as could be said about computer music, music concrete, or tape music. There must be some other point of view, so that we have to change our envelope to see music, not only from the starting point of European music. Then, perhaps, after that, we can establish some kind of method to analyze all kinds of music - perhaps we can analyze Japanese traditional music also. But at present, I am quite frustrated. When you analyze Japanese traditional music, you are using Western notation. For instance, whole notes, whole beats - that is not true in Japanese traditional music. Something is already wrong, so that through this method you have already the wrong material to analyze. That is my frustration and I would like to tell you.
KT: It's my dilemma also that European culture is based on logic - more like using words...logical accumulation. But Eastern culture is not based on a European type of logic, so does analysis itself really make sense for Eastern art? That is my basic question. Does analyzing Eastern art, not only in a European way, but analyzing the concept itself really bring one anywhere? I have struggled with this for ten years since I came here, so....
JY: I would like to add something. In European art, no matter how the piece is based on an irrational system, at first the research is for study. I think that it is quite necessary to maintain a time limit or attitude towards the object. That means that it still needs logic, even with an illogical or irrational object.
KT: I thought what we all did yesterday was a wonderful thing. But the problem is, especially in the educational system, that when we try to teach Zen to American students, they read a book and they say, "Oh, I know Zen." And when I try to explain haiku, translate haiku, it's modified.
JY: That is very difficult problem to discuss. I have learned that and read many books mostly by artists, but it's impossible to explain Zen philosophy logically because Zen denies logic, and that is based on Zen philosophy, so that how can we explain logic?
KT: I sort of came to the conclusion that we should lead and do it, and hopefully we can all actually learn through body expression the way the traditional country or culture works with that. On the other hand, communicating with Japanese people, they don't even think what they are doing. They sort of learn through body expression or tradition. So when they are asked questions, they say, "Well, you've got to play it."
Male Member of Audience: Like a jazz player, it's sort of self-taught. You learn and feel the right way by doing it with some one that is a master. Some people got it, some people don't. Can't just teach it from a book.
KT: I think it's a matter of being subjective and objective. When I took a class in ethnomusicology, the professor told us that we should bring more anthropology and sociology people in, so that we can have both an outside and inside point of view. The professor told us some interesting things. When you go to the Eastern culture, you make a team with a male and female member. That is a culture that has a clear distinction between the male culture and female culture. Do you know what I mean?... so if you go to India or Japan, etc, and you don't go to study only the man's side of culture, and totally neglect the woman's side. I feel sorry that we couldn't bring any female Japanese composer, today, because I'm sure that she would have a different point of view.
Audience Member #4: This is a two part question. I was wondering how your students are responding to the confluence of Eastern and Western elements at this point. Do they have the same idea as the youngest generation level - the freshmen and sophomore students? Are you teaching them a mixture of Japanese elements, as well? I was wondering how American students respond to the Eastern way of thinking. The second part of the question deals with the fact that we have listened to a lot of pieces that incorporate traditional instruments in Japan. While this is great, the musicians express very strong reservations about playing anything contemporary, and try to maintain traditional music very strongly by not being very open to change. I was wondering if that will change, and how much access do students have to traditional musicians who will actually play music.
JY: Well, I don't teach Japanese traditional music at all. But I'm always hoping that my students may be aware of a different kind of way of thinking. That's my ideal of teaching something ...creativity. So that I'm trying to give them through my lectures, open-mindedness, which is related to their creativity. I show them most of the time many different kinds of my music, and how it is different, or on what the idea is based. Some pieces are based on a systematic way of thinking. On the other hand, some are based on a very irrational way of thinking - not based on countable time but uncountable time... based on breathing, and so on. I hope, through this, that they take some kind of ideas on how to make their own systems, and how to think of their own roots and their own intrinsic nature. For instance, Americans live in a very vast, district, broad space, so that perhaps the feeling of space is different from Japanese.
MM: I do not normally teach composition class. I teach a lot of performance classes. I teach theory for performance. I consciously try to incorporate Japanese elements. In many cases, it is their first time to listen to Japanese traditional music.
Audience Member #4: Here we have a lot of pressure in conservatories still to teach the standards. Do you have resistance from the institution to teaching or doing this, or does the institution or students say they want to learn Beethoven sonatas or...?
MM: No, nothing. Only my idea.
Audience Member #4: What about the resistance of traditional musicians? You say there are two or three koto players in the country that are willing to play contemporary music. Has that changed? Are they willing to do that now?
JY: There is some movement among Japanese traditional players, who play contemporary compositions, but in general, they are still closed......
TN: About the previous question...generally speaking, in Japan, student pianists are very eager to have Beethoven, Chopin... that's the end of musical history for them. After that, nothing. Only maybe three to five percent of them might have some interest in twentieth-century music. And, see, that's the problem. Most of the teachers - piano teachers - have no interest in twentieth-century music. That's the biggest problem.
KT : It is a big difference, as I mentioned before, that my teacher I studied with in Japan did not agree with French music. Twentieth-century music is not part of the examination system in Japan at all. At least in America, already some kind of twentieth-century music is part of the repertoire for entrance exams or some kind of jury. We all have to play it.
EMR: We have time for one more question.
Audience Member #5: How much contemporary music activity is happening in Japan, right now?
TN: In Tokyo, we have quite a lot of concerts for contemporary music (we cannot count in percentage).. anyway, very few in percentage.
JY: Less than 1%. But in Tokyo, almost like in New York or Paris, there are programs for contemporary music. Most of these performers - foreign musicians, including orchestras - never play contemporary music because of the commercial management system, which is very bad.
Audience Member #6: A quick question...I'm curious what American contemporary composers are well known in Japan?
JY: Not many are well known in Japan at all. Well-known composers in Japan are John Cage, Morton Feldman, and some of them know Aaron Copland...but Copland's music is hardly played. So that, Babbitt, Carter... no.
Audience Member #6: How about George Crumb?
JY: He's known more than Babbitt....among specific composers he's known. But not among people in the audience, or normal people who love contemporary music. Of course there are some fanatic music lovers, who want to listen to all kinds of contemporary music, and they know. We have a very big record CD shop, like Towers, in Tokyo.
[transcribed by Helen Lee; edited by E. Michael Richards]