Mirrors

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Review: Mirrors

Reviewed Work(s): Mirror of Trees, Mirror of Grass by Tōru Takemitsu


Review by: Tōru Takemitsu, Sumi Adachi, Roger Reynolds and Tōru Takemitsu
Source: Perspectives of New Music , Winter, 1992, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Winter, 1992), pp. 36-
80
Published by: Perspectives of New Music

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MIRRORS*

TORU TAKEMITSU

(TRANSLATED BY SUMI ADACHI


WITH ROGERREYNOLDS)

THE MIRROR OF THE SHADOW PLAY

T HE QUANTITY OF MUSIC I have composed so far comes to no more than


a few hours, so short as to be only a moment compared to the total
number of hours since I began to possess consciousness as a person.
Moreover, there are only several pieces of music from it that I care to have
others listen to. Have I really spent all my time up until now producing
work that is so brief, equivalent to nothing? Or rather, is even this large
portion of my life but a passing moment, close to nothing when measured
against cosmic time? Is it really so that works now totaling several hours
(which is not long enough for the planet to make even one rotation) with,

*From Mirror of Trees, Mirror of Grass, by Toru Takemitsu (Tokyo: Shincho Sha,
1975). The essay was written in 1974.

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A Jostled Silence (I) 37

perhaps, a few hours more in the future will determine my value as a


person, I wonder? But that does not matter any longer. What I do is, in any
case, a trifling matter. That is why, I think, I can go on with what I do
without a continuing sense of guilt.

A
$z

17
4
4-t

As I walk in a grove of naked trees that stand against the sky like thorns,
in Shinshu (where it is still cold)' and stare at the dark surface of the earth
on the slope of a volcano partially covered here and there with remnants of
snow, its peak hidden under gray-orange smoke, I feel mankind (which has
developed the consciousness by means of which it can stand face-to-face
with the universe itself as an intelligent existence) is within a vast, invisible
system after all, that it is not possible to live even a moment outside the
laws of the universe.

Man as an organism has been through the infinite steps of evolution. But
where is he heading?

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38 Perspectives of New Music

About eight years ago, I climbed the Kilauea volcano on the island of
Hawaii. I looked out on the scenery absentmindedly through the
I looked out over oblong window of a lodge facing the crater with
the enormous crater my family, friends and several other guests. All we
and my could see beneath the window at sunset was an
consciousness enormous crater only dimly visible through the
was caught vapor. When the cinnabar sun disappeared at the
by something lrger edge of the gray, dense, and felt-like clouds, and
than consciousness ' i
darkness settled, the crater
darker. This occurred because groun
up, had begun to twinkle like stars at t
Whose work was this? This giant crat
seemed to rebuff our imagination,
absolute power that rejected any descr
about that time and space controlled b
my consciousness as a person did not f
moved by an indescribable force. It is
did not work just then, but rather th
than consciousness. I was directing m
coming from beyond consciousness.
might have seen something too, then,
At that moment, John Cage, a compo
called to me and said, "Nonsense!" with
"bakarashii"2 with a sing-song voic
probably accepted his word meekly.
That's right. This is foolish. What th
a big hole, a void in the earth's surface
expressions on our faces, who are str
too, is strange. But the people there, i
take Cage's words in a negative sense
silent drama. He only provided a sligh

voi ceJ 5pecak ;,

vo; (e V
'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1~

GCod does oti reveaL h; sel ; the oL [d.

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A Jostled Silence (I) 39

Towards the end of last year until the New Year,3 I traveled in
Indonesia with a French study group. It was the night that we went to
hear a performance of gamelan4 in a little village Listeningprobably
about forty kilometers northwest of Denpassar, in means changing into
the center of Bali. In the garden of the temple, sound itself by
several groups were playing here and there all at existing
once, while palm oil burned. The crowd kept within it.
dancing while it sang. Smothering in a unique perfume, I soaked myself in
the sounds that came to me. It was difficult to listen there. I could not
influence the music to be played by a particular group; I stayed outside the
sound. Listening is, needless to say, important. But do we not tend to give
meaning to this act within the realms of memory and knowledge? In the
true sense, listening should be an act beyond these realms. Listening
probably means changing into sound itself by existing within it.
The French musicians were lost in the exotic sounds of the gamelan. To
their sensibilities, these were sounds coming from an absurd, unknown
territory. And the reaction they showed following their initial surprise was,
"It is a wonderful new resource!" I found myself responding quite differ-
ently from both the native Indonesians and the French musicians. My life
cannot be inseparably in accord with music as is the case with the people of
Bali. And yet, I could not have been attracted to the idea, as the French
musicians were, of incorporating this sound source with such foreign
qualities into the logic of our Japanese musical expression.
Our interpreter, Bernard Wayang, said that a shadow play was going on
in the garden next to the temple.5 So I skirted the dancing people and
passed through a stone gate. The sky felt suddenly close, for the stars
seemed to fall fast and thick like grains of sand in the night's darkness. The
shadow play was performed in a corner of the garden where these signatures
of the night were particularly thick. Strangely, not even a single candle was
lit. In shadow plays, precisely cut out shapes are projected on a screen to
convey religious stories. In fact, none of the other shadow plays I saw later
in various parts of Java failed to use light. I moved very close to the old man
who was giving the performance and fixed my eyes hard upon a screen
made of stretched cloth. To be sure, nothing could be seen. As I went to
his side, he sat down on the ground, picked up one or two shapes from the
many placed in front of his crossed legs, and held them against the screen,
muttering his tale. I asked Wayang, the interpreter, why and for whom this
old man was performing. By way of Wayang, the puppeteer responded that
he was conversing with the universe through the light of the stars for
himself and also for many other souls. He appeared to have said, as well,
that something was returned to this world from the universe during the
performance. Perhaps this performance, too, could have been thought of as
foolishness. But, at the time, I felt that something was coming from

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40 Perspectives of New Music

beyond my consciousness. I kept looking at a small screen on which


nothing appeared. Soon I thought I found something there.

MIRROR OF TREES, MIRROR OF GRASS

It has become more troublesome, especially recently, to take seriously the


music performed in concert halls; I have felt like this for a long time. I
realize that I take the art of music to heart much more now than before I
traveled to Indonesia, and can no longer accept existing concert halls as
appropriate places in which to test my music. It could be the case that the
container's form is changed by the content that is placed in it. However,
insofar as it exists as visible form, a hall is a physical medium, not an
imaginary thing. The tradition of the N6 drama could not have been
realized without the precisely constructed Nogaku-do and its stage.6 Per-
forming arts seek time and spaces fit for their performance. These have the
important function of acting upon the human imagination accurately.
Theaters around us in Japan have a variety of physical forms, yet they do
not seem able to stimulate our imaginations. This condition is not neces-
sarily unique to Japan. It is a fact with worldwide relevance today.

ve ...r

m.. ji Eh [L^*fTi?,W. L. __
VI ~ ~ lvI&/

The influence that the Baroque style of architecture had upon music or

The influence that the Baroque style of architecture had upon music or
the birth of the unique Gothic style of the Notre Dame School which came
with the completion of the Notre Dame Cathedral-such vivid, imaginative
interactions between the art of music and gathering places are almost dead
at present.

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A Jostled Silence (I) 41

Theaters in our country are all constructed according to Western


standards except for a very few, including the Nogaku-do, the Kabuki-za,
and the Bunraku-za,7 and others like them the subtlety
intended for the traditional arts. This phe- of traditional music
nomenon, of course, followed upon the Meiji is not describable
period (1868-1912).8 Notable changes appeared in throuh notation
the performance of Japanese traditional music, including ensembles of
traditional instruments, instrumental improvements in response to
demands for the increased strength necessary to fill larger theaters, and
ensembles including Western instruments. These were unprecedented
changes. As a result, the implicit performance requirements previously
transmitted by word of mouth began to require detailed notation. But the
subtlety of traditional music, it is hardly necessary for me to emphasize, is
not something describable through notation. On the contrary, many things
would be lost if we tried to designate it systematically with symbols. If one
slides down the narrow trough of description, a unique fragrance has been
lost by the time one reaches the bottom.
It is not difficult to imagine, however, the impression of constructed
beauty which musicians of the Meiji period must have had when they first
came into contact with Western music. The keen sensibilities of not a few
geniuses were violently shaken by the well-disciplined ensemble techniques
and the greater strength of Western instruments as compared to traditional
Japanese instruments. The social and political drive to catch up with the
modern West must have had a strong effect, and it is not difficult to
understand the inner demand to make international the closed condition of
music in our country. The consciousness of the modern Meiji man, his
desire to grasp a universal musical language, was not realistic, yet that was
our inevitable course. Geniuses were born during this period of confusion,
and music in our country changed rapidly from the Taish6 (1912-1926) to
Sh6wa (1926-1989) periods.
It is indeed easy to deny the accomplishments of Michio Miyagi and
Kinshin Nagata in our time9 when the dictatorship of the West faces death.
However, such a move should be considered carefully. The problem is not
only related to the art of music. I have expressed my negative views on the
improvement and the invention of Japanese instruments by Michio Miyagi
and others-the enlargement of the koto and the rebab (Chinese fiddle)-
whenever the opportunity arises. I am able to express them because I stand
at this point at this time, having passed along the road they cultivated, and
because I am a musician trained under Western methods. But whenever I
reject the present condition of traditional music, I am filled with a burden-
some feeling because of certain factors. I remarked that the consciousness of
our predecessors was unrealistic for no other reason than my desire to point
out the mistake they made in attempting to reform music by physical

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42 Perspectives of New Music

methods from the outside, without recognizing that it is not possible to


communicate the condition of Japanese traditional music with a Western
mode of delivery. It is impossible to place our traditional music upon the
frame of Western music; there would be no purpose in doing so.
I use traditional instruments in my compositions because of the feeling of
an unresolved burden within myself. It was necessary for me to have a
length of bamboo at any cost, in order to conceive the origins of a music
which could not be destroyed by anything. 10
Because of the Indonesian travels, an indefinite idea inside me has begun
to show its outlines somewhat more clearly. It is that music with two
different faces probably has appeared in this world: one is transportable in
form, the other is a music that it is impossible to move from the particular
land and time in which it dwells.
These two entirely different musics will continue to interrelate
over long spans of time, and this may not necessarily bring about a
the art of music in neutral condition, safe and harmless. Through its
the West has history, the art of music in the West has developed
developed by means by means of individual geniuses, and out of the
of indvidual soil supporting them; non-Western musics were
geniuses; non-
westerns msics born and grew like the grasses of the field. One can
were born andgrew recognize the big differences that exist when com-
likegrasses of paring the individualism of the West and the exis-
the field tence of masters in the traditional arts of Japan.
They are incomparably different. 1 The respect for individuality in the West
seeks universality as a natural product of its logic; thus the art of music is
systemized symbolically so that it becomes transportable, something any-
one can play.
In the world of non-Western music, it is not possible to find a single
independent tree that is identified as a genius, for this music is like grass,
covering the ground. The whole looks like one green, but it is a green of
various shades which reveal themselves when the grass receives sun and
rain. It cannot be transported to another land. For if it were, its contours
would be changed.
Generally, among musics that I call non-Western, there are some which
exist in mutual interrelationships, borrowing or lending, and there are
others, needless to say, which are unique. It seems that traditional artistic
music in our country especially displays a very unique existence.
I am not thoroughly familiar with music of the Edo period (1615-1867)
yet the types of music which succeeded the Nara (710-784) and
Muromachi (1392-1573) eras seem to have undergone tremendous change
during that time.12
One hardly need mention that changes took place in the modal system.
There appeared also many new schools. Take, for example, the case of

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A Jostled Silence (I) 43

shamisen music. With few exceptions such as that provided by Gidayi


Takemoto (who was a gifted synthesizer of musics from scattered and in
different localities-mainly biwa songs, ichu-bushi, and kati-bushi-and cre-
ated Gidayu),'3 music proliferated by itself, covering the ground like grass.
Music of the period gives me the impression of being art for the popu-
lace. However, if it is to be compared with the relationship that existed
between music and civil society in the West, I think its nature should be
viewed differently. Indeed, music in the Edo period was generated by
members of the general public, but it did not result in the birth of a single
free-standing tree upthrust from the earth. In a word, the ground of this
civil society did not consist of individual human beings but of the ie.14
Take, for example, Kengyo Mitsuzaki, a rare genius when you think about
his creativity within the context of traditional music. It is easy to imagine
the incalculable influence he had upon others. Yet even his achievement
seems to have been completed as an unique exception within an ie, and did
not acquire universality in a social sense.
This is what I often feel and have expressed before: even work
songs in our country have reached fulfillment as extremely refined
musical modalities. There is nothing left to add; it
is as though they have already completed their songs in our
fermentation. People do not sing in order to country have
express themselves or to tell a story. When the reachedfulfillment;
the form of the
musician sings, the resulting music is not the first sounds has already
revelation of its content. Even though there may finishedfermenting
be shadowed thoughts hidden beneath, at its ori-
gins, it is already so apparently lucid that there is nothing further to be
sensed. A person sees the reflection of his circumstances and his state of
mind projected on the clear surface which exists as a completed beauty in
which the form of the sounds has already finished fermenting. Such ways of
singing seem unique to Japanese traditional music. The Japanese have long
favored telling stories metaphorically within disguising events, which are in
most cases natural phenomena. This has been characteristic of Japanese
music, particularly that of the Edo period.
All non-Western music is so deeply connected to nature that it could be
called "the music of Nature." This is a generalization, needless to say, and
each music has its own characteristics. However, when I compare other
musics of Asia with Japanese music-within my limited knowledge and
experience-I cannot help but sense that there is a disparity beyond simple
differences in mode of expression. This feeling of mine is becoming clearer
little by little as I accumulate experience with traditional Asian musics.
After hearing gamelans and the ketchak'5 while I traveled in Indonesia, this
way of feeling, or rather my doubt, has deepened all the more.
I heard once from performer Katsuya Yokoyama the sounds of the

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44 Perspectives of New Music

shakuhachi as an instrument. The sounds which come from this five-holed

the supreme pipe, they themselves are of unbounded cheerful-


shakuhachi sound ness. What music for the shakuhachi does is to
is that of suppress its brighter sounds, to control them with
natural breezes the help of lip and finger techniques and through
blowing breathing. Ultimately, it is said, the supreme
through the stalks sound a master of shakuhachi desires is that of
in agroveof natural breezes blowing, without intention,
parched bamboo
parced b o through the stalks in a grove of parched bamboo.
Among Japanese musics, that of the shakuhachi has an exceptionally
religious nature, and I really should not compare it with other music of the
Edo period as though it were on the same level. In any case, where do
Japanese preferences in musical sound come from? Not only that of the
shakuhachi, but almost all music values restraint, considering it beauty. I
have used the idea ie inadvertently, but uniqueness in traditional music
resides in its ie (house), ryu (school), and fr (style), not in an individual
person. There must be a deep connection between the ie and restraint in
expression. Whether a special sensitivity of the Japanese has created ie or it
was imposed by ie . . . I wonder. The problem needs more study.
It is not necessary to say that the traditional music within me does not
exist separately from "Japan." But, because of"Japan," whenever I think
about this music I am filled with an almost excessive poignancy. This is,
however, unavoidable.
I wonder what they are, the sounds of the gamelans I heard on Java and
Bali. Clusters of shimmering sounds that rise to the sky? In what part of our
music can I find such dazzling radiance? While listening to the song of the
gamelans ringing like echoes of sunlight, I thought about the sounds of
Japanese traditional music. To put what I felt candidly, the brightness and
sensuality of the gamelan sound belongs to a race that has a God whereas
the sounds of Japanese music are those of a Godless race.

In the west of Java, on a plateau stretching from Tjirebon to Bandung,


there was a distinctive gamelan music somewhat different from that of Bali
and Jogjakarta. I loved its simplicity and refinement.
Basically, there are two kinds of gamelans in Java: one uses gongs of
bronze with rich sounds, the other is an extremely delicate ensemble music
played mainly with rebab (Chinese fiddle), suling (flute), and kachapi
(zither). My impression of Sundanese music was of something between
these two. I often felt a kinship between Japanese music and the gamelan
played by the Sultan family in a little village (called Toru) among the
mountains. But this was due to the similarity, which I heard, that exists
between their scales. There are, however, discrepancies between the intrin-
sic qualities of these musics. The faces of the players, their skin color, the

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A Jostled Silence (I) 45

manner in which they sing, their intonation-there are many similarities


with us-and yet the music of this plateau was variegated with bright colors
suited to the verdure of the landscape.
The dancing music, led by the vibrations of the kundan (a double-sided
drum held between crossed legs while one is seated directly on the floor
and beaten with the palms), was full of improvisation. Sounds emanating
from the suling leaped forward, folding and refolding the pliant air. They
seemed controlled by an invisible will, staying within the framework of
pelog16 yet straining to go beyond it. There, it seemed as though the entire
surrounding air was trembling.

8;wJ
/411%r? '- % ft pi.-

t
?

The rhythm carved out by the kundan tethered us to the ear


still, it was like the buoyancy of life; our bodies and minds could f
toward the higher realms of life. I considered the the joy of m
words "liberation" and "blessing." At the same ultima
time, I also dwelt on the sadness of human music- seems conn
making in a little village among the mountains of with sa
Java, where the people are not at all blessed with material things.
This may indeed be a very personal feeling, but the joy of m
ultimately, seems connected with sadness. The sadness is that of exi
The more you are filled with the pure happiness of music mak
deeper the sadness is.

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46 Perspectives of New Music

The feeling I have toward Japanese traditional music is impossible to


describe objectively, but it is something very weighty and ambivalent, and
cannot be understood without referring to the history which has fostered
these feelings. I have received many impressions from Japanese traditional
music that are quite different from those of European music. I also do not
doubt that its sensitivity to tone quality is unparalleled. But, I wonder,
have I ever had such an experience as that in the Sundanese mountains: the
blessings of the spiritually uplifting sense that time and space are
equivalent?
What I somewhat carelessly called Japanese traditional music is the
artistic traditional music that has strong urban characteristics, in opposition
to folk music, the songs and music of villages. Bearing in mind these two
kinds of music and describing my honest impressions, I have never experi-
enced the total "liberation" I had at that time with rare exceptions in N6
music and Gagaku.'7
I feel that the final goal that Japanese sounds strive to reach is
"nothingness," which is by no means the same as that of "liberation."
"nothingness" On the contrary, it seems to be in opposition. This
is thefinalgoal is a somewhat intuitive remark, but sounds in
that sounds traditional Japanese music seem to reject the scale
in traditional to which they belong. Having been polished, each
Japanese music sound, standing outside the scale, becomes mean-
strive to reach ingless. As a result, the totality of sound becomes
itself equivalent to nothing. The component sounds approach a condition
indistinguishable from the naturally occurring sounds that are individual
and do not cohere.
I shall refer to this point later.
I have said that I felt in Sundanese music a kinship with Japanese music.
But this is only with regard to sonorities. The worlds to which these two
musics aspire are different in nature. For example, the improvisation in
Sundanese music does not occur in our traditional music. In traditional
Japanese music, "there are some cases where the original music is played
with variation. But this is not improvisation. The interpretation of a work
in performance has to be accurate and there is no allowance for individual
interpretations of the same work." 18
Improvisation is done within a firm discipline where both play and
prescribed meaning exist. This is pertinent not only in Sundanese music
but also in other Asian music, particularly Indian and gamelan music. New
music is still being created in performance as a daily event. It is strongly
supported by a sensitivity unique to the race and spreads as a living thing,
without losing its classicality, yet without becoming classic in a literal sense.
When you commit your soul to the care of melodic and rhythmic
structures, improvisation becomes possible. And, for the first time, modes
appear which can regenerate, that have strong ties with specific days, times,

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A Jostled Silence (I) 47

places, and inner scenes. A mode is a road along which a man may walk,
and it is never-ending. An infinite number of Whenyou commit
roads, like the veins of a leaf, will join at the end your soul to the
into one cosmic mode. This cosmic mode might care of melodic
be called by the name "God," and its myriad and rhythmic
versions are like the numerous, small fragments of strutures,
a shattered mirror that reflect the figure of this improvaton
"God." becomes possible.
Once, I believed that to make music w
enormous mirror that was called the We
Japanese traditional music, I became aw
another mirror.
Soon, sounds of the collapse of this enorm
my ears, too. As I write this, I feel that my
On the contrary, they are complicated and
to foresee the implications of alternative ch
think of going towards the East if the Wes
To me, this can be called a discovery: the m
on a different scale) is based upon a logic d
the enormous Western mirror. It is my des
powers of auditory imagination by placing
of light arising from the intricate reflectio
[i.e., those resulting from the collapse of th
would like to reassemble them-the enormo
lit with the afterglow of dusk's passing-int
mirror would probably be different from
However, it is beyond my capacity to imag
I have neither the intention of enterin
myself to stagnate. There must be a hidde
common language can touch one ano
order to find the way there, it is ne
examine one's image not only in
various mirrors. For, excluding such
mulations as "East" and "West," one sh
to expose oneself to a flood of refle
point of momentarily losing oneself. Possi
to each individual as small streams; and
merged with others by a great, creative fo
river.21

Traveling in Indonesia, I was struck by the depth of the differences


between Japanese traditional music and gamelan music, even though both
exist in the Asian arena. They have many common factors, yet the sympa-
thies they awaken in one as music are quite different. I wonder, now, about
the origin of what I felt then, intuitively.

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48 Perspectives of New Music

I have said previously that sounds in traditional Japanese music seem to


reject the scales to which they belong. In the following section, I would like
to talk more about this.
The leading music in the Edo period developed in connection with
theater, and this is an important factor to consider in understanding
Japanese traditional music. Traditional art in Japan was brought to maturity
during the Edo period. This being the case, it is not altogether meaningless
to consider the influence that theater has had upon music.
Music in the Edo period was mainly that of the shamisen: Gidayu and
others, including ningyo-joruri-geki, nagauta, and the tokiwazu, kiyomoto and
the tomimoto of Kabuki.22
All of these have deep connections with theater, and the characteristics of
the music were shaped in each case by the dramatic characteristics of the
plays.
The sober and exaggerated mode of expression in Gidayu, an unusual
case among traditional Japanese musics, was a necessity in animating the
lifeless dolls, and this mode of expression succeeded the tradition of stories
about fictional heroes (kinpira-joruri).23 As I have already described,
Gidayu Takemoto created Gidayu-bushi by integrating all other schools of
technique and expression; this was inevitable. For example, the standardiz-
ation of shamisen technique as well as its rudimentary structure involved
stylized expression of such emotions as joy and anger to their outermost
limits. This produced, along with the movement of the dolls, a forthright-
ness of expression. It proved effective to adapt the already existing tech-
niques of other schools to this purpose.
In traditional Japanese music, there are many instances, not only
Gidayu, where new music is made by unprecedented interpolations of
in Japanese standardized performance techniques with one
traditional music, another (those devices commonly called meri-
standardized yasu).24 Even this phenomenon seems inseparable
instrumental from the fact that music has developed hand in
techntues
tecniqus hand with theater. One of the most concrete
explain emotions,
and even examples of the symbolic use of performance tech-
the content niques involves the beating of a drum at the right-
of scenes hand side of the stage in Kabuki, symbolizing
water and snow. Generally speaking, the role performed by instruments in
Japanese traditional music is based upon standardized techniques which are
interpreted in concrete form as musical representations which explain emo-
tions, and even the content of scenes. This is, indeed, the opposite of
Western instrumental music, which is abstract and independent of
symbolism.
The form that music takes is rooted, needless to say, in the sensitivity of a
race. Still, it is very interesting to speculate upon how it has been cultivated

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A Jostled Silence (I) 49

through human history. One cannot deny, in any event, that the feudal
class system established in the Edo period had great influence upon the
exact characteristics of its music. It was in this period that the concept of
beauty was systematized and took clear form in the conventions of ie, ryu,
and fi-lineage, school, and style-which are the dominant influences in
traditional Japanese music even today.
Gidayu-bushi had begun with imaginative plays featuring exaggerated
postures. Gradually these plays began to represent inner aspects of man
through the excellent work of such dramatists as Chikamatsu
Monzaemon.25 The intonations of jruri acquired refined and delicate
modulations, to which the shamisen added many sentimental adornments.
They, too, had standardized as concrete elements of expression, yet existed
strictly within the context of accompaniment for plays.
In the case of Kabuki, plays performed by live actors, music was used
mainly for dances inserted into the drama. This is traditionalapanese
the reason that expression in nagauta and kiyomoto music reached the
is candid and free of exaggeration when compared height of its
with Gidayu. In any case, the difference of musical expressiveness
characteristics between the Kanto and Kansai in the Edoperiod ...
regions need not be pursued.26 What I am con- [when] even the
cerned with is the fact that traditional Japanese singlesound
.,,,., ~. . r~. ~might be sufjicient.
music reached the height of its expressiveness in
the Edo period. It aimed at a unique mode of expression in which even the
single sound might be sufficient.
After three generations of Tokugawa rulers, in the time of Iemitsu,27 the
classification of musical art had been given definite form by law. This was
accompanied by the gradual establishment of a system which included a
main branch for each family (ie) and its associated schools (ryu) that con-
tinues today.
According to Kikkawa:

No was originally an art performed by a group belonging to a Shinto


shrine.28 Shrine ritual was the essence of No. The Edo (Tokugawa)
shogunate, however, changed it into a martial function appropriate to
the feudal government and to samurai families. Nogaku ("the art of
No") gradually came to involve some drills in Japanese fencing (ken-
jutsu) and other martial arts, and was thus itself transformed into a
samurai art. The feudal government extended its protection over No,
making secure the livelihood of the No players. In return, the govern-
ment exercised strict control over the art. A good example of this was
the case of Motonobu Konparu who received the following warning:
"Exert more effort; your art is still immature. Also guide attentively
the aged in your theatrical troupe. Unless you put your mind to your

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50 Perspectives of New Music

duties, there will be serious consequences." In the same warning,


there was another item, "Follow all orders of the lord's steward. If you
desire to bring suit against such an order, transmit it to an official
through the lord's steward in your troupe. But if there is something
wrong with him, bring it directly to a government official," in which
one can already see the establishment of a house system (ie) within
Nogaku. The date of this warning to N6 players was June 9th, the
fourth year of Shoho (1647), during the shogunate of Iemitsu.

There were four different theatrical companies in No during the


earliest Tokugawa shogunate: Kanze, H6sh6, Konparu, and Kongo.
During the period of the second shogun, Hidetada, the Kita school was
recognized as an independent style. The other four companies which
had had one style were put in order by the shogunate, changed from
companies to styles. As a result, N6 came to have five styles.29

One can see from the above quotation that at the beginning of the
Tokugawa period, N6 had a position as an art belonging to the samurai
class; Gagaku music, on the other hand, belonged to the Imperial Court.
Both were specially protected and in a different world from that of music
for the general public.
When you think that the jodai-shinagaku of ancient times (the origin of
court Gagaku) had always been connected to the government and reflected
its policy, the form that Gagaku takes in Japan is the result of a unique
transformation. It is indeed strange that Gagaku remained a closed society
and did not follow the teachings of Confucius, even though it was loved by
many Confucians. The intervention of the samurai government was a
factor, but probably only one of many. In any event, although the govern-
ment did allude to music, music did not tie itself to politics, nor were
politics reflected directly in music.
The political ideology of ancient China was summarized in The Book of
Governance with Propriety30 and emphasis was placed on the practice of
civility. This "civility" had the same meaning as "music"; they were both
recognized as manifestations of one body of ideals. Confucians in our
country often make mistakes and are caught in contradictions, and this,
apparently, is the case not only in Japan but in China as well. As the
Chinese composer Kiang Wen-yeh deplores in his book,31 it seems that one
of the root problems of Japanese traditional music, even today, lies in the
mistaken Confucian interpretation of "civil" not as something practical, in
other words, not as an "art," but rather as moral idea. I intend to evaluate
"the way" (michi) of art as it makes sense to me,32 but this may well be a
different matter.

I happened to use "the way" and would like to quote a short piece

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A Jostled Silence (I) 51

entitled "The Yellow Soil of China and Its Culture" from the aforemen-
tioned book by Kiang Wen-yeh, published in 1943:

Once people have come to this continent


and have seen the land covered with yellow soil
as far as the eye can reach
What do they think, really?
The scene spread in front of our eyes is, of course,
yellow earth-horizon-sky
Only that.
Standing on this earth,
on the yellow plain where no one has yet set foot,
do people really think of a word
Of the way?
What sort of sensations, what kind of ideas do they receive from
the symbol signifying "the way"?
The way-the way
In reality, there is nothing there.
In this enormous expanse of yellow soil,
the footsteps one leaves when he walks become the way
You simply walk.
The path will remain.
The path is marked.
Over the featureless sea of yellow soil,
one could walk in any direction one liked, if he only had
The will

To walk, to walk endlessly, on the ground, the boundless


ground.
The walk could follow a straight line, or a curved line, or
a more complicated geometric path . ..33

As far as the above passage is concerned, the attitude and the feeling of
one Chinese towards "the way" is that it is not a set path but seems to be
born in the human act of walking, marked out freshly every day. It is
related to the individual, therefore to society, and thus closely approaches
the political. The idea that the civil and the musical should be in accord is
fundamentally a practical one.
When one life calls out to another life, sounds are born. Silence
bordered with a necklace of sounds which become When one
When one life
scales. Little by little, the stranded scales are calls out
bundled into a sheath of light, rising into the sky, to another life,
or gushing out, splashing, like the body of a river sounds are born.
finding liberation as it reaches the sea. They fill the universe: enormous,
soundless sounds.34

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52 Perspectives of New Music

__r-b_

The black cloth of the night's stillness t


temple among the mountains of Northwe
to disappear, and I could listen to the sou
wanted to understand the meaning of th
but soon abandoned the idea, entrustin
The sound of the saron (a metal percu
ground, then rose to the sky above. A
enormous, soundless sound surging wit
there was some existence beyond my co
questions which passed swiftly into the d
instant I first sensed them. Now I cannot
traces on my memory like the marks of
for the voice which comes from the d
primeval signal. My task is to keep respo
It occurred to me that I was trying to h
stood on a delta between converging st
immeasurable ocean. Standing on this g
containing the music of the West, the mu
that manifests a different existence from
clash against one another and explore one
into which everything pours, I thought th
even though I knew I would plunge int
ocean swallows up so many different emo
wash up?
The night I heard the ketchack there
rain beating upon the roof of braided
the singing voices. In this rain, half-n
from the dark hole of night, the lower h
batik,35 and gathered under the light
meeting hall. Sitting in a circle on th

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A Jostled Silence (I) 53

unceremoniously, before one had time to realize it. I know very little
about the content of the ketchack, but it is unique to Bali, and its name
comes from the fact that it is a shouting and sing- The phrasing of the
ing in onomatopoeic imitation of monkeys. Every- ketchack is
intuitive rather
thing is chanted by human voices, and mystical
than measured,
stories are sung in delicate intonations by a few
and happens
who might be termed the leaders. A crowd of
suddenly with a
several dozen people shouted like monkeys, litheness like
adding certain gestures, occasionally singing as a the leaps
unison chorus (this reminded me, for some rea- of wild animals.
son, of Okinawan music; in fact, I often had the impression that music had
spread to Indonesia from north to south). The phrasing is intuitive rather
than measured, and happens suddenly with a litheness like the leaps of wild
animals. Soon I forgot that the music was sung by human beings and
succumbed to the illusion that I was hearing the sound of the earth itself.
Under such conditions, in such a space, one might say that voices are not so
different from thunderstorms; each is a force which can create a cosmic
field.36
Gradually, I became able to discern minute fragments of the voices which
had tended to disappear in the thunderstorm. Then I realized that each of
the several dozen sitting in the circle had a certain role. For example, the
pattern of rhythm for the monkey-like shouts consists of an antiphony
between several voices. In other words, a rhythmic pattern consisting of
four sounds

is divided up and sung:

Actually, the patterns are much more complex and are done at certain
moments with a speed far beyond our understanding of human capabilities.
Is it really possible to acquire this through training?
The old man, who was performing next to me while I listened, carved
out with the cycles of his breath a rhythm that remained regular until the
end-it lasted more than an hour. The innumerable individual roles that
formed the ketchak rang out like sounds of the earth. I sensed the depth of
its meaning more strongly than ever.
Recently, I had a chance to talk about gamelan music with Kohei Sugiura
for a magazine.37 He made many suggestive remarks:

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54 Perspectives of New Music

One more important thing is that when these performances take place,
the people surrounding the performers assimilate themselves into the
performance in a real sense. Not only because the performers are their
relatives, but because they become immersed in the stories. It appears
that the story of the Ramayana is used in the ketchak. There are some
lines halfway through (I don't know whether they were there from the
beginning or added later).... When a villain appears, according to
the story, the audiences behaved just as we used to when Ken Takakura
[a Japanese movie actor who often plays the hero] was attacked from
behind by a swordsman and the audiences at movie theatres far from
metropolitan centers would shout, "Look out from behind, Ken!!"
The audience, including children, really shouted and jumped [laugh-
ter] even though they had seen it several times.... These people [in
the ketchak] are stage-hands yet they are observers at the same time.
They are performers and spectators. You see, it's not viewed as an affair
of others alone. This is precisely why it might be possible, after people
have dispersed, that only sounds are left behind, spread over the
ground. It's as though the performance has been printed upon the
earth.... To make nature the subject and to speak from that per-
spective: sounds permeate the soil and wind, emanate from it just as
the skin takes on a slight flush in a suggestion of arousal ...

4-t f/f X

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A Jostled Silence (I) 55

Through traveling in Indonesia, I came to think about several matters.


They were, at the beginning, incoherent and existed only as isolated
impressions. But as time went by they gathered and grew, and have become
something that has strong influence over me.
Now I have been writing this essay with the desire to clarify this
power which moves me profoundly. But scholarly comparisons of musics
are not in my sphere, and that is not what would reconside
make things clear. I think there would be no tradition as
expansion of my experience with this problem if I burden, we shoul
acknowledged only subconsciously its obscure not avoid th
power which forces me to think about our relation burdensomeness
with the burdensome thing-borrowing Yuji Taka- itself
hashi's word-called tradition. In reconsidering it as a burden, we sho
not avoid the burdensomeness itself.
More than twenty years have passed since I began in music, and this
almost coincides with the postwar period. During this time, Japan
has shown several aspects of herself, passed at the begining,
through several stages. Coincidentally, my music Japan existedfor
seems to have followed, without my being aware of me only in a
it, the ups and downs in the development of the negative sense ...
many views of Japan which have arisen since the something to be
war. First of all, it could be said that Japan, at the rejected.
beginning, existed for me only in a negative sense. At least when I came to
my decision to understand music (modern Western music) and to live by
doing so, Japan was something to be rejected.38
Opportunity for change can always arise unexpectedly. While making
time its residence, it not only sleeps but continues to mature and waits to
be awakened. But like any unpredictable encounter, it is intense and that is
why we always think of it as "chance."
It was ten years after I began studying music that I received a strong
shock from a Bunraku performance. It was then that I became aware of
Japan for the first time. In fact I saw Japan represented as distinct from
myself, and acknowledged it as entirely different. This confused me a good
deal. It is difficult to describe the sensation I had. I was a captive of
Webern's music at that time.39 But the music performed then impressed me
as even more astonishing than Webern. The music I heard was the accom-
paniment for Horikawa40-the elaborate skill of a monkey trainer-not such
attractive music, as I think back on it. However, it was completely new
world to me, and I did not know what to do about facing this territory of
music which had such a different nature. Such experiences were nothing
particularly unique; I think they were quite common for our generation. It
was a process one had to go through as though he were going to study

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56 Perspectives of New Music

9~~

Hiw pi

S. * . * < .' * ' . *. .

i'> LLLi x >

T.
_ _JU M_L ....

R.

_. '

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A Jostled Silence (I) 57

European music, whether or not he was Japanese. One might say that the
fact that I am Japanese made the problem somewhat more burdensome for
me. In any case, it was because I studied European music that Japan
appeared in a positive light for me. Otherwise I might not have come to a
realization of Japan.
Since then I have intentionally had considerable contact with traditional
music. As contact deepens and I am strongly attracted by it, I come face to
face with many problems which are unsolvable to my way of thinking. In
effect, my thought has a tendency to fall into a pattern of point and
counter-point, as for example, Japan and the West, the East and the West.
Because of this, it could happen that as I affirm an aspect of the Japanese, a
simple rejection of the Western results on the other side. So far, I have
understood many aspects of Japanese music, I have written about them,
and I thought I had grasped their essence in my terms, that this contributed
in some degree to my music. However, as my contact deepens, Japanese
music gradually has become more difficult to understand.41 From another
point of view, perplexity might have arisen whether or not I really under-
stood Western music or received influence from it.
But within this confusion, however unsettling, there is also the fact that I
have begun to feel a more definite response than before to that which is
Japan and that which is Europe. Nevertheless, such a dual feedback in my
thinking will block everything no matter how hard each element strives.
It was by chance that I traveled to Indonesia. A meaningful trip it was.
It probably brought me more problems. I think
it also brought about certain movements and the manner of
thinking that pits
changes in my thinking. At present I am obliged point against point
to say, simply, that I have come to endure all the produces a
problems which face me and to accept them. As a methodical logicality
way of living, it may not be such a bad idea to see under which that
which is the essence
life as supported by the passions of enduring. I cannot aevel
cannot help feeling that we have always dealt only
half-heartedly with things we should have accepted with our whole selves.
This feeling, indeed, might have been the totality of what I sensed in
Indonesia. The way in which I have behaved, the manner in which most
Japanese have related to the West, does not allow one to associate with
Japan freely. The manner of thinking that pits point against point as, for
example, the West against Japan, such formulas simply produce a methodi-
cal logicality under which that which is the essence cannot develop.
On the plateau in Indonesia, I was thinking about a tree standing in a
faraway land. If we are going to receive influence from Europe, it will be
from this moment forward.42 Such thoughts flashed across my mind.

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58 Perspectives of New Music

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A Jostled Silence (I) 59

THE UNPOLISHED MIRROR43

Now, when I think about the musics I am most attracted by, I realize that
the common factor among them is that many belong to races which do not
possess written alphabets.
Since I have not studied ethnomusicology specifically, my feeling could
be irrelevant scientifically; it may lack pertinence. But the music of a literate
culture always seems to move toward abstraction, while each sound in the
music belonging to one without a written language will be connected with
more or less concrete matters and phenomena which seem themselves to
determine the unique characteristics of musical expression. These musics
are, for example, those of the American Indians, the Eskimos, the Ainu,
and the Polynesians.
With the acquisition of an alphabet, human vocabulary expands.
Accordingly, the meanings of words are apt to be limited by indicative
functions and thus are prone to abstraction. Naturally, words have the
characteristic of being uttered, of communicating, and this is deeply related
to the origins of music. But when words function denotatively, their
sonority is sacrificed. Specific examples of such loss may be seen in mean-
ingless public oration. I would rather that the spellbinding power of the
voice not be evoked in speeches aimed at political agitation. But even this
instance, however, seems to me proof that words do not function, do not
exist, simply as denotative meanings.
Incidentally, I will add that there may exist poetical and political lan-
guages in opposition to each other within our human languages.44 Is it not
the case that people are in the middle, that they live with a daily language
which has been influenced by and relates to both .... This notion some-
times occurs to me.
The emptiness of agitative political speeches (in short, their lack of
genuine persuasiveness) is due to the fact that their political language
intends a poetic uplift which does not get through to people. It may be
possible to assert the opposite. I am thinking about the death of Yukio
Mishima. I am not really qualified to talk about that incident.45 Consider-
ing the disappointing nature of his dying words-difficult to credit against
the background of his literary achievement-I think his death was after all
only a political (or one might call it poetic) event, unrelated to the general
population. To Yukio Mishima, who committed suicide, a conception of
nation might have existed. If so, it contained no people.
I find it very interesting that scholars have pointed out that no individual
heroes exist in the mythology and folk tales from generation to generation
within oral cultures. This fact could be tied to the manner in which music
exists. The existence of heroes might be a notion produced by the process

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60 Perspectives of New Music

of abstract thought. For example, I have heard that the heroes of Eskimo
folk tales endure for no more than three generations. In other words,
people in one's immediate family circle-the father, grandfather, great-
grandfather-appear as heroes in their stories. If one were to think deeply
about such facts, it might lead one to the center of all those problems
related to the essence of the human race. And this might also open to us
new visions regarding the problems of time and space with which music is
concerned.
However, the strong attraction I feel towards the music of the Eskimos
or Indians is not based on prior knowledge.
It was almost ten years ago that I had a chance to hear many of the hula
chants which are transmitted orally between native Hawaiians. It was with
the help of Ms. Barbara Smith, a noted ethnomusicologist who taught at
the University of Hawaii. Each made a strong impression on me, and I
cannot forget even today how much I was moved by the beauty of the
variety of pronunciation, the unique rhythmic articulation. This may
sound like an extreme opinion, but I feel that one could not find an
example comparable to the subtle coloration of vowels and the delicate
beauty of their gradation such as exists in Hawaii's language. I communi-
cated this candid impression to her and she concurred. She also explained
that the vocabulary of the Hawaiian language is small; it has a variety of
phonetic and breath alterations that are introduced at the time of enuncia-
tion and they are important because so many words are homonyms. In hula
chants, the meaning of exactly the same arrangement of words changes
depending upon whether the phrase is sung in one breath or one takes a
breath in the middle. When you listen to a chant, the performers rubbing
together small black stones held in their palms, the upper parts of their
bodies swaying like waves, you feel, indeed, how unmusical our conversa-
tion is.

The music of the Eskimo and also that of the American Indian acquires
its meaning as music and as language only after it is actually enunciated. (It
might just as well be called singing instead. They [music and language] are
inseparable.) For this reason, music and art always have social functions;
that is to say they exist as information. Music cannot be distilled in
isolation.
It also seems to be the case that only in such societies (which we call
uncivilized or primitive) does the power of spells appear. I have the feeling
that there is a shortage of explanation in societies that do not possess
alphabets, in particular printed letters, as the basis for silent forms of
information. In societies that possess them, music aims at aesthetic purity,
increases its harmonic complexity, yet becomes increasingly impoverished

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A Jostled Silence (I) 61

in melodic inflection, paying no attention to the effect of silence.46 The end


result of such a differentiation process is that a spell loses its power.
Richness of vocabulary simplifies vocal expression. (This is necessary in
order to hear differentially each word, each with its meaning. For example,
consider the uniform pronunciation of radio announcers.) On the other
hand, the power of spells is manifested through rich vocal expression.
As Le Corbusier used the human body as a measure in his archi-
tecture, in questions regarding the general musical environment we
should use the human voice along with the ear as as Le Corbusier
criteria. Researchers have noted that the voices of used the human
people in primitive regions are indeed full of color- body to measure
ful intonation as compared to those of civilized n his architecture,
man.47 According to Murray4 Schafer,
the voice we should use the
the van oice in
was alive as an instrument even as late as the questons invoohing
Middle Ages. Reading was done in full voice and the musical
people felt the shape of words on their tongues. In environment
effect, expressiveness was as important as, or more important than, the
literal meaning of a word.
In Yoga, one intones one word repeatedly like an incantation as part of
his training. Through this act, the majesty, the grace, the dark, hidden
hypnotic power of the word is awakened and taken into the body. When a
Tibetan lama chants "ommm," his body becomes the sound. You can
actually see his ribs vibrate with the sound; his nostrils tremble like the
wings of an insect. He then settles into the sensation that thirty or forty
yards separate these two sounds: the o first uttered and the following m.
Indian musician Ravi Shankar writes in his book as follows:

When you read the old books, two kinds of sounds are mentioned-
one is the vibration of a very clear and high spirit, closer to the sky, and
the other is the vibration of air in a lower plane closer to the ground.
As for the vibration in the sky, there are some who think it is the same
as the music of the celestial sphere about which Pythagoras wrote in
the 6th century B.C. These are the sounds of the universe which have
always existed and are unchangeable. Since they are not born of any
physical impulse, they are called anahata nada, in other words "inac-
tive sounds." The other kind of sounds are [sic] always produced by
physical impulse and are, therefore, arhata nada, "active sounds." In
the latter case, sounds are produced at the moment of a given impulse
and cease to exist as soon as the vibration stops.

Inactive sounds are extremely important in Yoga. They are the eternal
sounds that the Yogi desires to hear within himself. It is only possible

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62 Perspectives of New Music

to attain this, however, after many years of meditation and training in


Yoga.49

This notion of metaphysical "sounds" which the ear is unable to sense,


cannot, in effect, be considered apart from "active sounds." Meditation in
Yoga would seem to be an absolute act, beyond such "sounds" and free
from both thought (intelligence) and sensation (emotion). Only then will
this pipe of flesh change into a sho50 and sing of "life."
Even today, certainly, for many Indians, lamas, and other Asians, the
supreme satisfaction is to make their bodies into sound itself, through
training to achieve unity with nature or the universe. Just as Ravi Shankar
has described, the highest aim of music is to reveal the true nature that the
universe projects, and ragas are a means to understand this nature. In this
way, he has remarked, it is possible to reach God by way of music. This
would appear to be Indian music's essential difference from Western music.
Also, it differs from our Japanese music.

Through tapasha, in other words, meditation, a Yogi tries to awake


kundalini, a divine power in the human being. According to the
esoteric Buddhism of the Middle Ages, this divine power was repre-
sented mystically, as a snake lying in a coil, a symbol of dynamism at
the center of the body. A Yogi also tries to be in touch with the chakra
(the source of energy), and tries to control it with his spirit. This is
called "piercing the chakra," and when a Yogi has accomplished it, he
has complete control of his body and is able to perform supernatural
acts such as floating in the air and disappearing.51

I have not seen such supernatural acts with my own eyes. Those who
place themselves within the narrow confines of musical experience can
neither see nor hear things of this sort. I have written above that in a society
which depends on silent information (possesses a printed alphabet), music
aims at purification (aesthetically) and increases its harmonic complexity.
That is to say, "Contrary to the idea that music is based on many expressive
moods and tone colors-often in extreme opposition-Indian melody cen-
ters around one important mood and emotion throughout its duration,
expanding out from this and reaching towards subtlety. The effect of this is
centering and hypnotic, sometimes becoming magical."52 This probably is
a notable difference between Eastern and Western music.
The voice of a lama, low and crawling over the ground, the voice of a
Central American Indian, clarion as though to embellish the ridge of a line
of mountains, the voice of a hula chant that ebbs and flows slowly like the
tide; all these vocal sounds show us but one life.
To ponder over the role an individual has in music, as I am doing,

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A Jostled Silence (I) 63

certainly appears arrogant. That I may have taken pains only to distinguish
myself from others by asserting ego through am o wo
various means in composition is a dismal thought. desires to make
I am one who desires to make music in the ordi- music in the
nary course of living. It is strange how difficult it is ordinary course of
to perform this easy task easily. Recently, a young living. It is
composer expressed the opinion that the reason stnge how
contemporary music is so generally unapproach- difJult itisto
able is that it has lost melody and harmony. He p ts easily
would, therefore, like to add one's bodily move-
ment and projected images to the medium of music. I wonder whether the
disease is so deeply rooted that we can no longer recognize why we cannot
sing melodies.
A composer exists without spinning out even one simple melody because
his attitude shackles him. Questions regarding the role that music performs
should be asked in relation to others, should not stop short simply with the
aesthetic problems of an individual.
The existence of a human being is like that of an individual sound within
a scale, and cannot be completed in isolation. But to put forth even such an
evident fact is extremely difficult in our time. Do I write this because I am
irritated at being lame, at being a composer? What is the function that I
should serve? I think my objectives include others as well as myself. But it
appears they cannot easily be substituted for those of an audience. I
probably belong to a type of composer of songs who keeps thinking about
melody; I am old-fashioned. What I desire to reach through the continua-
tion of a melody is beyond the pleasure and the sorrow experienced during
this continuation. Yet I cannot simply call that for which I reach eternity.

When the heart is hard and parched up, come upon


me with a shower of mercy.
When grace is lost from life, come with a burst
of song.
When tumultuous work raises its din on all
sides shutting me out from beyond, come
to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace
and rest.

When my beggarly heart sits crouched,


shut up in a corner, break open the
door, my king, and come with the ceremony
of a king.
When desire blinds the mind with
delusion and dust, O thou holy one,
thou wakeful, come with thy light
and thy thunder.53

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64 Perspectives of New Music

This is rather a long quotation from "Gitanjali" by Tagore. I feel humble


in the presence of this great poet and musician, but the anguish of certain
desires in the poet's mind that one can read here seem to be mine also.
Except that, for me, there is no God such as that the poet awaits.
I wrote in my youth The rest of us do not exist in such solitariness that
that I only sang for God shows his face to us. I think there is nothing
myself. Now Ifeel to sing about, yet I cannot give up the desire
a certain yearning entirely. In any case, for whom are these songs
for such insolene. sung? I wrote in my youth that I only sang for
myself. Now I even feel a certain yearning for such insolence. I think I am
now more arrogant than I was at that time.54
There is an instrument in Indonesia made of bamboo and called an
anklung. I heard it performed in Java. A simple garden was filled wit
sounds; from each emanated concentric waves which overlapped, inscrib-
ing a detailed mandala design that floated in the gentle sunlight. Th
instruments were performed by a dozen or so old men and youths. A
anklung consists of two bamboo tubes tuned at approximately an octa
which are hung in a frame made of another length of bamboo with narro
slots. It is designed so that the tuned tubes produce sounds by clackin
against the frame when it is shaken. However, since each one produces on
one pitch, many anklung are necessary in order to play music. As man
players are needed as the number of sounds in the scale that the melod
uses. The individual's role here could be said to be just like that of a
individual key on a piano or xylophone keyboard. However, the expression
on people's faces as they entrusted themselves to the scuttling rhythm
appeared filled with the ultimate in happiness. I recall the following poem
that Tagore sang: "I believed that we met God in the evening twilight aft
the streets were deserted and traffic had already stopped. But that which
we have an audience with in the dark is only a dream. God exists in t
hustle and bustle of a market where people gather and do their business."

j Ill preerford ersl

f () =s pronu re fthe wr;ttep /ord at th


lC'h) s .e t.e 4;i A/l ;*

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A Jostled Silence (I) 65

One friend says music is a form of prayer.56 Musical acts of mine, also (if
we were to express them in an orderly fashion with words) consist of the
several layers of emotion that support such acts, and might be construed
as prayers. We may justly say they cannot be explained by any other word.
However, by prayer I really mean something which cannot be formed
with words.
It weighs heavily upon my mind: what is the object to which my acts are
directed? How should I describe what I see or am trying to see through a
music which has a utility value of almost nothing?
The singular melodic line that Bach drew throughout his Magnificat
corresponds so perfectly to all the elements of individual emotion that it is
impossible to regard it simply as a functional result of sounds. In western
music, generally, the logic and physics of sound did not precede music
itself. On the contrary, in Bach, logic and function were an inevitable result
of the music.
Bach was pious toward the unknown force that motivated him from
within. Because of its power, he could be called a genius. The force was
directed towards finding God. However, the genius of this individual was
rooted in the soil of the local community and could not easily be
abstracted.
But, having acquired a modern sense of ego, civilized society tends to
relocate the individuals that do exist insofar as it is possible. Telecom-
munication turns local communities towards urbanization, and men are
uniformly caught up in a sense of emptiness amidst the tremendous volume
of information. Moreover, as a result of the means used to treat this
condition, they become independent of and unrelated to the humane.
Thus, human individuality becomes extremely eccentric, gradually losing
its social ties. People are separated as individuals, and the acts of the
individual often go unrecognized. Under these conditions, it is difficult to
be an individual in a true sense.
During the winter of 1968, Duke Ellington gave a charity concert
entitled "Freedom" at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine on
110th Street in Manhattan. At that time, he was a topic of conversation, for
it was just after he had been knighted by the royal family of England. On
that evening, while the dense icy wind drove in from the Hudson River,
more than seven thousand persons gathered at this Gothic cathedral on
which construction began in 1890 and still continues.
All the performers wore native costumes from various African countries.
They were visually colorful. At the end, many blacks in the audience cried
out as one for "freedom," and, strung out in a long line, they sang and
snake-danced through the audience. Duke Ellington himself, while ham-
mering at the organ, shouted "freedom" in many languages and it seemed
to come from the innermost depths of his heart.

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66 Perspectives of New Music

This music was a soul state that I have no name for, was a prayer redolent
of striving.
Black philosopher Cyrus Mosley has said that jazz is neither rhythm nor
melody. It is not a form that develops gradually. It involves an individual
freedom and the desire to express what one feels at any given moment
during the performance. It is an emotion created in performance, out of
the depths of a sadness that surpasses all imagination.57 When the lonely
feelings touch one another, music takes on its shape. Music is neither
individualistic nor pluralistic. Rather, it exists in the relationships between
men, and this may sound strange, but it cannot be owned by an individual.
Such thoughts crossed my mind sitting in the corner of the Cathedral, filled
with echoes.
This was exactly the same thing I had felt among the brimming sounds of
the gamelan in Indonesia. Music is something that an individual cannot
Music is something possess, yet it begins strictly through an individual
that an individual and later shows its form in relation to other indi-
cannot possess, yet viduals. This is not a socio-scientific thesis. Rather,
it begins stnctly
it begins strictly it is a theological one.
through an
individual and later If, as my friend said, music is a form of prayer,
shows itsform then we may call any craving for a relationship with
in relation others-human relations, social relations, and rela-
to other individuals. tionships with nature (as well as with God)-
prayers. Without reservation, I welcome the coming of such relationships
in which music will take part.
With regard to such inner problems, I cannot actually think separately of
the music of Bach, jazz, or of the gamelan. But I know I must think about
the existence of individuals and of the relationships that arise among them
because of the different qualities and characteristics of civilization.
I am Japanese. This is why I look at such problems from a rather special
point of view. But it is also the source of confusion in my thinking.
Particularly when I think about traditional Japanese music, I feel that I am
chasing myself along a circuitous route. Although my perspective may be
unnatural in some ways, still it is unavoidable.
I have previously written that sounds in traditional Japanese music seem
to reject the scale to which they belong. If I were to rewrite this here, I
would say that traditional Japanese music does not exist through relation-
ships. On the contrary, it could be said that its form appears only when
such relationships are cut off. There is an individual art that fulfills itself in a
quite different sense from that of the Western genius, in a word, the
existence of a master. Why are they enclosed within a "house," a "school,"
a "style?" I am not one who is concerned with the right or wrong of this
matter, but it weighs upon my mind nevertheless.

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A Jostled Silence (I) 67

The old man I met in the village of Toru in Sunda had studied in England
and spoke English beautifully. He wore a black Western jacket with a closed
collar, which is unique to Java, and had wrapped around his waist a tasteful
batik instead of pants. On the top of his head, there was a little brimless hat
like that worn by Sukarno or Suharto. His gentle look and his white
mustache reminded me of Tetsuzo Tanikawa.58 Except for the distinctions
in clothing, there was no difference in his movements and his appearance
from those of a Japanese. I spoke with him without feeling any of the sense
of incompatibility that usually accompanies talking to a foreigner.
While watching his granddaughter dance accompanied by the simple
music of a kundan and suling, I thought that what supports this old man's
life is entirely different from what supports mine. I felt that, in the space
that separated us, a dark high wall had begun to be constructed. However,
this was probably a feeling particular to my perspective. This old man had a
foundation for his life that would be difficult to shake, unless there were
some exceptional reasons, a basis which had not been destroyed even by
the invasions that had occurred several times during his life.
Perhaps I was affected by a special sentiment during these three weeks of
traveling. For I was in a somewhat depressed mood, having noticed the
amount of Japanese merchandise available at a market in central Denpasar,
on Bali; it was clearly of bad quality, made by unknown manufacturers.
Although it has little to do with what I am trying to write about here, I
would like to touch upon it.
The Japanese economic invasion was evident on Java. It was worse there.
Cars running in the towns are either Japanese-made or huge, ancient
American Pontiacs. Many hotels are managed by Japanese on American
capital. Signboards for these enterprises can be seen standing out in nature
among the mountains. The wages of those who work in the factories for
Japanese enterprises are extremely low. This is an invasion with a different
face. Japan holds the economic initiative, at least in Southeast Asia.

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68 Perspectives of New Music

At the town festival of historic Singaradja on the northern tip of Bali, I


saw women with colorful food piled up on the tops of their heads like
towers purifying it in the sacred waters of a temple. Even while praising
such manners and customs, I cannot help being arrested by an indescriba-
bly bad conscience as I think about the large amounts of chemical seasoning
they consume with such beautiful offerings. It is a substance about which
there is at least some argument in Japan (which exports it).59 Observing the
scene and the way they eat their food after liberally sprinkling these white
crystals over it, I passed on without stopping.
I was moved by Indonesian music itself and the religious sentiment
which is the root of the passion that has created this culture. What I
thought and felt was not necessarily related to artistic affairs, and I was
consciously determined not to consider other matters outside music. But it
was really more than I could bear, as though I had come in contact with the
ugly, the unpainted face of history, had noticed an exposed, odd and
distorted Western civilization that was out of place in the presence of the
beautiful music of grass that grows in Java and Bali.
Japan probably did desire to be modernized of her own accord, and cut
herself off from Asia in the process of this modernization. I am not
qualified to question whether this was right or wrong. Nevertheless, I
cannot believe that what Japan is doing now, out of superficial generosity
towards Indonesia, coincides with what the Indonesian masses desire.
There is no doubt that their poverty is beyond our imagination when
compared to Japan; the rule of sanitation is not widespread. In addition,
more than anything, the country's educational policy is remiss in meeting
the needs of Indonesia, which consists of a large number of islands, a fact
which makes it difficult to have a unified language.
The old man I met at Toru was the head of the district and had grown up
steeped in luxury. He was given a chance to study in England and had
acquired enough of Western culture. This was itself a very rare
circumstance.

And yet he is dressed in folk costume and keeps following the move-
ments of his dancing granddaughter with gentle eyes, while sitting next to
me. He is enjoying the rhythm of the kundan and his hands lightly beat
upon his knees. What presented itself to my eyes was his serenity-a quality
unique to his race, deepened by Western culture-which has now become
so foreign to us. In Japan, also, there are a few cultivated persons of this
type, but, in fact, taking Japan as a whole, I think that we have lost such
serenity.
I hesitate to write it down, as it is such a naive question, but why, when
we opened our doors to the West, did we not also open towards Asia?60 I
don't think we have to feel awkward in the presence of Western civilization,
like poor relations, as S6seki Natsume wrote.61 We should restrain our-
selves from saying that Western civilization is being destroyed, watching the

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A Jostled Silence (I) 69

suffering that appears clearly on the surface of the present direction of


Western thought, thinking this has nothing to do with us. Such a lack of
self-composure is intolerable. Once we were anxious even to borrow their
farts. And if we say "Asia" without due reflection, we are compounding
our mistakes with mistakes.
In the final analysis, what I was thinking about during the travels in
Indonesia was Japan, Japan as a spiritual climate within which I have to
stand whether I like it or not.
What are the factors lying at the root of my creativeness, supporting it? I
asked myself this question, found no definite answer and felt consternation
in my inmost heart as I sat next to an old man who resembled Tetsuzo
Tanikawa.

Enduring the irritation of writing-seemingly something is appearing


through it little by little. And yet, I cannot conclude this writing defini-
tively. The journey is not over.

FL.oc. D)ESCE'DS itTO rile PETAroNAL EiARDEtJ

4 T6Nr^- TATO N r

y^ 7 FA.V4p~-. < ,e ,r. a', , Je,-;ea

J. J r J
35 Z. 4 . 4 3. 2 .

s 5t4 * 4. 3. 4-. 4 . 2_ 3
; 2. 4 L 4.1 3.2. ' z 3
z 4 I S ) 1. -. 3. Z , 2.3,
4 i S ' 3 Z
1I 5 3 z 4

_ J. J j r

This trip to Indonesia was planned by a French scientific grou


happened to be the only Asian who participated. As a result, curio
found myself doubly a stranger. I spent days in a foreign land, sandw
between two mirrors and looking at a complexly replicated, skewed s
Now, after some time has passed, when I consider the condition I w
then, it seems possible to apply it, as it is, to the condition of Japan
in the world today.
Indonesian music appeared strange to the French musicians; to
sensibilities it resounded in an unknown territory beyond the imagin

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70 Perspectives of New Music

The sounds I myself received from Indonesian music were by no means


trifling. On the contrary, I was ashamed of my ignorance and realized that
the knowledge I thought I had of the Indonesians was insignificant in the
face of contact with their music.
All the same, I think there was a big discrepancy between the way the
French musicians and I heard Indonesian music. For I discovered a relation-
ship between the sounds of the gamelan, the tone of the kachapi, the
unique scales and rhythms by which they are formed, and the Japanese
traditional music which has shaped such a large part of my sensitivity. I also
think that I have accepted them wholeheartedly as something intimate to
me.

In some sense I remained calm while the French musicians confronted


these sounds as though they were starving for them. This description may
be somewhat lacking in accuracy, but they could not keep their composure
as I did before this music: it was too foreign for them to be able to assess the
resulting discrepancies with their logic.
Confronted with foreign sounds, they seemed to have lost themselves
entirely in thoughts of how to incorporate this new resource into their
logic. They kept copying, faithfully, the rhythms of the gamelan into their
notebooks, trying not to fail in catching even extremely delicate changes in
the intervals.

In some sense, I was envious of their attitude. But when I imagine the
things that will eventually appear in their music-the future of a music that
enshrines ancient history-somehow I cannot help anticipating palpably
sterile results.
Still, I do not look down upon their confusion or their loss of self-
composure. On the contrary, I was even touched, in some sense, by their
positive attitude toward the history upon which they stand. I make West-
ern music as the French musicians do. But I wonder if I have ever had such
Today, music has a voracious craving to appropriate in the way that
begun itsjourney they do.62 Western music came to us and became
toward historical subtly weathered without our knowing it. This is,
andgeographical perhaps, not my personal problem but is an affair
uniication. related to the Japanese as a whole.
There is no one
who does not doubt Today, music has begun its journey toward his-
the idea torical and geographical unification. This in
that modern Western response to a humanistic demand underlying an
musical thought extremely well-developed science and civilization.
is the only viable At least it is now rare to hear such an outrageous
standard. argument as the notion that a lesser number of
sounds in a mode (for example, the pentatonic, etc.) indicates cultural
underdevelopment. There is no one who does not doubt the idea that
modern Western musical thought is the only viable standard. Paraphrasing

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A Jostled Silence (I) 71

what Ryunosuke Akutagawa said, the "art" music of the modern West
(that has existed exclusively for a small group of people) finally had to give
up its absolute position in the face of larger humanistic demands.63 The
condition of popular music today in Europe and America, the strong
influence of Indian and African music observed there, is something more
than a phenomenon of fashion, it is being brought about by more radical,
fundamental, human demands. It would be difficult to argue against such a
position.
The French musicians I traveled with possessed the sharpest awareness of
crisis. When I think of the intense conflict that must have taken place inside
them when they stood in such an entirely different climate from that which
had shaped their sensitivity, I am not inclined to smile over their trials or at
the errors they will perpetuate.
In the end, I found during my trip that I did not possess a sense of crisis
to the degree that the French did. Nor am I able to make music innocently,
simply guided by emotion, until life and music become inseparable, as they
are for the Indonesian.
I shall roam within the eternal inner maze that the two mirrors have
created. And I would like to intensify the opposition and contradiction that
takes place, instead of letting it go off-handedly. There, I shall continue to
question "music."
Why have the Japanese departed from "religion?" Why do the Japanese
try to listen to the infinite whole within one sound that has been distilled
almost to nothing? Why does Japanese traditional music not exist by way of
relationships, and why, indeed, does its form emerge only at the point
where it breaks off with such relationships?
Now, I do not know where this road will lead me, but I have already
begun to walk.

a.ou . - 1------

P-_ P
C tp oke

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72 Perspectives of New Music

NOTES

1. Shinshu is an area in Nagano prefecture in central Honshu that evokes


a volcanic landscape.

2. An adjective meaning "foolish" or "nonsensical."


3. November and December 1973.

4. The gamelan ensemble (the generic term for a Javanese orchestra) can
vary in size and composition, but although there are significant
variations in the overall sound palette produced by different groups in
Java and Bali, the listener is inevitably struck by the richness, the
shimmer of their sonority. Since tuning is a crucial factor in their
arresting sound, gamelans-the word here indicating a specific set of
instruments-are carefully tuned and maintained within the
community.

5. The Javanese shadow play, the wayang kulit, was in existence in Java as
early as the eleventh century. A chief performer, the dalang, tells a
story while intricately cutout puppets cast shadows on a screen which
is back-lit. There is musical accompaniment.

6. N6 theater is an aesthetic form that is perhaps the most characteristic


of all Japanese tranditional arts: a lyric theater in which restraint and
refinement are paramount and in which the slow pace, masks, move-
ment, music, and visual elements produce a unique and otherworldy
experience. This courtly art took shape in the Muromachi period
(1392-1573) and reached its greatest prominence in the first third of
the Edo period (1615-1868), influencing the development of Kabuki
and Bunraku. Integral to N6 and the structure of the plays is a
"bridge" leading off the main stage to the viewers' left.

7. As the N6 theater has its bridge to the other world, the Kabuki
theater has an entryway for actors, the hanamichi, that leads through
the audience from the rear of the house. The Bunraku stage is
similarly designed for its unique performance requirements, including
the presence of puppeteers. Thus in each of the three major tradi-
tional genres entrances, exits, and the placement of actors and accom-
panying musicians are formalized in accord with a standard set of
conventions and expectations.

8. The Meiji Period, which began with the accession to the throne of
the Meiji emperor, was marked by an unprecedented effort on the
part of a small group of nobles and samurai to create a new national

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A Jostled Silence (I) 73

government and to modernize rapidly according to Western models.


During this period of Westernization the traditional arts were largely
ignored, and sometimes even denigrated as remnants of a backward
culture.

9. These two traditional musicians were active in attempting to adapt


Japanese instruments to what were perceived as the new requirements
of a modernized society.

10. The "length of bamboo" is a metaphor for the traditional wind


instrument, the shakuhachi. It is necessary, Takemitsu feels, to get
back to the origins of Japanese music if he is to write music at all. But
there remains unresolved ambivalence in his mind regarding his tradi-
tions. The shakuhachi, then, is both a symbol of the conflict between
traditional and contemporary values and a tool for resolving it.

11. In the West the development of the arts occurs dialectically through
individual innovators whereas in Japan there has been an emphasis on
the polishing of a style or genre within a family tradition that is
handed down from father to son, master to disciple. The Western
style of dialectic, with its emphasis on struggle, conflict, and con-
quest, did not take place in traditional Japan, but this does not mean
that the Japanese master is condemned to rote repetition.
What makes the Japanese master what he is, is that there are certain
moments when he transcends the limits of the family or clan tradi-
tions. There is, then, an undefinable stage which only a master can
reach at which the limits of self-containment (where one is bound by
taboos and restrictions) are exceeded. A slim, long tradition suddenly
extends itself horizontally, conquering the whole surface of the grass.
The ability to transcend the conventions of the school is prerequi-
site to recognition as a master. Thus there may be some element of
the dialectical in even this phenomenon.

12. Here the author contrasts the Edo period's closed door policy and the
development of the Japanese arts in isolation from foreign influences
with two earlier periods of great artistic flowerings characterized by
the wholesale borrowing of mainland culture. The Nara period began
in 710 with the construction of a capital city, Nara, based on the
Chinese model. "Its construction," historian George Sansom
observed, "was an expressive symbol of the transfer to Japan of
foreign influences." The Muromachi period, so called after a quarter
in Kyoto where the Ashikaga shoguns housed themselves, was notable
for its foreign trade and the patronage of the fine arts, in particular
N6 drama and the art of the tea ceremony. Under the Tokugawa
shogunate in Edo (modern-day Tokyo) came the seclusion order of

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74 Perspectives of New Music

1639; the art forms that emerged during the Edo period were largely
in response to the needs of a prosperous urban bourgeoisie.

13. The shamisen is a three-stringed banjo-like instrument introduced


into Japan in the latter part of the sixteenth century. It is widely and
variously used for the accompaniment of song and narrative, solo-
istically or as part of theater, especially Iabuki and Bunraku. Gidayu
Takemoto (1651-1714) was a virtuoso chanter for the puppet plays,
joruri, who was instrumental in the emergence of the form now called
Bunraku. His name is attached to the style of sung narration that
combined elements of earlier recitative narration accompanied by the
biwa, a four-stringed lute-like instrument with a long history in
Japan, and the Edo period narrative shamisen forms of ichu-bushi and
kato-bushi.

14. The ie reflects the concept of a "household" or "family" that has


stronger implications than these English words suggest. Anthropolo-
gist Chie Nakane writes that "the human relations within this house-
hold group are thought of as more important than all other human
relations.'

15. The ketchak is a particularly rousing antiphonal chant that accom-


panies the narration of a section of the Ramayana in Bali. Its virtuoso
interlocking rhythms in imitation of monkey chatter leave an indelible
impression on anyone who hears it.

16. Pelog, with seven tones, is one of the two basic scales of Indonesian
music. The other, slendro, is pentatonic.

17. Gagaku, literally "refined music," is the oldest form of orchestral


music with a continuous history, having been imported to Japan from
China in the eighth century and remaining since then under the
protection of the Imperial Court. The winds dominate the ensemble,
with percussion and strings providing rhythmic and structural
articulation.

18. Music of the Asian Races, W. P. Maim, translated by Matsuma and


Murai, Tokai-Daigaku Press.
19. Note that Takemitsu conceived of an active role vis-a-vis the "mirror"
of the West, projecting himself at its surface rather than more pas-
sively observing how he was reflected by it. He had, he stresses, no
knowledge of Western music and had to project himself onto it.

20. Takemitsu portrays himself as being committed, through study, to


the West. If the breakup of Western culture is sensed (and many
contemporary Japanese have had this impression), he stresses it is not
an external phenomenon but one which affects the Japanese directly.

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A Jostled Silence (I) 75

21. But, as in the oceans there are many separate currents with contrast-
ing directions, speeds, and temperatures, this metaphoric river, the
author believes, would remain heterogeneous at the same time that it
was in harmony.

22. Ningyo-joruri-geki means "puppet-recitation-theater," nagauta are, lit-


erally, "long songs of narration" (accompanied by the shamisen), of
which tomimoto, kiyomoto, and tokiwazu are classifications.

23. Kinpira-jouri was a precursor of Bunraku.

24. Meriyasu connotes, literally, a flexible fabric. In this usage it relates to


the musical technique of extemporaneously filling in the breaks
between one scene and the next in a Kabuki performance. The
musicians combine, extemporaneously, the set patterns of shamisen
technique.

25. Chikamatsu (1653-1724) was an Osaka dramaturge who wrote exten-


sively for the Kabuki and Bunraku theaters. He wrote many Bunraku
plays specifically for Gidayu Takemoto, and their collaboration with a
notable puppeteer not only elevated puppet theater to a high art, but
was instrumental in its becoming the most popular form of Japanese
theater for most of the eighteenth century.

26. The Kanto plain, dominated by the modern city of Tokyo, is often
contrasted with the older and more traditional posture of the Kansai
region which includes Kyoto and Osaka. Osaka and Tokyo were the
primary seats of the arts under discussion here.

27. The Edo period began when Ieyasu Tokugawa gained power in 1600.
Iemitsu Tokugawa was shogun from 1623 to 1651, during which time
the feudal structure that lasted until the Meiji Resoration came to be
codified and the sumptuary laws governing the arts began to be
promulgated.

28. Shinto is the native religion of Japan, predating the introduction of


Buddhism, which stresses homage to nature spirits, kami, and one's
ancestors, and also ritual purity. Shinto rituals involve music and
dancing for the entertainment of the kami, and it is these to which
Kikkawa refers.

29. Eishi Kikkawa, A History of apanese Music (Tokyo: Sogen Sha, n.d.)
30. Known as the Li Chi, "Record of Rites," this is one of the Six Classics
of Chinese philosophy, of unknown authorship and predating the
Age of Philosophers (Confucius, et al.).

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76 Perspectives of New Music

31. Kiang Wen-yeh (in Japanese, the name is pronounced K6 Bunya),


Thoughts on Chinese Jodai Music: The Music Theory of Kashi (Tokyo:
Sanseido, n.d.). Kiang was a musican and administrator in Peking
before World War II who came to Japan to study music. He was
censured during the Cultural Revolution, and Takemitsu was unsuc-
cessful in an attempt to locate him during a visit to China in the
mid-1970s.

32. The character for michi, Tao in Chinese, is an ideogram showing a


person heading somewhere on a road, hence "a way" (as well as being
used literally for road). In China, the character had assumed great
philosophical significance as early as the third century, an aura it still
retains, although it was interpreted differently by the various schools.
For the Confucians, to whom this passage refers, the Tao or Way is a
social order with primarily ethical connotations and early rituals
involving music were to be preserved as necessary to proper govern-
ance. To the Taoists, the Way was that of Nature and had more
personal and ethical connotations, with naturalness as the ideal. The
character appears in a number of compounds (read in Japanese as
"do") that name certain traditional art forms-e.g., chado, "the way
of tea," and shodo, "the way of writing" or calligraphy-where it also
connotes a way of self-cultivation as well as the practice of the form.
All of these overtones inform the subsequent discussion. In the
preceding sentence "art" translates geido, an unusual compound
literally meaning "the way of art." The English word "path" is
somewhat similar to Taolmichi/do for it too can mean "a way of life,
thought or conduct" as well as a literal road, but "way" is more
traditionally used in translations of philosophical works (such as the
Tao Te Ching).

33. Kiang wrote this in Japanese, and although his command of the
language was faulty, the message was well-understood and much
admired by the Japanese.

34. Takemitsu believes that the substance of art is already in existence.


One whom we recognize as a poet is, then, one who is able to read,
to perceive, and make available to us the poetry which is already in
existence in the world. Music, too, exists everywhere around us, but
laziness inhibits most of us from hearing it; the composer can. We live
in a world full of music and poetry to which we are generally
insensitive. The function of the artist is to overcome this laziness.

35. Generally called sarasa in Javanese.

36. The Japanese word here is ba, "field," as in "magnetic field."

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A Jostled Silence (I) 77

37. Art Club, October 1973. (This was a short-lived periodical.)


38. This was a common reaction at the end of World War II, when
familiar values were suddenly reversed during the Occupation. What
had been proclaimed as right became wrong, and values that long had
been instilled became, suddenly, unacceptable.
39. He studied scores of the serial works and heard Robert Craft's
Columbia recordings.

40. Horikawa Sarumawashi is a famous scene from Chikagoro Kawara no


Tatehiki, a late eighteenth century Bunraku play written by
Tamekawa, Tsutsukawa, and Nakawa.

41. For the present, younger generation of Japanese musicians, as for


Takemitsu's, traditional music remains relatively unknown. The
dilemma shows no immediate sign of lessening, and Takemitsu says
that "the task is still ahead" for him.

42. "Though we have studied Western music," the composer argues,


"we have not yet been genuinely influenced. The Japanese have
studied the West very much but have not yet accepted or integrated
its impact."

43. "The Unpolished Mirror" indicates non-Western musics while West-


ern music is signified by the huge, broken, but polished mirror. The
unpolished mirrors of the East are essential in restoring the broken
mirror to its original unity, the author thinks. He opposes the notion
of using the Eastern mirrors to shore up the Western giant. Rather,
the unpolished mirrors serve to indicate an original state of music
which existed prior to the polishing that took place in the West.
Here, in this reversibility, the punning and word games possible in
the Japanese language enter the picture.
A palindromic reversibility between the polished and the
unpolished is too simple for a return to the ur-music is the actual aim,
but the title is multidimensional:

mi
ga
"unpolished" ka= "mirror"
nu

ka

"mirror" ga "unpolished"
mi_

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78 Perspectives of New Music

Thus a sonic palindrome coexists with the implication, visually,


that the mirror and the polishing are themselves reciprocal. The title
is written in hiragana rather than in kanji (that is, syllabically rather
than with an ideogram) in order to assert the multidimensionality.
This sort of word play is, in itself, musical (though Takemitsu does
not use parallel games in his compositions), and is, according to
novelist Kenzaburo Oe, a literary stylistic frontier characteristic of
Takemitsu's writing. There is an interaction here between the sounds
of words, the appearance of the characters, and time and succession.
Naturally, the entire text is not convoluted in this way, for the point is
to stimulate not alienate the reader. Sound is, in any case, the final
arbiter and Takemitsu will often listen to a passage read aloud in order
to test its quality.

44. The inference here is that political language is denotative while poeti-
cal language is evocative.

45. On 25 November 1970, the gifted and psychologically intricate nov-


elist committed seppuku (ritual disembowelment) in a carefully pre-
pared but perplexingly unrealistic incident at the Eastern Division
Headquarters of Japan's Self Defense Forces. His dying words were,
"Long live his Imperial Majesty!"

46. This "silence" is related to the above description of "soundless


sounds."

47. It might be noted here that standard spoken Japanese is very regular
both in its tempo and in the fact that every syllable (the overwhelm-
ing majority of which have an identical construction of consonant-
vowel) is allotted an equal amount of time. In theatrical contexts, this
incessant regularity gives way to a radical distension that is powerfully
affecting.

48. R Murray Schafer has published many avant-garde works, both musi-
cal and literary. In 1975 he was a professor of communications theory at
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.

49. This quotation is from Shankar's autobiographical book, My Music,


My Life (Ongaku No Tomo Sha, n.d.).

50. The sho is a seventeen-pipe mouth organ that, through the continuity
of circular breathing, functions as the harmonic stabilizer in Gagaku
music. Its sonority is particularly ethereal.

51. Also drawn from Shankar's My Music, My Life as is the following


quote.

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A Jostled Silence (I) 79

52. Regarding ragas, Ravi Shankar comments, "It is very difficult to


explain to Westerners many of the concepts that lie behind our
musical language. The most important characteristics of our music are
too complex to be explained or to be understood. It is the raga that is
at the center of Indian music," and "the raga has similarities with
scales, modes, and melodies, but it should not be mistaken for them.
What the raga is has been constructed by tradition, is born in the
spirit of the gifted musician and is a melodic, flashing flame."

53. Takemitsu quotes a Japanese translation of Tagore's poem by Apolon


Watanabe. The English version here is from the Collected Poems and
Plays ofRabindranath Tagore (New York: MacMillan Co., 1961).

54. Takemitsu's works often close with a strikingly lyrical coda. When
questioned about this he admits that he does not want the music to
end. If he puts a melodic fragment at the close, he muses, listeners
may feel ". .. ah, from here the music begins." His large work for
piano and orchestra, ARC, for example, is in six movements, the last
of which is entitled "Coda: Shall begin from the end."

55. Takemitsu is here evoking, in his own words, one of Tagore's poems.

56. The friend is Takemitsu's longtime colleague Joji Yuasa.

57. These remarks stem from a discussion Takemitsu had with Mosley
when the latter was teaching in Japan.

58. A philosopher, the father of Shuntaro Tanikawa, the important con-


temporary poet.

59. The Japanese, as do other Oriental peoples, still use monosodium


glutamate (which they call aji no moto, the "basis of flavor") in
cooking, although they are aware of its hazards. Indonesians, appar-
ently, use it to excess and some Japanese are uncomfortable with their
complicity.

60. In modernizing, Japan turned towards the West, bypassing the


remainder of Asia in the process. In the late seventies, this was
becoming a more serious economic and cultural issue, and was under-
going some debate.

61. Natsume, one of the greatest novelists of the Meiji era, studied in
England and while in Europe wrote numerous essays regarding his
awareness of "Japanese inferiority," a prevalent feeling then.

62. The French despair of their own, Western, logic, hear the Javanese
music and are flabbergasted by it. The irony, Takemitsu thinks, is that

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80 Perspectives of New Music

they then try to incorporate it into their logic. T


pretended despair, an inveterate habituation prev

63. Akutagawa was the author of Rashomon and fa


who was prominent just after World War II, Yasu

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