Otomo Yoshihide

Susumu Kunisaki

Hello everyone. Thank you for your patience. We’ll spend the next hour or so with the musician Otomo Yoshihide. Mr. Otomo Yoshihide. [Applause]

Otomo Yoshihide

Hello everyone.

Susumu Kunisaki

And I’m Kunisaki, your host for today. I’m the executive editor of Sound and Recording Magazine, which is a monthly mag for people who create music. First, by way of introduction, I’d like to tell you a little bit about Mr. Otomo here. I said earlier that Mr. Otomo is a “musician”, but he actually has many faces. First, he’s a guitarist.

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes, I play the guitar.

Susumu Kunisaki

He plays the guitar. And he’s also a turntablist.

Otomo Yoshihide

I’m probably one of the first in Japan to use turntables in that way.

Susumu Kunisaki

So a turntablist. Recently, he’s worked on sound installations.

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes, I have.

Susumu Kunisaki

Installation art, as it’s known. What else do you do?

Susumu Kunisaki

I write soundtracks for movies and TV.

Otomo Yoshihide

He’s a soundtrack composer.

Susumu Kunisaki

I’m also a producer. Not only of music but also of events. And that’s about it.

Otomo Yoshihide

He’s involved in a wide range of activities, so it’s hard to cover them all one by one. But first, could you start by introducing some of your music to us?

Susumu Kunisaki

Right. My music first. What should I start with? If you don’t mind, I’d like to start with this. This is Fukushima in 2011. To elaborate, the earthquake that struck also triggered a nuclear disaster. The habitability of Fukushima City was a major concern. This is the outdoor festival that we held in Fukushima City. This is what it was like. The festival itself took place throughout the entire day, and my part was for about an hour. This is a little excerpt from that. I performed with the people in the audience. The audience included regular, ordinary people as well as musicians who participated like Ryuichi Sakamoto and other famous people like that. The sound recording’s not good, but here’s an excerpt from the TV documentary. Let me show it to you.

(video: Excerpt from “Project Fukushima!” documentary)

This is probably what my collaboration with you (during the academy) will be like. There were 280 players participating in this festival. I’ll skip ahead. I conducted a group of regular people, including those who can play and those who have brought instruments there for the first time. That’s Kazumi Nikaido, a famous Japanese singer. Skipping ahead... I used several hand signals to conduct an orchestra that anyone, no matter what their playing skill, could participate in. I’ll explain why I decided to do this later. That dancing person is Kazumi Nikaido who I mentioned earlier. The recording is lousy so it might be hard to grasp. The person I gave the loudspeaker to is Michiro Endo, the pioneer of punk rock in Japan. He’s 64 years old now. It’s not coming across but it was really loud, although everything was acoustic. Apparently there were about 16,000 people there. I’m pretty sure this was the first big event held in Fukushima post-disaster. Sorry for the lousy sound.

Susumu Kunisaki

In that segment, you were using your hand to give out various cues like a conductor. Did you and the musicians, well, everyone who participated, rehearse beforehand to match the signal and action?

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes, we did. We rehearsed for about an hour. Only my part was shown just now, but the conductors changed and each one could conduct according to his or her own rules.

Susumu Kunisaki

Like what, for example?

Otomo Yoshihide

Really simple ones. One finger means a short sound. Bam. Five means a long sound. Keep going, and stop. Three means beat out a rhythm. [Wiggles finger] This means copy somebody else’s sound. [Makes a U shape with his hand] This means keep doing what you’re doing. [Holds a thumb up] This means stop. It’s possible to do various things with only about eight different signals.

Susumu Kunisaki

So both professional and amateur musicians came to participate?

Otomo Yoshihide

And even those who’d never played before.

Susumu Kunisaki

Is it possible to make music even with such people in the group?

Otomo Yoshihide

That’s what I’m aiming for. For example, an orchestra typically has a musical goal to achieve, so the players strive to improve and be creative. But this isn’t the same. Unless everyone can participate with the skills they have, a hierarchy is born between the players and non-players, which I didn’t want.

Susumu Kunisaki

I find that strange. You’re a professional musician. So that hierarchy is your livelihood.

Otomo Yoshihide

Right. The hierarchy is more lucrative.

Susumu Kunisaki

Isn’t it? So why get rid of it?

Otomo Yoshihide

Musical hierarchy isn’t all bad. Everyone here aspires to be a pro, and by doing things that amateurs can’t, they might create great music and maybe make money. But music isn’t something that’s reserved for professionals. Music was originally... how to put it? It was something everyone did. In particular, before records began to be sold and radio was born, I think performing music was more common. During the last hundred and something years of music being a commodity, professionals and amateurs have become split. Especially in Japan. Ordinary people don’t do music besides karaoke. Karaoke is all right, but over the past decade or so, I’ve been thinking that there should be places where ordinary people can enjoy music in other ways.

Susumu Kunisaki

And this orchestra is such an attempt. Is it an orchestra?

Otomo Yoshihide

It’s an orchestra. Though the style was different at first and I tried other ways. When I first went to Fukushima after the disaster... I grew up in Fukushima, so I frequented there post-disaster to help. There’s no music scene or pro musicians to speak of in Fukushima, so making music with the people there meant involving mostly amateurs. So I had to devise a way for those people and the pros from Tokyo to stand on equal ground and make interesting music. Especially because this was the first post-disaster festival, the people in Fukushima had to stand up and do something about their plight, not wait to be saved or be moved by some musicians from Tokyo. To achieve that through music, the people of Fukushima had to do it.

Susumu Kunisaki

To participate and make music.

Otomo Yoshihide

They had to create the festival itself with their own hands. So for this festival, they did all the preparations themselves. Making way for a system like that was the important thing.

Susumu Kunisaki

From what we just saw, everyone who participated looked like they were having loads of fun. Was it a blast?

Otomo Yoshihide

It was a blast, but at that time... Honestly speaking, the situation was dire. It still is. Certain parts of Fukushima are off-limits because of radiation and while the festival grounds were miraculously not so bad, we had to decide if people should gather there.

Susumu Kunisaki

Whether or not it should be done.

Otomo Yoshihide

Exactly. Of course it was something that had to be discussed, and we had to measure radiation levels. The reason why we started this was because the government had been hiding the radiation levels for a month or two post-disaster and I felt something needed to be done. To set up a system where we all could measure radiation levels ourselves and make our own informed decisions. An outdoor festival seemed the best way.

Susumu Kunisaki

To show that there were places where the radiation was low enough?

Otomo Yoshihide

That too, but more that it’s OK to measure radiation on your own.

Susumu Kunisaki

Instead of waiting.

Otomo Yoshihide

Exactly. Measure it and discuss the result with scientists and other people. We had a table at the festival to do that.

Susumu Kunisaki

To discuss the propriety of the event?

Otomo Yoshihide

Right. We were encouraging people to think. Not to tell people that it was OK to live in Fukushima, but to use the event to present a way for people to think about how to live their lives under such circumstances. So that was the purpose of the event. Something we tried out at the festival at the time was the project to cover the grounds with furoshiki cloth. Today’s audience wouldn’t know...

Susumu Kunisaki

Furoshiki is hard to explain. They might not get it.

Otomo Yoshihide

I’m sure the interpreters are explaining what a furoshiki is right now. I have photos of the furoshiki somewhere.

Susumu Kunisaki

They’re nodding. They’ve explained it.

Otomo Yoshihide

Really? Thanks. Hold on one second. I’m not very organized so I can’t find the photos. Where are they? This one? Ta-da! There we go. The furoshiki. As the interpreters have explained, a furoshiki is a piece of cloth about this big that’s traditionally used for wrapping and carrying things. Most Japanese households have one. We sewed lots of them together to cover the entire grounds, over 6,000 m2 of grass. This is a photo of what it looked like. This is a photo of the process. We took pieces of cloth about this big and dozens of people sewed them together over the course of three weeks. They’re laying them down before the festival. The reason we did this was, in August 2011 in Fukushima, most of the radioactive isotope cesium was on the ground. Not in the atmosphere. So to prevent the cesium on the ground from flying up and getting on people, we laid down sheets of furoshiki to cover the entire area. Like this. This is the sewn-together furoshiki. By covering the surface, we wanted to visually demonstrate that radiation existed in Fukushima. So we held the festival after taking necessary precautions. When we promoted it, we never once said that it was safe to come. We presented the accurate radiation levels and said there’d be risks.

Susumu Kunisaki

You gave the facts and said you’d try to reduce the risk by covering the area with furoshiki to prevent cesium from getting on people.

Otomo Yoshihide

To prevent inhaling or ingesting it. We also checked all the concession that was sold at the festival and presented the data. I’m sure we were the first to be open about that in Fukushima. But at the same time, though the event was in Fukushima, not all of it is contaminated. We chose a place with relatively low radiation. People live in areas that are far more contaminated, so I thought it might actually be better for them to come. So a lot of thought went into this festival and the process was kept open.

Susumu Kunisaki

Why did it have to be a furoshiki, though? There are more useful materials to cover the ground.

Otomo Yoshihide

At first we considered using plastic sheets to do this, but Fukushima City gets really hot. If we put down plastic sheets in August, everyone would die from the heat before being harmed by radiation. So it had to be cloth. And Japan has a common saying, “Spreading a big furoshiki.” And what “spreading out a big furoshiki” means is that you’re setting goals that you can’t achieve. So it was a double meaning. We were criticized a lot for that. But the people living in Fukushima need humor to keep going, so we chose “Big Furoshiki” as the title for the event, which was a word that a Japanese person would notice as a bit of a joke. Also, it was better to spend some time on it, with people cooperating. Buying the cloth would be meaningless. If some supplier did all the work, it’d be simple. But we thought the process should take a bit of effort, so we got people to donate the cloths and sew them themselves. We thought it’d be great if both amateur and pro musicians could all stand on it and make music together.

Susumu Kunisaki

Then the orchestra that you’ll be doing with this audience will be an extension of that festival?

Otomo Yoshihide

It’s an extension. It’s been four years, so the method’s changed a bit. Plus, most of you here aren’t amateurs, and can play instruments to some degree so I’ll probably raise the bar a bit. Also, I don’t want just one person to be in the center controlling things, so the conductors will interchange.

Susumu Kunisaki

Why do you want them to change?

Otomo Yoshihide

Because I feel uncomfortable always being in the center, so there’s that, and the music changes when the people change. It’s far more interesting that way with this method.

Susumu Kunisaki

You mentioned types of music. While there are the kind with precise scores to be performed according to the composers’ intents, the kind of music that you described is spontaneous and unintentional. You don’t know how or where it will end up.

Otomo Yoshihide

No, I don’t. Can’t be reproduced, either.

Susumu Kunisaki

So that kind of music give you pleasure as a musician?

Otomo Yoshihide

Of course. I wonder why... Probably because my influences were originally free jazz and improvised music. And also psychedelic rock. So none of these styles of music have scores, which is probably the biggest reason. The other one, and this most likely has to do with my character, is that I get bored when I get people to reproduce something that I completed in my head.

Susumu Kunisaki

You get bored.

Otomo Yoshihide

Very quickly. It’s far more interesting when the unexpected occurs, and it doesn’t work if I do it by myself. If I do a solo with my guitar, it’d be nothing more than what I do. So I love making a machine run wild or getting feedback on a guitar because I can’t control them. Making music with other people isn’t about control. They bring other ideas, meaning you don’t know what’ll happen. For some reason, I seem to enjoy it when things seem to come and go unpredictably.

Susumu Kunisaki

You mentioned guitar feedback just now. You play “noise music,” and for that you create noises with your guitar as well as with a turntable like this one.

Otomo Yoshihide

This is super easy. You don’t need any skill. Like this. [Demonstrates noise by lifting and setting down the tonearm of the turntable] Even just this is interesting enough. Now when I adjust the tone control, the sound changes like this. Cool, isn’t it? I guess not. I think it’s cool. I love it. And you can change the cartridges, too. This isn’t worth applauding. [Laughs] I can’t do it today, but turntable feedback is awesome, too. I wonder if the engineer will get mad if I create feedback? [Demonstrates feedback] Isn’t it great? Like that. [Applause] This isn’t worth applauding.

Susumu Kunisaki

This is awesome.

Otomo Yoshihide

The subwoofer is fabulous.

Susumu Kunisaki

There is a Genelec subwoofer back here, and it’s like body-sonic audio. Awesome.

Otomo Yoshihide

[Holding up Red Bull can] How many of these did they have to sell to buy this subwoofer? [Laughter]

Susumu Kunisaki

You talked about enjoying the uncontrollable and noise, but you seemed to be controlling the turntable impeccably.

Otomo Yoshihide

That wasn’t very serious, but I do control it in my own way when I perform.

Susumu Kunisaki

You know from experience what will happen if you scratch certain places, or touch the cartridge or the needle?

Otomo Yoshihide

Not all of it, but I know about 80%, and the rest depends on the sound system and how the venue itself sounds. And I can tell those things as well, but I think I better not.

Susumu Kunisaki

You prefer not being in control.

Otomo Yoshihide

I like not being in control. Unfortunately, people have memories. But I’m sure I’ll become forgetful as I grow older, and then I’ll enjoy making music more.

Susumu Kunisaki

Forgetting experience and starting anew?

Otomo Yoshihide

Right. I’m hoping it’ll be like that. [Laughs] In any case, even when I’m playing solo, I prefer the uncontrollable like this. I try to create an uncontrollable factor when I play solo. I really don’t like doing what’s already been set up.

Susumu Kunisaki

You don’t like being asked to do what’s been set?

Otomo Yoshihide

When things are set, I stay within bounds but do something that’ll turn people off, something different.

Susumu Kunisaki

I see. You use turntables to perform, and you also do sound installations.

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes.

Susumu Kunisaki

Could you tell us about that?

Otomo Yoshihide

Sure, let’s see if I can find one on YouTube. Let’s see... This is an installation called “Without Records.”

(music: Otomo Yoshihide – “Without Records”)

Isn’t it fun? Over a hundred of these were switched on and off by computer. This is the sound of feedback. So I think there were maybe about 120 of them then? 120 turntables. 120 of them being turned on and off randomly.

Susumu Kunisaki

And true to the title “Without Records,” there are no records on any of the turntables?

Otomo Yoshihide

None. And from each turntable... I didn’t set this up myself. Dozens of people worked on it. Planned it out. Whoops, my guitar solo came on. Let’s stop it for now. I asked the participants of a workshop to create a mechanism of producing sound from empty turntables.

Susumu Kunisaki

So the participants set it up?

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes. They spent about three days.

Susumu Kunisaki

People ranging from schoolchildren to elderly men cooperated. Then we set them up in the room and a computer switched them on and off. In various ways, like turning on just one, or all together, or on and off from there to here, like the wind blowing. Set in motion according to various settings.

Susumu Kunisaki

You used Max/MSP, the Cycling ‘74 software for this.

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes, that’s right.

Susumu Kunisaki

From what we just saw, it appears as though the turntables are being operated at random, but they’re actually being controlled to some extent with Max.

Otomo Yoshihide

That’s correct. A single one might play like a soloist, and various other settings. But the frequency was random, so even I didn’t know what would come next.

Susumu Kunisaki

Not everything was set from start to finish.

Otomo Yoshihide

No.

Susumu Kunisaki

Some randomness left.

Otomo Yoshihide

It was programmed to never repeat the same pattern, and the turntables were all old, from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, so they often broke or changed from the initial settings. It was impossible to maintain the same sound. We kept them going for five months.

Susumu Kunisaki

Was this in Yamaguchi?

Otomo Yoshihide

At YCAM in Yamaguchi. All 120 were playing at first, but in the end only about 80 were left, and their breaking down was also part of the work.

Susumu Kunisaki

To explain a bit about YCAM, in Yamaguchi Prefecture in Japan there’s the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media... A museum, could it be called?

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes, I think so.

Susumu Kunisaki

With a focus on media arts. Many creators, such as Carsten Nicolai, to give a familiar example, and Ryoji Ikeda, who’ll be at the reception later on today, have worked in residence on various works of art at YCAM. “Without Records” was such a project.

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes, that’s right. It’s a project I did there in 2008.

Susumu Kunisaki

It’s located far from Tokyo, in western Japan, in Yamaguchi City. Nowadays people from overseas skip Tokyo and go there.

Otomo Yoshihide

What’s amazing about YCAM is that it’s not just a venue. They’ve got great engineers and technicians there. So you can team up with them to bring your ideas to fruition. That’s the best thing about it.

Susumu Kunisaki

In media art, which I’m sure today’s audience is interested in, while it’s possible to just program something alone, it often involves labor-intensive methods to bring it together with the help of many people to make things and do the programming. It’s necessary.

Otomo Yoshihide

It’s definitely necessary. So the title of the overall exhibit for that was “Ensembles,” the pluralized form of ensemble. Meaning not only musicians but also technicians, artists, and many others create the work, like performers playing in an orchestra.

Susumu Kunisaki

From what you’ve told us, you really seem to have a strong desire to work with various people, including even the ones you can’t control, and create something that even you find surprising while enjoying the communication.

Otomo Yoshihide

I work alone, too, of course, but I quickly get bored of working alone so I enjoy working with others.

Susumu Kunisaki

Is there a knack in working with others?

Otomo Yoshihide

A knack? No, because the experience differs from person to person. I don’t think there’s a single ideal way to work with others, but perhaps the key is to not demand a quick solution.

Susumu Kunisaki

You mean don’t write someone off quickly after meeting them and tuning up together, for example?

Otomo Yoshihide

Oh, that happens sometimes. [Laughs] Some people I’d rather not work with. But what I mean by not demanding a quick solution is that it’s more interesting if the result of the collaboration between that person and me isn’t obvious. And also, I enjoy the process of the collaboration so if I push what I want to do too hard onto the other person, it would no longer be an ensemble. So the back and forth between that person and me... How to put it? Not aiming for a set goal from the start is the key. To discover the goal through the process.

Susumu Kunisaki

I see. So you held an exhibit entitled “Ensembles” at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, YCAM. Like everyone here today, many people from Tokyo couldn’t go see it then.

(music: Otomo Yoshihide/ENSEMBLES – “Quartets”)

Otomo Yoshihide

This might be hard to get, but there are four screens there, positioned to form a box in the center. The silhouettes of improvising musicians are shown randomly there. I named it “Quartets” because the four sides usually show four musicians. But it’s not possible to see all four sides simultaneously because it’s being shown on the sides of a white cube. That’s me on guitar. That’s Jim O’Rourke. And the images of minute, microscopic things moving in reaction to the sounds is shown on the opposite wall. So there are eight screens in total, all playing randomly.

Susumu Kunisaki

That’s a Japanese instrument.

Otomo Yoshihide

It’s a “sho.” A traditional Japanese instrument called a sho. This is Kahimi Karie, the vocalist. This is Jim O’Rourke on synthesizer. This is Sachiko M generating electronic noises and sine waves. I’m playing the guitar there. Martin Brandlmayr of Radian is on drums. Axel Dörner on trumpet. He’s from Berlin. On percussion is Doravideo. The silhouettes of the viewers are shown as well. This goes on and on endlessly, and while it’s playing, even we don’t know what the combination will be. These are things like small balls placed on the speakers or oil covering them, moving with the vibration and reacting to the sounds. I think these are extremely fine threads placed on the speakers. Close-up shots of such things are magnified on the screen. So you can actually see the physical movement of sound along with the silhouettes of the musicians like this. This will be shown from November 22 in Tokyo, so although you probably have to fly home, if you can extend your stay and see it, that’d be great.

Susumu Kunisaki

So on the four sides of the cube, the musicians appear on the screens randomly?

Otomo Yoshihide

Randomly.

Susumu Kunisaki

You don’t know who will appear?

Otomo Yoshihide

There were eight musicians but you never know who’d appear. Sometimes two overlapped on one screen like an error, and sometimes there was nobody. It was programmed that way.

Susumu Kunisaki

Did each of the eight musicians originally play according to some kind of guide?

Otomo Yoshihide

No. The musicians recorded a few takes of solo playing in a proper studio while having their silhouettes taken.

Susumu Kunisaki

They didn’t hear anybody else’s music?

Otomo Yoshihide

Each recorded two to four takes of solo performances, ten to 30 minutes in length. So these can stand on their own as perfectly fine solos. I just told them we’d be playing their recordings with other musicians so to leave some space for that when improvising their music. That was all I asked.

Susumu Kunisaki

So four are randomly selected from eight and the combination changes?

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes, the combination changes rapidly. And sometimes it’s played solo.

Susumu Kunisaki

Oh, just one person?

Otomo Yoshihide

Sometimes, yes. There are periods when nobody is playing purely by chance, and similarly, sometimes the players overlap so there are than five. Errors were programmed to occur.

Susumu Kunisaki

You can only see two sides at a time.

Otomo Yoshihide

Right. Two at a time is the limit.

Susumu Kunisaki

Because it’s a cube. But the sound from all four sides...

Otomo Yoshihide

You hear the sound but you can only imagine what’s going on over there. But what’s happening on the other side is displayed as the things moving on the speakers.

Susumu Kunisaki

The close-ups.

Otomo Yoshihide

You can see the materials instead.

Susumu Kunisaki

I see. I saw this installation at the time. I thought it was impressive and beautiful.

Otomo Yoshihide

Wasn’t it? I made something beautiful for a change.

Susumu Kunisaki

Unlike the violent noises that we heard earlier, it was very delicate and lovely. I’d wanted to see it again.

Otomo Yoshihide

It’s been five years since the last time.

Susumu Kunisaki

I see. I made a point of explaining that you have a “beautiful” side. We’ve introduced a couple of your sound installations and such event-like projects so far. Now I’d like to focus a bit more on your music. The kind of music we’ve heard so far could probably be called experimental, and while you do such work, you’ve also written soundtracks for TV and film. This isn’t to make more money on the side, is it?

Otomo Yoshihide

No, but I get that a lot.

Susumu Kunisaki

I’m sure you do.

Otomo Yoshihide

Because I had a hit last year. There’s a morning slot for series of TV dramas broadcast for 50 years on NHK, the public broadcasting network in Japan. I wrote the soundtrack for one of them that aired for six months. It became a huge hit, so I get that a lot now.

Susumu Kunisaki

I’ve known you for a long time and know that you’ve always written soundtracks.

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes, I have. I don’t think that abstract music is the only kind of music. I love jazz like anyone else. There was a time I learned samba from a Brazilian. I’ve played various kinds of music so I like those too. Love them.

Susumu Kunisaki

So when you’re asked to write a soundtrack, you don’t change your frame of mind, so to speak, to switch over from your usual experimental music?

Otomo Yoshihide

Not really. What takes priority when I work on soundtracks is finding the music that best matches the drama from the stock I have within. It’s not about expressing my own music. So if noise matches the drama then I’ll use it but if it doesn’t... For example, that hit of mine last year was a comedy starring a teenager.

Susumu Kunisaki

Not noise material.

Otomo Yoshihide

No. So I focused on the teenager for the first half.

Susumu Kunisaki

Let’s listen to it, then.

Otomo Yoshihide

The drama is called “Ama-chan.” Here it is. This piece. It’s my big band.

(music: Otomo Yoshihide – “Ama-chan” Theme (Live))

It’s like that.

Susumu Kunisaki

So different from that violent noise.

Otomo Yoshihide

Completely different.

Susumu Kunisaki

Shockingly so.

Otomo Yoshihide

I’m shocked, actually. Because it’s so different.

Susumu Kunisaki

When did you develop the skill to write music like this?

Otomo Yoshihide

This kind of... I hate to say proper music, but I’ve never properly studied music. I got started playing music in a band in high school for the school festival. So I could play rock and pop songs on the guitar then, though I wasn’t very good at it. I developed the formal skill to write such music after I turned 30. After I began getting work writing music for soundtracks, I learned how to arrange music because I had to.

Susumu Kunisaki

You’d have to write scores for this kind of music.

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes. Normally it’d be necessary to write scores for this, write out every note for all the parts. But in my case, when I selected my members, I chose musicians who didn’t need scores. Though everyone you saw just now are classically trained and can’t improvise. But they were all interested in my kind of music so I chose them and had them do something they’d never done before, play without scores.

Susumu Kunisaki

I see. You didn’t hand out music?

Otomo Yoshihide

Oh, I did. I handed them out, just simple ones with only the melody, chords, and counter lines, and told them we’d discuss and build up the rest like a rock band.

Susumu Kunisaki

To do the rest themselves? So you chose musicians who could do that.

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes, exactly. If I’d chosen only professional studio musicians it wouldn’t have sounded like this. For example, that triplet rhythm in the hook of that piece wouldn’t have turned out like that from just the information on a sheet music. So we discussed everything on the spot, like the nuance of the rhythm. Or about how to play – exactly together or shift it a bit? We discussed such things as we went along. I’m sure it’s a completely different method of working from ordinary professional composers of TV and film soundtracks.

Susumu Kunisaki

It’s great that there are musicians willing to work like that.

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes. So about 70% of those musicians I chose were classical ones who regularly use scores and the rest were rock and jazz musicians. So I bring such people together and watch what happens. I want to see the unpredicted result of such combinations when I compose.

Susumu Kunisaki

Is it actually possible, though, to obtain that kind of skill past 30? I imagine that for many people, including those in the audience today, who are used to programming, for example, EDM-like sounds, it would be very difficult to learn to write scores for big bands like this.

Otomo Yoshihide

Maybe. But when I was in my 20s and learning to play the guitar, I became discouraged from trying. The reason was because, for example, I wanted to play like Jim Hall, the jazz guitarist, but couldn’t, and that distance between my skill and my goal was too far. So there was a period when I’d quit playing for about seven, eight years. But you don’t have to aspire to be like somebody. For example, trying to write a big band score like Duke Ellington’s is too hard.

Susumu Kunisaki

That’s pretty daunting.

Otomo Yoshihide

Right? But if you don’t set that as your goal, if you focus on trying to write something good in your own way... It can be daunting if you set a certain goal, but it’s manageable if you don’t.

Susumu Kunisaki

So you try to enjoy the process, and like you mentioned, you have confidence or a conviction in your choice of music for that image?

Otomo Yoshihide

But it’s difficult each time, and I’ve got to say I don’t have confidence. I discuss things with the director as I go along. Every time. I’ve written about 80 soundtracks for TV and film during these 25 years. But I still worry about things and the right answer never comes easy.

Susumu Kunisaki

So the images don’t necessarily trigger ideas.

Otomo Yoshihide

Sometimes I lie and say that they do, but no, it’s never that easy. But when I do come up with something, it’s often instantaneous.

Susumu Kunisaki

Do you enjoy collaborating with people who specialize in moving images?

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes, it’s fun. Because the people who specialize in images don’t use the same vocabulary that we musicians use. They communicate a much vaguer nuance, so the process of translating that into a musical vocabulary is really interesting to me.

Susumu Kunisaki

Could you give some examples?

Otomo Yoshihide

Let’s say we have an image of a high school student, and of a blue sky. When I’m requested to compose music like that blue sky, I don’t understand what that means. People interpret things differently, and sound is colorless to begin with. But I translate that request in my own way. Why was the sky referenced? Because the teenager’s emotion is reflected in the distance between her and the sky. So musically, placing this sound here might express that. That’s my thought process when I’m working.

Susumu Kunisaki

Have you ever come across a scene where you thought noise would work?

Otomo Yoshihide

I have, actually. On that NHK morning drama series, a scenes of the 3.11 disaster (the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster) were depicted. For those I used noise, my usual kind of music, and I think it worked really well. To be precise, I didn’t set music to the disaster itself, but to the various events that occurred afterwards. So at one point in 2013, my kind of experimental music was heard every morning in Japanese living rooms.

Susumu Kunisaki

That was surreal.

Otomo Yoshihide

But everyone was focusing on the drama and not the music, so I never got any complaints.

Susumu Kunisaki

Do you consider that a good thing? That people don’t focus on the music?

Otomo Yoshihide

I believe that a soundtrack has failed if people notice it on their first watch because it’s there to enhance the drama. So yes, it’s a good thing.

Susumu Kunisaki

I see. Well, you’ve gotten a glimpse of Mr. Otomo’s wide-ranging music activities. The time is now almost 6 o’clock, so we’ll move on to the Q&A. Mr. Otomo will answer any questions you may have. He’s involved in noise music. He creates sound installations. He spoke about the “Chaos Conductor,” and about composing soundtracks. He’s got many sides, so if any of you have any questions about any of them, ask away. Anybody?

Audience member

I notice that you have some particular signals for your conducting, giving messages to the musicians. Did you come up with them or are they borrowed from other conductors, and why did you choose that kind of signal? And also, are you using them with us?

Otomo Yoshihide

Well, about this idea, I got a hint of this method in the ‘80s. I think it was a work in ‘84 of a musician in NY, Lawrence Butch Morris. I remember he passed away last year or two yeas ago? I got a hint from his work “Conduction.” He conducted using various signs that are so complex we need to rehearse for three days. First, I knew it listening to his record, and when he came to Japan twice in the ‘90s I performed with him as a member of the “Conduction.” It was my first experience creating music alone with signs of a conductor. That was a big influence on me. But the signs were too complex to be introduced to amateur musicians right away, so I made them simple, like reducing them from a hundred to one. Selecting one percent out of the signs and changing them simpler to introduce them to people without instrument skills. I’ve been trying various ways in these 10 years but this experiment is still in the process. I’m working on it with amateur musicians and the process is a real trial and error.

Susumu Kunisaki

About the trial and error, could you tell us an example what was difficult or easy?

Otomo Yoshihide

For the people without instrument skills it is difficult to pick up on quickly the nuances of improvisation. They’re not full of ideas for creation and their ideas are simple. It is rare for amateurs to be flashing ideas like professionals. Even though we had less various ideas, I needed to try to enrich their sound as a professional musician.

Susumu Kunisaki

I see. Thank you very much. A microphone, please.

Audience member

I was wondering if you separate noise and more traditional music in terms of the attention that they deserve, that you give them? Do you listen to noise around the house, do you have to give more attention to it?

Otomo Yoshihide

Well, I have two ways to answer that. The first one is, to make the matter simple, I called my experiment “noise” and called others “traditional.” Actually, any music can be noise and any sound can be music. That is the way I think. For example, (something) everybody regards as music, like the Beatles, their “Yesterday” is wonderful music. Even though it’s great, if you play the song for someone who is trying to sleep, it will definitely become noise. Depending on the situation of the listener, anything can be noise. We could say the opposite too. Something not regarded as music can possibly make you feel better. In that sense, I don’t have a clear division, “this is noise and this is music.” This is my first answer. And I have another answer but... I understand what I’m going to say doesn’t cover everything. Of course, there is a difference between some music that follows traditions and music that doesn’t. Let me show you an example. [Demonstrates noise from the turntable] This sound, I don’t regard this as the same as traditional sounds. This is because the sounds that are organized by traditions and history and the sounds that come out incidentally are different, I think. However, the traditional sounds are recognized only when the listener knows what the traditional sounds like. I mean, not simply the sound itself having messages in it, but the message is always created by the relationship between listeners and composers. This is what I believe. In that sense, when I create experimental sounds or “noise” like this, I’m always trying to elicit a feeling inside of a person’s memory that betrays the fixed idea of “this is real music.”

And there is another thing we need to recognize. I’ve been listening to “noise music” since I was young, so listening to rough sound makes me extremely happy. It means that the sound is already traditional to me. I feel that way, sometimes. Let me show you the music I listened to when I was young, my favourite great guitarist, Masayuki Takayanagi. He performed this piece... where is it? The music that he performed was like “noise music.” I’ve found this on YouTube now, performed by legendary musicians, Masayuki Takayanagi and Kaoru Abe. They are the first musicians who played free jazz in Japan, but for me, it sounds like noise music.

(music: Masayuki Takayanagi & Kaoru Abe – “Mass Projection”)

This performance is in the ‘70s. Bit lousy. Well, since this lasts another 50 minutes, I will stop this here, but I love their music so much. I love this so much that I could die for it. What I can say is, it means this sound is not a noise at all.

Susumu Kunisaki

Traditional..?

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes, this is a traditional music for me. So I think it really depends on how one takes what traditional means. Okay?

Susumu Kunisaki

While listening to your talk, I noticed that you always care what situation the listener is in or how the listener feels the music has great effect on the music itself, do you think in that way?

Otomo Yoshihide

I think music cannot only be defined by what the musician plays. Music always stands in a relationship between players and listeners. I think that is music, swinging endlessly. So even though you play a noise to make everybody hate it, still, it is possible to make somebody love the noise, like me. It tells us we can never control listeners, and we cannot control ourselves as a listener. That is music, I guess.

Susumu Kunisaki

I think that, in these 10 years, listeners have greatly changed. What I’m saying is, as you showed us the ‘70s sounds right now by searching it on YouTube, we can find and pick up “old sounds” as “new sounds” to listen through the internet.

Otomo Yoshihide

That’s right.

Susumu Kunisaki

Without recognizing it as historical, all music seem like it’s lining up flatly in front of listeners. That could be good in a way, or in another way, we can say that the context of music is ignored. How can we see this sort of “flattening”?

Otomo Yoshihide

Well, it is not only the matter of YouTube but... I felt honestly confused when the internet started delivering music services. I felt like something very significant to me (was) being lined with trash.

Susumu Kunisaki

On the same shelf?

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes. But I listen to various music through YouTube almost every night, and this is a very happy and welcoming situation. On the other hand it is not a mere matter of display but a way of listening. Most of us these days use earphones, don’t we? I think these really cause a problem. Sure, these are good and useful for us, but when I was child, I was listening to music through speakers. Mother scolded me, “it’s too noisy.”

Susumu Kunisaki

Definitely, mothers did.

Otomo Yoshihide

In that situation there is someone between the music and myself. I can say it is an impure relationship with music because it has some noise. There is always a noise, “a mother.” We could not listen to music in an exclusive way, in those days. Nowadays we can listen to it, so we feel as if we are doing it purely. In fact, I think it’s better listening with noise. It is nice to have a mother complaining, “It’s noisy.” Or a girlfriend saying “Try listening to this. It’s better.” Not remaining in a one-on-one relationship with music and allowing various elements between you and music. I rather prefer that I cannot create a relationship with music easily.

Susumu Kunisaki

Now everyone can listen to music very directly and exclusively alone. We can listen to music all over the world with just one click.

Otomo Yoshihide

It’s great, but I still want to snip everyone’s cables from their back with scissors.

Susumu Kunisaki

On a train?

Otomo Yoshihide

Snip-snap...

Susumu Kunisaki

As a creator of music, is there anything you are conscious about with this “flattening era” we are now in?

Otomo Yoshihide

The biggest change inside of me for the flattening was that I quit making albums.

Susumu Kunisaki

Why was that?

Otomo Yoshihide

If you make a CD or LP... I think especially in making CDs, everything can be lined and displayed flatly in the internet. Our consideration of the order of tracks and the length between the numbers, like five seconds, becomes useless. That made me think that the album itself has no meaning.

Susumu Kunisaki

Did you think about creating albums that nobody can cut apart?

Otomo Yoshihide

Exactly, that’s why I started to perform installations. Headphones never bring you the experience that an installation does. What I showed you through YouTube was not an experience for you, so you need to visit. You can mix music by stereo like this. You can put it into earphones, but something you cannot mix by stereo, that you cannot catch by recording, that I’m interested in trying to perform at an installation or the event I showed you at the beginning – you can see it as video picture but we cannot reproduce the acoustic pressure. So that made me more intrigued to things we cannot reproduce or record. At the same time, I really love YouTube. Every night I’m excited listening to, like, ‘40s Duke Ellington. So this is good, computer stuff is great, I mean... both are good.

Susumu Kunisaki

We are under a situation in which we need to be aware of both. Thank you. Any other question?

Audience member

Hello there. You collaborate with a lot of people – do you ever struggle letting things go, or embracing different personalities? Are you a naturally accepting person, or did you use any of these projects as a sort of therapy or anything like that?

Otomo Yoshihide

Therapy... For therapy, I would rather get a massage. [Laughs]

Susumu Kunisaki

You wouldn’t prefer collaboration?

Otomo Yoshihide

I like to collaborate with a person massaging me though. Of course it is not easy all the time. And sometime it doesn’t work well. I always work with many different people so I don’t think about it much. Many things won’t go so easy anyway. So I don’t tend to care about them that much. Alright? Thank you.

Susumu Kunisaki

One more person. Over there, please.

Audience member

Hi. Japan has produced some very important and influential noise musicians and has a longstanding history of it, yet Japan is a society built on some very longstanding traditions, and Japanese are often perceived as being polite and quiet. Do you think the desire to create noise music is a reaction to this societal behaviour? Sorry to go too deep on you.

Otomo Yoshihide

No problem. I would like to ask you back, but did you find that Japanese people are quiet and controlled when you came here?

Audience member

Not controlled, but I'm Irish so maybe you hear I'm a drunk...

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes, yes. [Laughs]

Audience member

And where I come from, the Japanese are known to be quiet and they always bow and say please and thank you.

Otomo Yoshihide

You are really right. [In English] But in Shibuya at midnight you can see a lot of crazy Japanese drunken people. But anyway. Let me think. I suppose most Japanese are not in a position where they can see themselves objectively. I mean, few Japanese can compare and say what is the difference between foreigners and Japanese, I guess. This is because, first, the language problem. And the other is, if you see TV shows, most of them are domestic ones. We live in very domestic circumstances. In my idea, few Japanese people compare themselves to people from other countries. That may become our drawback and also our advantage.

Talking about noise music and why this happened... A backlash is one possibility, and other is, I assume, wrongly conveyed information. I regard myself as being in the first generation of noise musicians. All of my generation who play noise are influenced by rock music. When we listened to rock, we had few chances to see real American or British bands playing. We all listened to them through records, sitting in front of speakers and listened to them. We all thought rock was extremely loud. In my brain, in my head, an aspiration and a dream for rock was swelling and soaring. Rock is radical and loud and players move violently like a storm on stage. Those images alone were amplified in our brain. We saw on TV, Jimi Hendrix destroys his guitar. The Who breaking their guitars, we believed it was cool! This part of our memory was swelled. Then we got an amplifier for our guitars and went to a club. A club in Japan is so small compared to ones in the U.S. or Europe. Even still, they used Fender Twin Reverb or Roland Jazz Chorus 120 amplifiers. So when they played, turning its volume to the max, the sound was so loud that microphone feedback occurred. That maybe because I think we extremely misunderstood rock or free jazz. We imagined rock and jazz must be very, very loud. As a matter of fact, we did performances with volume at the max. I’m wondering if that was the true reason for it. We composed music without right information and in addition, there were extreme misunderstandings. I imagine Japanese noise music was probably born by that biased information.

Susumu Kunisaki

So you think it was created not by coincidence but as a backlash against something?

Otomo Yoshihide

When Japanese noise music was born, the English guitarist Derek Bailey played a role. He visited Japan for his concerts. Many noise musicians were influenced by his concert here, like this band Hijokaidan was influenced by him, and I was too. When listening to this music, this sounds nothing close to Hijokaidan. This is such a wonderful performance of improvisations.

(music: Derek Bailey - Unknown)

I remember this was in 1976 or 1977. Excuse me, it was in 1978. Derek Bailey came to Japan when I was still in high school. He had concerts in dozens of cities in Japan. None of us could understand him at all. We honestly couldn’t get it but what we thought was, even if we cannot play the guitar, we can be on stage. We misunderstood in that way. He played this with super high technique, but we couldn’t realize it then. A year after his visit to Japan, small clubs in Japan were full of musicians like me copying him. “Stop it please.” The club owners told us, “No Derek Bailey.” There are some music stores on Denmark Street in London where they have posters saying “No Stairway to Heaven.” Like the music stores in London, stores in Japan banned copying him. Among the many musicians copying him and remaining misunderstood, it has evolved so much. That is one of the features of Japanese noise music.

Susumu Kunisaki

Limited information made misunderstandings and illusions. The situation was different from now.

Otomo Yoshihide

It was.

Susumu Kunisaki

Less information...

Otomo Yoshihide

Because of the lack of information, we didn’t have a chance to know what Derek Bailey was saying. For example, a 12-year-boy imagines, “what is a girl?” That kind of imagination, we had. I guess like this.

Susumu Kunisaki

Thank you for a solid example. Time is running out, so this is the last question. Anybody? Then you, go ahead please.

Audience member

Since this is the last question I’d be interested in how you see your own development in the future and if there is something you're heading to, from your perspective?

Otomo Yoshihide

Talk about my future. I’m 55 years old now. I’m rather thinking about my health, I’d like to work with good physical condition. Musicians around me, around our age, often lose their health. I see someone become ill. I don’t want to die yet.

Audience member

I wasn’t talking about your upcoming death [laughter].

Otomo Yoshihide

I know, I know. At our age when we think about future, “death” comes to mind. At your age, the future is full of hopes, and many possibilities. For us, possibilities are diminishing. There maybe nothing but music that I want to do. All I think about is music. I hope I can play the guitar till the end of my life. But in this age, I prepare myself that someday I cannot play anymore. I hope I play. Another thing I felt after the Great East Japan Disaster, I used to hesitate about speaking in front of people or giving a lecture like this. But since the quake, I’m more available for doing this if I get an offer. The reason I changed my mind is I would like to think that music dies when people die, and I still think of it this way. For example, when Charles Mingus died, we don’t need a musician like him in the next generation. He left recordings anyway. So after my death, we don’t need a musician like me. There is no need to tell what I did.

But I’m saying this not especially for musicians, but also for non-musicians. I’d better tell them what I’ve seen in the world in my career of 30 years. The world I’ve seen is that I have been playing eccentric music in various places through my tours. The world I saw during my career is different from the view of people who live in one place. There is a world they still don’t know. As I said, in Japan, I see many people not noticing the world outside of here. This is not a problem of Japan alone, but now, some people make hate speeches against Korean and Chinese people who live in various places in Japan. While seeing such people’s violence and acts of discrimination, I’d better show or tell people that I’m the one who creates and plays music with “my” philosophy, not “theirs”. I play music that sounds violent, so if there’s something wrong, my music could be taken as a message for excluding others. I’d like to raise my voice and tell them that my music is different from them. I try to speak out.

Susumu Kunisaki

Thank you for the time with us. In a few days, you will perform with us.

Otomo Yoshihide

Yes, I’m looking forward to playing music together with you all.

Susumu Kunisaki

Thank you very much for today, Mr. Yoshihide Otomo.