This text is the complete transcription of an interview with Otomo Yoshihide that is included in my master's thesis, "Otomo Yoshihide Post-3/11--The Politics of Powerless Music," which I submitted to the Comparative Civilizations program in the 2021 academic year. Known for his improvised performances on guitar and turntable and his music for movies and TV dramas, Otomo has also been supporting a variety of cultural activities in Fukushima Prefecture since 2011. These include Project FUKUSHIMA!, which he launched together with fellow musician Michiro Endo and poet Ryoichi Wago, as well as the reorganization of the Fukushima Waraji Festival and the creation of school songs at Tomioka Elementary School and Junior High School. My thesis positioned and analyzed Otomo's musical practice as an alternative to the music in "reconstruction support songs" and anti-nuclear power demonstrations. The text has been partly revised.
The power of music is used both ways
Q: First, I'd like to ask you about the phrase "the power of music." Just after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, "the power of music" and "the power of song" were often used on TV song programs, for instance. In interviews and so on that I read after the disaster, you remarked that we need to be worried about the power of music, and in fact it's all right for music to be powerless. Was there something specific that motivated these comments?
Otomo: There wasn't any incident that motivated them directly. I think this was about 20 years ago, but I probably wrote in [the magazine] STUDIO VOICE that musicians should be powerless. (1)
Q: That was in 2001. You wrote, "hearing the radical nature of powerlessness."
Otomo: Right. The reason I wrote that is that music has power. Everyone talks about the power of music as if it's a good thing, but military songs are music, too. So I think I already had a strong feeling at the time that the power of music is used both ways. The first time I realized this was probably when I was a student--at Meiji University I was in a folk music seminar, although I never went to school. I wasn't even taking this seminar officially. I found out that a folk music seminar was offered as a general education class in a different department, so I attended Professor Akira Ebato's folk music seminar for about two years. I didn't get course credit or anything, but I actually wrote a paper. It was called "Control of music during the Pacific War." I don't remember why I chose that topic. At the time there were hardly any books about it, so I researched it as best I could on my own. For some reason I was doing research on how music has been controlled. It seems to me that I already had an awareness of the issue at the time. In short, at that time I was probably thinking in a young person's way about how music acts upon society. And I had the thought that this wasn't only a good thing, which was why I thought it was dangerous for musicians to try to acquire power. But I don't know the reason. Actually I don't think there was a direct reason. Anyway, I think there were various things that happened.
Another thing is that in my twenties I joined guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi's class. He was my teacher--I mean, he really influenced me and I looked up to him. Of course, Takayanagi-san was someone who had a lot of power--in terms of music, too. I joined his class because I was drawn to that, but I might also have rebelled against it, when I think about it now...in the background. To be honest, though, I don't really know the reason. It was just that at some point I started thinking that music isn't only a good thing, it's also a scary thing. That might have been perverse, because when someone talks about the power of musicians or the power of music, basically they're almost always saying that music has positive power. I was questioning that. Then I think I gradually got to the point where I was saying it should be powerless. That's why, after the Tohoku earthquake, when people were speaking in a simplistic way about using the power of music, I thought I definitely wasn't going to get involved in that kind of thing.
What is "powerless music"?
Q: You're participating in the Otoasobi Project (2), and also Nishinari Children's Orchestra (3).
Otomo: That's right. Nishinari Children's Orchestra started after the earthquake, but the Otoasobi Project started before--in 2005, I think.
Q: For the Otoasobi Project, I think you were approached by music therapists?
Otomo: To be exact, I was asked by graduate students aspiring to be music therapists. I was invited to join a project organized by several students at that graduate school, and somehow I ended up joining--that was how it started.
Q: At that time I think you wrote in [your book] Music They Don't Teach You in School (4) that you made an objection at first.
Otomo: Yes. Not to the students. I strongly objected to what the music therapist there was saying. As I wrote in the book, I was really annoyed because he said we would make music with children, but then he let the children go and play freely and told us, the parents and other observers, "These sounds of playing are a kind of music." I said, wait, this isn't a workshop for us. We're supposed to make music with the children, not turn them into materials. Then there was an argument--quite a big one.
Q: In that regard, there's an interview (5) where you said the performances of the Otoasobi Project or Derek Bailey have a different orientation from the kind of musical power we talked about before. What did you mean specifically?
Otomo: Right, that was in Narushi Hosoda's interview for AA. But I wasn't saying I worked with the Otoasobi Project or I like Derek Bailey's music because they have no musical power. I mean, thinking about it afterwards. When you think about the power of music, you naturally think, so what is music without power, or powerless music--or what kind of music should I make--that kind of thing. I suppose that when I was thinking about that, what seemed to contrast with [musical power] was Derek Bailey and the Otoasobi Project, for instance. I'd always liked things like that, so I thought, oh, that must be why I like them. Derek Bailey and the Otoasobi Project have quite a lot in common. Also, about 20 years ago, at what was then a small gallery in Yoyogi called Off Site, people in the so-called "onkyo" movement, although I don't know if the term is appropriate--musicians like Taku Sugimoto and Sachiko M--were experimenting with extremely soft sound, and when I saw those performances I really liked them. I thought, this is really good. Anyway, I think that's more or less "music without power."
On the other hand, in the specific context of this interview, I think the music of Albert Ayler, for instance, has power--a certain kind of power. Of course, that's a fascinating quality, but I think I was strongly attracted to a different kind of music--something that doesn't make a lot of people go wild with excitement. I still feel that way. So it isn't that the types of music are similar, it's that none of those things--Derek Bailey, the Otoasobi Project, the music played at Off Site--is the kind of music that stirs a lot of people up like that. Well, actually Albert Ayler's music isn't the kind of music that makes a lot of people go wild either. So what's an example of that kind of music? Michael Jackson, or the Beatles. I like that kind of music, too, of course. Or John Lennon's "Imagine." I mean, I think what the song says is true. It's just that I was drawn to a different kind of music, the kind you don't listen to based on sympathy that comes from the words.
I want to make music with everyone
Q: Well, in terms of a lot of people getting really excited, when you watch a video of Orchestra FUKUSHIMA! (6) there's quite a lot of excitement, right? I'm thinking, what's going on there?
Otomo: Yeah, that's a contradiction, isn't it? Why is that? Actually, when I did Orchestra FUKUSHIMA!, I didn't have the idea of making Derek Bailey-style music, and of course I didn't think I was going to do the music of the Otoasobi Project, but there are quite a few members of the Otoasobi Project in the group--they came and joined Orchestra FUKUSHIMA! When I decided to do Orchestra FUKUSHIMA!, I was thinking I wanted people to make music together in that place, whether they were professionals or amateurs or whoever, more than I was thinking about the power of music. That's because there was a concert "bubble" in Fukushima at the time. There were a huge number of concerts. Rather than give concerts in concert halls, musicians from Tokyo would come and play in various places in the disaster area. There were so many concerts, it made you wonder if people really wanted to hear music every day like that. I don't think it was a bad thing at all. But in fact there was something that bothered me about that framework--musicians coming from Tokyo and people in the disaster area in Fukushima going to see them play, and that's it. I thought it would be good to create music in that place, too, along with the people of Fukushima. And I wanted to avoid drawing a line between people from Fukushima and people from other places, so I wanted anyone and everyone to gather and make music together. It was a simple motive, and at the time I wasn't thinking about whether the power of music would be involved or not. It might have ended up being music with that kind of power, in a way. But does that kind of thing have power? If it really did, someone probably would have said they wanted to present it in the Olympics opening ceremony or something. Anyway, I'm sure that kind of thing wouldn't happen.
Q: In fact, it didn't happen.
Otomo: It didn't. Even if it hadn't been during the pandemic, I'm sure it wouldn't have happened. I don't think people are looking for that kind of thing. The kind of music where a lot of people--kids, grownups--get together spontaneously, without a clear system, and let loose--that kind of thing would probably never happen in a setting like the Olympics. Although it might just barely have been a possibility in the Paralympics. So I personally don't think it will go in that direction. On the other hand, even though I talk about music without power, I think it's true that we created a pretty powerful musical setting.
Q: To you, is having power different from, for instance, being something like a national star?
Otomo: Wait--I don't care at all about being a star or anything like that. There was a time when I was briefly the focus of attention--when Amachan [a TV series for which Otomo wrote the music] was popular. But it wasn't that I was a star, it was just that the songs became hits.
In terms of having power, I think whether you become the focus of attention is irrelevant. I think the point is how many people are moved by the music itself. It's the same as the military songs I mentioned before and that kind of thing. For example, if a huge number of people are really moved, you don't know if it's going to go in a good direction or not, right? I don't think musicians have that kind of responsibility at all. What I mean is that I think that kind of thing is scary.
I like ondo because it's loose
Q: I think you've also written a lot of ondo [a type of Japanese folk music]. Ondo stirs up a lot of excitement, too, doesn't it?
Otomo: Right, ondo does, too. I think it must be an extension of Orchestra FUKUSHIMA!, since I'm doing it within that current. But I personally think ondo has no power. Does that kind of thing have power? Like starting a popular uprising with bon odori [music and dance performed during the bon holiday] and going to raid the Japanese Parliament building--I don't think it has that kind of power. Unfortunately. If you look at it just in terms of musical power, there may be a big contrast between ondo and Derek Bailey or the Otoasobi Project, for instance, but I really don't like it when something develops in just one direction--like if people say Derek Bailey-style music is good, and then do nothing but that. It's OK if an individual does that. But, for instance, if you're teaching and you say, "Everyone try to make music like Derek Bailey--it's the music of the future"...I really dislike that way of thinking. I mean, that's an extreme way to put it. I don't like it when one specific thing has a lot of power and sweeps over everything else. Whatever it is. Whether it's something good or something awful.
Actually, there isn't anything that has no power. Even Derek Bailey--I might say he has no power, but he has a lot of power--look at how many musicians he's influenced all over the world. But what's important is that--this is a really trendy and obnoxious way to put it--I don't like something unless it takes an approach that doesn't deny the existence of a variety of things. So I can't stand it when something ends up being all the same. So I like ondo because it's loose. Originally I didn't like it very much. I thought ondo itself was kind of corny.
Q: When did you start writing ondo?
Otomo: In 2013. Around the time of Amachan. Michiro [Endo] kept saying he wanted to do ondo, so I gave in and wrote something. When I did, it was interesting. I gradually started thinking, I like this type of music. It was when I went and saw the actual scene--it was more about that than about the structure of the music.
I've written this in various places, but when we play ondo, we're performing live. People are singing on the yagura [bandstand tower], people are playing on stage, everyone is dancing. Normally people think of the audience as customers, and the customers watch the musicians and singers. But when you do ondo, no one is watching them at all--probably not one person. Everyone is looking in different directions and dancing. I mean, if anyone is watching something, the people who don't do the dance well are watching the good dancers. And everyone is having a great time in their own way. Also, ondo goes around in a circle, so if there's a center, it's the middle of the circle, but absolutely no one is looking at the middle of that center. When it's over, people clap with their hands up in the air, in a really natural way. When I saw that, I thought, in terms of power, this is the ideal kind. No one is interested in looking at me, the person performing. That's why seeing the actual setting made me think ondo was one of the things I really wanted to do--it wasn't so much the style or structure of the music itself. So in 2013 I started really getting into ondo. I'm still into it.
Q: Sometimes there are songs in ondo. In your interview with Hosoda-san, you said you had some hesitation about writing songs and can't write them unless there's a reason. What about in ondo?
Otomo: In ondo, there's a clear reason. There are various reasons for writing a song. I get a request, or I write an ondo song for a summer festival, for instance. Or I write something as a TV theme song. Now I get commissions from schools to write school songs. If there isn't that kind of reason, I can't do it. It's almost always a request. Even though I have music in me, I don't have any reason at all to write a song. It's like what I was saying before. I have no reason to use a song to do something, but I can write one if I get a request. I [think about] what the person is aiming for and what is needed in the situation.
For "Eejanaika ondo," everyone contributed lyrics, and I actually put them together. I say there's no reason to sing it, but it's very clearly a parody song. There's really a lot in it. It might be the first time--that's what I thought. But I can do that kind of thing because I don't think it has power.
Q: You mean the nature of ondo music, you might say--the way it comes about through a balance with the nature of the setting.
Otomo: Right. People are smiling and dancing and singing "Eejanaika, eejanaika" ["It doesn't matter"]--it feels really irresponsible. Something like that is possible for me, but if it came to writing a more aggressive kind of song, I don't think I could. I couldn't and I wouldn't want to.
Q: In around 2003, "sound demos" (sound demonstrations) started happening in Japan. Later, at demonstration sites, I think rap-style calls emerged within the call and response. What are your thoughts about the musical approach in sound demos like that?
Otomo: I have no problem at all with the thinking of people who do sound demos, and I always think those people are going to dislike me when I say this, but I can't help wondering how it's different from the right wing. Right-wing people have been doing something like sound demos for ages--playing awful music like military songs and things like that. I can't stand that--I really hate it. It's intimidating and frightening. Everyone was delighted when sound demos started, but for me they brought back memories of right-wing sound trucks [from which sound was played at high volume on loudspeakers], so I couldn't feel that way. Of course, the content is different. The content of the songs and the type of music may be different, but... I don't know. I don't like that approach. If it were a bon dance, it would be all right.
Something that isn't Takayanagi-san
Q: Going back to what we were saying before, a feature of group improvisation performance like the Otoasobi Project and Orchestra FUKUSHIMA! is that professionals and amateurs play together. Were there any references or influences from other people behind this idea?
Otomo: Actually, this was--hmm, I thought there might be something, but maybe not. Of course, in terms of having a lot of amateurs participate, there are plenty of examples, like the Scratch Orchestra and Cornelius Cardew's experiments in the UK, but I hardly referred to them.
Q: Recently on TV I saw you covering music by Toru Takemitsu. (7) Was there something inherited from Takemitsu-san's way of thinking, for instance? This is just my guess, but I thought it was probably not Takayanagi-san.
Otomo: But I don't really have any memory of whether or not Takemitsu-san said something like that. Also, even though I really like his way of thinking and what he did--I kind of let this slip out on the program--I don't really like it when a choir or something is singing. Maybe it's partly because I don't like choral music that much to begin with. I think, why don't they sing in a chest voice? Choirs are all right, but I think it would be better if they sang in a basic chest voice. So the reference isn't Takemitsu-san, either.
On the contrary, I think I did refer to Takayanagi-san--in the sense of [doing] something that isn't Takayanagi-san. Because he strongly rejected amateur music. I loved Takayanagi-san too much, and that became a driving force in the period when I rebelled against him. If I hadn't rebelled against Takayanagi-san, I might not have had the idea of music performed with people from the general public.
On the other hand, it wasn't so much about a reference--it was that, thinking about it more and more, I could only conclude that music was better when it wasn't made only by professionals. Physically, though, I thought it was more comfortable to play with professionals only. It feels great to work really smoothly with good musicians. I didn't like the idea of having untalented people join in, to be honest. I often make this comparison, but it's more fun for people like Olympic athletes to run with people on their own level--if a slow runner suddenly comes in, they have to match the person's speed and it's annoying, right? That's basically how I looked at it. My thinking was kind of elitist--in those days. Even now, I fully appreciate how enjoyable it is when a bunch of athletes let loose and go at incredible speed. On the other hand, the more I think about it, the more I think that isn't enough.
But at first I didn't have a foothold--I didn't really know what working with "regular" people involved. Also, there was no opportunity. I think it was the Otoasobi Project that gave me the chance to really experience that--to realize that you can't underestimate regular people, that they're amazing. It was probably around that time that my thinking gradually started changing. But even before that, I'd sensed the need for it. I'm certain about that. But I don't know why that happened. It might have been about Takayanagi-san.
Looking at things fairly and equally
Otomo: Another thing is that I was influenced a great deal by the ideas in a book by the linguist Katsuhiko Tanaka. I mean, it's the same with Takemitsu-san, but I must have been thinking about how to take a discrimination-free approach in a musical setting, too.
Q: You mean ideas like "There's no 'valid' language"?
Otomo: Right. The fact that people naturally tend to say things like "That's not correct Japanese, so change it." What is language? That kind of thing. I think it's the same for music--the idea that what's done only by professionals isn't music. Professional music exists, but if you start with the premise that music began as something anyone can do--this might really be my own way of thinking, but instead of starting with music, it's more like ideas or philosophy written by various people... Having said that, I'm not a very good student, so when I read a really hard book, I have no idea what it means. When I read something like [Jacques] Derrida, I don't know what it means. The same with Jacques Attali and people like that. I only "sort of" get it. So I was probably thinking about it myself in the actual setting.
Q: But I have a feeling that your way of thinking--there is no "valid" kind of music or "valid" language, things like that--has quite a lot in common with "contemporary philosophy" from the eighties up to the present.
Otomo: Right. I was probably influenced by that--and within that movement, the writing of people like Shunsuke Tsurumi was relatively easy to understand. So even though I don't understand really difficult writing, it was probably people like Tsurumi and Katsuhiko Tanaka [who influenced me]. I also read the writing of ambitious young thinkers of that period who were called post-modern--but again, it was like I half understood it and half didn't. Well, they were popular at the time, so... Rather than post-modernist thinking--although I worked hard at reading it and pretended to understand it--I think I was more influenced by Tsurumi, who was from a slightly older generation. "Studies of Marginal Art" and things like that are pretty interesting. Also Katsuhiko Tanaka's language theory, which I just mentioned. From a language theory point of view, that may be a really classic or old way of thinking, too, but I think it was where I learned the basics of the approach of looking at things fairly and equally. [Before that] I was a believer in musical athleticism, you might say, or elitism. When I was studying with Takayanagi-san. I mean, at first I was making music with the idea of training and making something superior to what everyone else was making--avant-garde things. Then I was thinking more and more that, no, that isn't the way to go. On the other hand, I knew how interesting that kind of music was, so I gradually started wondering, can't I do both? Aren't I allowed to say that both are interesting? I was conflicted. When I was a young upstart I struggled with that, but as I gradually became less of a young upstart, I thought, it's OK to say both are good.
But people don't really understand that. In Europe, it doesn't reach people at all. I did the music for Amachan, I do projects connected with the earthquake, I do noise music--it seems to me that the meaning of doing all those things hasn't reached people there at all. They probably just think, who is this person? But I think, very simply, why not do bon odori--what's wrong with that? I do think there are people with artistic beliefs who think you're not supposed to do that or it doesn't make sense. Maybe it's different now. I don't really know.
I can't control other people
Q: Sorry to talk about myself, but just after I started university, I joined the glee club. But I quit soon after. It was Rikkyo University Glee Club--"Ritsuguri" for short. It's famous. Everyone was making a unified sound under the direction of a prestigious conductor--you might call it a certain kind of elitism--and I started really disliking that. Why does everyone have to combine into one sound? Of course, in a sense that feels good, and I think it's great music in its way. But that kind of method seems like something connected with fascism. I mean, in populism, too, there are various reasons for the appeal of unified emotion. But that's kind of scary--there's a kind of fear when your own voice melts into the whole, so I quit after a short time. Because of that, something occurred to me--there's no feeling of unity in Orchestra FUKUSHIMA! and the Otoasobi Project, is there?
Otomo: That's so rude. But no, there isn't.
Q: Instead of being unified, everything seems sort of diffused.
Otomo: It's kind of scattered around. That's all we're capable of. (laughs)
Q: But I think that's a really good thing about it.
Otomo: When I hear it, I can't help but think, wow, that's heaven. So, for instance with a glee club or something, I'm amazed when I hear a part that's really skillful. I admire it, but I don't want to join.
Q: When I tried it myself--right.
Otomo: But when I hear amazing [music], I do feel moved, not surprisingly.
Q: Actually, we also sang music composed by Takemitsu, for instance. So for me it was really surprising to hear you cover his music. It wasn't the kind of thing where everyone sings together and unites their voices. I wondered if Takemitsu-san created music like that--music where each person can sing however they want within the chorus.
Otomo: He intended to make it like that. But it seems to me that he didn't get to that point. I think it was still a time when singing that way in a choir or something would have been like knocking on the door to freedom. Thinking about it from the perspective of the war years--just the act of singing. But times have changed. So, I mean, for instance in Orchestra FUKUSHIMA!, the instant I move my hand like this, bam, the sound suddenly comes together, but it isn't like the kind of unity in a glee club at all--being scattered is a good thing, too. That's a good feeling...or I guess I always think it's fine as it is. When I do workshops like that, at first I always say, "Every sound produced will be accepted." That may just sound like pretty words, but in music that isn't usually the case. Like you said a minute ago, if anything, I think the mainstream in music is the tendency to unite everything, like in fascism. I guess that kind of thing scares me.
Q: In terms of doing group improvisation, I was wondering how, for instance, improvised performances with turntable, and noise music, connect with group improvisation and are applied in that setting. What are your thoughts about this kind of thing?
Otomo: You mean when members of the public are included?
Q: Right. In performances with amateur musicians, has the methodology of improvised performance, or things you've done in noise music, been used in some way?
Otomo: Oh, I see. Sure, something has probably been used. I mean, improvisation is accepting--accepting what happens. You can't revise it, right? For better or worse. Improvisation is accepting both the good and the bad as you move forward, so I use that approach just as it is. Especially with improvisation, you can control it when you play alone, but when you perform with other people you can't control them, right? Other people are other people. For instance when I play in a duo or trio, I don't think at all about trying to control the other people as we're playing. [I just think about] what I can do to make the performance interesting within the phenomena that come about. It's like conversation, I guess--spontaneous conversation. I've been doing this for a long time and I think I have a wider range of experience than a lot of people, so I think that's very useful when we do this kind of improvisation. But even so, when I played with the Otoasobi Project, it was such a mysterious situation that in a way I was no match for it. It was so fascinating. The freedom and expansiveness of improvisation kind of paled in comparison--I was that amazed by it. That in itself was really interesting.
Music reflects things before society does
Q: Does the nature of that kind of music, which anyone can take part in, overlap with your idea of the nature of society or political participation?
Otomo: After the earthquake, I did think about the nature of political participation and society. I thought about it so much that for a short time I couldn't decide whether I should go to the disaster area. I could do things in the music world, but I thought it seemed quite difficult to do things in the real world. That's because the music world has a lot fewer elements, so it's much simpler. In other words, you can do things with just the people who are there. But politics and the real world have a huge number of elements and people, so I realized right away that it wouldn't be so easy to apply what I do with music to real-life settings. That was something I was completely aware of. With music, the biggest it gets is a few hundred people. Normally there's a community of ten to twenty, or just a few. On the other hand, I do think it would be a good thing if working out some kind of ideal method in that situation could be reflected in a bigger, more complicated group setting in the future. Even though it wouldn't be so easy.
The reason I think about that kind of thing is that--I don't remember at all who wrote this, maybe Jacques Attali or maybe Teruto Soejima--someone wrote that the state of avant-garde music is reflected in society some years later. This is just an example, but since the 1960s, European musicians have been crossing various national borders and forming groups. There was the group Globe Unity--there were various things. There was that movement, and they started making records and selling them on their own. Later on, society started going in that direction, too, although it isn't exactly the same. National borders start gradually disappearing and it gets to be like the eurozone.
I don't know whether or not that's a good tendency, but when I think about it now, I don't think music led the way. Since music involves fewer people and more readily reflects the actions of individuals, music precedes society in going in the direction those people take. So it isn't that things went that way because everyone was influenced by music--it's that this kind of thing is more likely to happen in music, because music is made collectively. That's a huge difference between music and literature or painting. The structure of a specific community is reflected in music. As we talked about--for example glee clubs and orchestras--I really think it's possible that when those things first came about they reflected something like fascism or Eurocentrism before [those movements began]. In that sense, rather than our activities being reflected in society, I think it's simply that what we do first, society does later on. If that's the case, then there's no way not to do things in music first. I don't know whether it's OK to use the term "democratic" now, but it's the approach of being fair in your interactions with people.
To put it in a really simple way, even saying that things are fair between men and women--now people have finally starting saying that, but if you think about it, there was a very long period when the music world wasn't at all [equal] either. For a very long time, western orchestras were made up only of white western men, but now things are changing. But it took decades for that to happen. In the same way I think that, of the various musical fields, the world of orchestras is relatively difficult to move around in, but in the world of the kind of music we make, it's relatively easy to do that kind of thing. It's easier than in other societies to say, come on, let's really make things fair between men and women, and it's easier to make changes. I mean, in our time the situation was already approaching that, even if we didn't say it. So--this might be after I die, but--I think it would be great if the kinds of things the Otoasobi Project is doing come to be considered normal in society. I think it actually might become a model case for that.
On the other hand, after the earthquake, as I said before, I thought a lot about politics, but I don't have a very deep knowledge of politics, so I'm not confident about whether or not what I think is really right. To be honest. So it kind of amazes me that people can express their ideas forcefully. As for me, I can't confidently say we should go in a certain direction. It's more like I just think a certain way might be better and I try it out.
The power of words is even scarier
Q: By the way, you use different words in the names of each of your groups, like "orchestra," "ensembles," "special big band." How do you decide on the words?
Otomo: In most cases they just come to mind. But there's a clear idea behind "ensembles." The word is originally French, so it's strange to put an "s" at the end, right? I knew "ensembles" was incorrect, but I thought it worked. I was intentionally trying to emphasize the idea that there are multiple ensembles. I've always liked the idea of ensembles--I have a sort of mental image of a bunch of people working together. In contrast, like I said a while ago, the word "orchestra" still has a Eurocentric ring to it, but at the same time I think it's stylish. I thought, there's no way not to use it--I'll liberate it. On the other hand, "big band" is probably a term that came about in the U.S., so somehow it makes me think of a small or medium-sized business. I feel like there are a lot of skillful craftspeople who make machine parts that can't be made in any big factory. I really like the term big band. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, like that. That's why I put "big band" in my band's name. But with "orchestra"...I use the word orchestra even though it isn't an orchestra. Like in Orchestra FUKUSHIMA! I mean, that's easier to understand than if I just gave it a group name, right? To make it clear that a lot of people are performing together. But in order to show that this style is possible, I think it had to be Orchestra FUKUSHIMA!--not Big Band FUKUSHIMA! or Ensemble FUKUSHIMA! Having said that, we never play Mozart or Beethoven--we don't even have scores. That's why I feel like we're liberating the word "orchestra."
Q: Also, I felt it was curious that Festival FUKUSHIMA! used the word "simultaneous." [The Japanese term for the events of September 11, 2001, is "simultaneous terror attacks."]
Otomo: Right.
Q: I thought you must be using it deliberately.
Otomo: Yes, it's deliberate. I mean, in the noise and punk generation, there's a tendency to do that kind of thing compulsively--deliberately use words that upset people.
Q: Was that your idea?
Otomo: Yes. I say things like that almost unconsciously. Michiro-san is even more direct. He comes out with things like "Fuck nuclear power plants" and "Feed me." Actually, I use words like [simultaneous] more. But originally, "simultaneous" didn't mean anything. All it means is that various things happen at the same time, but in that period it had a meaning, maybe because of 9/11, so... The meanings of words change a lot, so I feel like, if I don't like [a word], why not transform it into something more positive? But that itself is an assertion of power.
Q: But it seemed to me that maybe words are opened up through a specific image.
Otomo: When the earthquake happened, I was reminded of the importance of words. Things that can't be communicated just by playing music--if you put in just one word... That's why I think it's scary. The power of words really is scarier than the power of music. It's truly scary. If you use a word wrong, the effect is like poison. But human beings run on words... In many cases.
Q: In Festival FUKUSHIMA!, you sometimes performed with Wago-san, didn't you? I think Wago-san's words are pretty strong.
Otomo: Yeah, they are.
Q: At times like that, how do you go about performing? You said improvisation is accepting the phenomena that happen as you move on to the next thing--but in that situation, do you make an effort not to be pulled along by Wago-san's strong words, or do you confront those words with your own sound?
Otomo: About Wago-san...this takes a fair amount of courage to say. In the early days just after the earthquake, on Twitter I truly saw Wago-san's words as a window onto Fukushima. At a time when I felt like I was clutching at straws, Wago-san's words were very important to me. That's certain. Then I met Wago-san and we talked about a lot of things. But the more we talked, the more I felt that our ways of thinking were so different that I probably would never have worked with him if the earthquake hadn't happened. Like with group reading, when everyone recites poems together, it's based on unison. There are parts where voices separate, but basically the words are spoken in unison. I felt like I don't have that in me. But in the first year or so [after the earthquake], I really didn't feel like [I needed to work with] people who think the way I do. Even though I felt like we had different ways of thinking, I thought Wago-san should be there.
But I do think Wago-san and I were both forcing ourselves, in a way. Although we took care to be respectful. So we didn't argue or anything, but after a certain point I did think it would be better not to work together anymore. So even though I appreciate the things Wago-san did after the earthquake, I think it would be hard to work together now.
Q: So it was just that there was a necessity to work together in 2011 and 2012.
Otomo: I don't know if I'd call it a necessity, but we worked together. But this year [2021], even though we're not working together, Wago-san and I are both going to do something in the same place again. I think that's fine. I think of him as a friend who I shed tears with over the same problem at the same time in a certain place.
I always want to say, "But I like the night"
Q: This is related to what we were just talking about, but recently on the radio (8), you said your activities since the earthquake are connected with pride. I think pride might be closely related to Wago-san's phrase "I live Fukushima," for example.
Otomo: The issue of pride. Right.
Q: Just before the launch of Project FUKUSHIMA!, you also used the words "turning Fukushima into a positive." (9) I think the activities that took place after the earthquake seemed to have a significant tendency to push individuals into one phrase or one way of seeing things. I'm wondering what you think about having pride, and about the danger of promoting group standardization.
Otomo: I mean, it's difficult. I think Wago-san said "I live Fukushima" because his pride [as a native of Fukushima] was injured. I think it's a cry from the heart. I think that's why it's painful to hear it. It may resonate with tenderhearted people, but I can't help think that, from the perspective of other people, people who have no connection with Fukushima, it might just be something heavy. So if you ask whether I can say "I live Fukushima," I can't say that at all. I'm not Fukushima. Even though Fukushima is in me. In that sense I'm a really half-baked Fukushima person--I was raised in Fukushima, but I wasn't born there, and I don't think that way about any region. Or even about Japan. But I fully understand that there are people who think that way. Saying on that basis that something can only be done a certain way, that alone is unpleasant to me. I think it's OK for there to be various types of people, somehow. So it's fine to have people like Wago-san, and then there are scattered people like me. When someone says, "Every night comes to an end [i.e., the morning always comes]" (10) I always want to say, "But I like the night." If you say "Every night comes to an end," it makes night the villain--but there are people who like the night. Maybe I always end up thinking about people who don't fit into that. Because I was one of them. I'm not saying this as a criticism of Wago-san at all. I say things like "recover pride." You might think, "Who is this guy?" But...
On the other hand, I don't think anyone can survive without any pride at all. I think people who say "I don't have that in me" are people who have never felt any sense of crisis about pride. To put it in an extreme way, let's say for example that Japan disappeared and there were only about five Japanese people left. No matter how sketchy the people were, I think they'd think as Japanese people. But I think a world where people don't usually need to think about that would be a much better world. That's my idea, but in reality it was no longer a situation where we didn't need to think about it. We were seriously hurt by what happened in Fukushima. I didn't think I'd been hurt that much myself, but when I realized afterwards that I'd been hurt, too, and thought about how to heal that wound, I thought I'd probably mess it up if I used a strange approach. By strange approach, I mean you're not going to get back pride if you use a sort of image-based strategy and say "Fukushima is doing great"-- if you project some kind of positive image, like in a commercial.
Fukushima people's complex isn't just something that started with the nuclear power plant--there are so many aspects, including the issue of the [Fukushima] accent. Even though solving each of those things is not at all simple, it seemed to me that solving them one by one, in a deliberate way, through their own effort, would probably be the only way for people to recover their pride. Having their activities recognized by other people, and being happy with what they themselves accomplished--I thought that would be the only way to recover. It seemed to me that one of the best ways would be for them to eliminate radiation through their own efforts and produce agricultural products that were completely free of radiation. And in less than ten years, that actually happened. I thought, that's amazing. But what hasn't happened yet is that other people haven't really recognized this. So I'd like people to really be aware of it. That's why I thought it would be fantastic if everyone started doing the bon dance that began in Fukushima and people around the world thought, "This bon dance is the best!" That was kind of a dream I had. I thought it would be great if the bon dance gained popularity through the Olympics, for example, and people thought, "This bon dance isn't bad." But with the way the Olympics turned out, I gave up the idea.
Fukushima ramen is really good
Q: How did the word "pride" come up?
Otomo: I think it was the first year after the earthquake. I don't remember who said it first. When various comments were flying around online, I think someone said, "Maybe the biggest problem for people in Fukushima right now is that their pride has been injured." I thought, that's right. Of course, there are a lot of problems--the radiation problem, the problems from the tsunami--but I thought the most difficult problem was that people's pride was injured. At the time, there were various sorts of discrimination--cars with Fukushima license plates weren't allowed into places, and [people said] girls who had been exposed to radiation wouldn't be able to get married. People on the outside might think, we didn't do that kind of thing, and it's not a big problem, but people in Fukushima were really seriously hurt by these things. I thought it would become quite a traumatic thing. Even now it's probably a factor in Fukushima people's behavior. That's why I've always been thinking about what I can do to help keep that from getting worse.
I think the reason almost all the activities I'm doing now in Fukushima are workshops with kids, or projects where people make things, is that showing individuals making things like that is the only thing I can do. In that situation, it's enough for people to have a real sense of having made something. Because that gives them confidence. So making things together and showing that situation to other people--I think that's probably enough. At a certain point I came to the realization that this is all I can do. Things like eliminating radiation or resolving the nuclear power plant situation--I don't even know how that would be done, so I decided to do something different. But I don't know why I thought of that.
And here [on the question sheet] are [Donald] Trump's words "Make America Great Again." If we're not careful, it might sound like that, but America was great to begin with and Fukushima has never been great, right? Unless you go all the way back to the Edo Era. So it isn't that it would be good if people could say Fukushima is great. Fukushima people think they're being discriminated against, somehow, in the background. I don't think anyone outside of Fukushima is discriminating--actually, in reality. Hardly at all. But that's the nature of discrimination. So I want to do something about that.
Something that turned this into comedy in a really skillful and clever way was the TV drama Amachan. It did an amazingly good job of that...while portraying local people who speak with an accent, people who come to the region from Tokyo and start speaking with an accent, local people who don't have an accent... I think [Kankuro] Kudo, who grew up in southern Tohoku, is the only person who could have written that, but I think it's that kind of traffic control, you might say--the method of living in that kind of situation. So it feels like a real exaggeration to say "pride," but the idea that you have to get rid of your accent...Fukushima people get rid of their accent. They work hard to get rid of it. People from the Kansai region don't worry if they don't get rid of their accent. There's that difference. I'm saying this, but I'm the same--I can't speak with an accent when I'm in Tokyo. I can't speak the Fukushima dialect like a native, so now I can't do either. I grew up in an in-between way. So I'm wondering if this is something that someone like me can really do. This might not be in a thesis or anything, but these are my honest thoughts. This is why I'd get a really bad feeling if Fukushima united in saying, "Let's be great." I'd hate that. I think it'd be better to go about things differently. For instance, if people from Brazil thought the drumming at festivals in Fukushima was really interesting and said "Let's get inspiration from it" and came to see it, I think that alone would be great. I think that would change things. I think just small things like that can lead to change.
Q: Do you mean it would be good if various people around the world and in Japan became interested in Fukushima's music, culture and so on in the way that, for instance, the blues--which was a kind of North American folk music--spread around the world?
Otomo: I thought that alone would be enough. Especially after the earthquake, I thought, for example, if Fukushima became the world's number one producer of solar power, that by itself could dispel the stigma. At the time I was always thinking about that kind of thing. That's what I mean by "turn Fukushima into a positive." After that, Fukushima Prefecture copied that way of thinking and started a campaign where a bunch of kids would be shown in newspapers with phrases like "Fukushima is doing fine." But that isn't the kind of thing I had in mind at all. On the contrary, that's just painful. I think it's better to actually make something. But, well...I don't think something like the blues is going to come out of Fukushima, because there wasn't really anything comparable to begin with. I can't imagine Fukushima folk songs gaining that kind of universal popularity. I mean, I think there's a shortage of resources.
But, for instance--most people don't know this, but Fukushima ramen is surprisingly good. Kitakata ramen [from the city of Kitakata in Fukushima Prefecture] may be famous. But it isn't promoted effectively, so it isn't well known. Even something like that would be good, I think. If people say, "Wow, the ramen is great," [people in Fukushima] would be happy. When people have received so little praise, they become less and less likely to receive it, so you try to get everyone to create something that will get a little praise. But I suppose the reason I got so obsessed with this is that I'm one of those people--I wasn't born in Fukushima, but I suppose I think of myself as a Fukushima person. I hadn't really been aware of it myself, though.
An equivocal person
Q: We talked about hokori, which in English is "pride." We often hear "pride" in the context of LGBTQ+ parades, for instance, or civil rights movements. I think in places where discrimination is occurring, when residents and other people involved feel they're being discriminated against, maybe that's when the issue of pride comes up.
Otomo: If I'm asked about pride in that much detail, I can't give a very good answer, but I think that's basically right. I don't know whether Fukushima people are being discriminated against or not, but I think the point is that they feel they are. In that situation, I really don't think it would be effective to say, OK, stop discriminating. The reason is that there isn't any open discrimination at all. It's simply a systemic problem that's been going on for a long time. For instance, the fact that someone from the Tohoku region can't get along in Tokyo if they don't get rid of their accent--it's an issue that's probably existed since the end of the Edo Era.
Another example--and this isn't just a Fukushima problem, it's true of all regional areas--people who get really good grades in school go to university in Tokyo or Kyoto, then stay there and never go back home. This pattern has been repeating itself for a very long time. Over 100 years. So why is that? I did that, too--even though I wasn't such a high achiever, I went to Tokyo and stayed. Of course, one factor is that there's no work [in small cities and towns]. So that disparity, you could call it, has perpetuated itself. The issue of regional areas and central areas. And while I was contributing to that myself, the disaster happened. So when I do these activities [in Fukushima], the fact that I'm complicit in that problem always arises.
Having said that, it's been ten years since I made the choice to do something anyway. I'm not just saying this to sound good. So when people use pretty words like "bonds," inwardly I think, oh, fuck. You know the NHK song "Hana wa Saku" (Flowers Will Bloom), right? I really wanted to take an approach that wasn't like that. But [my approach] hasn't turned out to be something really strong. I mean, it's weak.
Q: I also wrote about "Hana wa Saku" in my thesis. The lyrics don't include any imagery about the disaster, and I think there might be an element of covering up or making people forget in the fact that NHK, a very public media outlet, disseminated this song and the phrase "the power of music" in a set as a "big story," so to speak.
Otomo: But actually, I was going to the disaster area often then, and when people gathered at various assemblies, they almost always sang that song at the end. Some people cried as they sang. I mean, I can't deny that. People would say "Otomo-san, will you sing with us?" and I'd say "I'm a musician, but I'm a bad singer" and always get out of it. The fact that people think everyone will be happy if they just sing that song--I'm really uncomfortable with that. It isn't that the song is bad or good. I just can't stand that kind of thing, personally. I'm not saying I dislike the people who wrote that song, although I dislike the way it's used. But it would be boorish to say that. And I can't say it in front of the elderly ladies who cry when it's sung, or the people who are happy to feel a sense of bonding with others. Since I can't say it, I sort of hide my feelings and go to the toilet or something.
So with various things that have happened since the earthquake--before that I was always pretty clear about what I liked and didn't like, and I never had any problem being a difficult artist and saying I'd do something or not do something, but since I've been going to the areas affected by the disaster, I've come to think that even I've become a really equivocal person.
Q: But it's important to be kind of equivocal or hesitant.
Otomo: For young people I think it's fine to be straightforward. I think [being hesitant] is something that comes with age. I'm ambiguous. (laughs) I think, well, that's the way things go. But there are some things I never want to let go of. I'm trying to at least do those things. But now I really understand something. Once you say you don't like the power of music, you inevitably end up going in the direction of having no power. But there are always a certain number of people who can't enter the huge group current called "bonds." If we lived in a world where there weren't going to be places for those people anymore, that would be terrible. I think I'm at least showing a survival method for things that aren't like that.
October 8, 2021
Recorded at Lloyd Hall, Rikkyo University Ikebukuro Campus
Notes
1. Otomo Yoshihide, "Listening Point Ground Zero - Train Your Ears!" STUDIO VOICE, INFAS Publications, Inc., July 2001 issue, Vol. 307.
2. A music project with over 50 members including people with intellectual disabilities, improvisational musicians, music therapists and others. The project was launched with a base in Kobe in 2005 by Rii Numata (who was then a graduate student) and others.
3. A music improvisation project made up of children attending children's centers and elementary schools in Nishinari, Osaka. Established in 2012 as part of the Breaker Project, a cultural program carried out by the city of Osaka.
4. Otomo Yoshihide, Music They Don't Teach You in School, Iwanami Shoten, 2014.
5. Narushi Hosoda, "Interview: Otomo Yoshihide - Music going back and forth between songs and noise on a path in the middle of human history," Narushi Hosoda (editor and contributor), AA - Albert Ayler 50 Years Later, companysha ltd., 2021
6. Group improvisation performance at Festival FUKUSHIMA!, August 15, 2011. "Orchestra FUKUSHIMA! LIVE at Festival FUKUSHIMA! Synchronized Worldwide Events," YouTube, updated October 21, 2021 (https://youtu.be/k8zkdLKxF5M, viewed November 21, 2022).
7. "Classical Concert Hall - Otomo Yoshihide presents songs by Toru Takemitsu," NHK, broadcast August 16, 2021.
8. "Otomo Yoshihide JAMJAM Radio," KBS Kyoto Radio, broadcast October 2, 2021.
9. Otomo Yoshihide, "The Role of Culture: After the Earthquake and Man-made Disasters in Fukushima," Otomo Yoshihide, Naohiro Ukawa, Michiro Endo, Shinzo Kimura, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Hiroshi Tanji, Chieko Tanji, Kodai Tanji, Shoichiro Mori, Ryoichi Wago, Chronicle Fukushima, p. 27, Seidosha, 2011.
10. Ryoichi Wago, Poetry Collection, Part 2, Shinchosha, 2018.
Beyond Boundaries: Comparative Civilizations Now 23 (Feb. 2023)
Copyright © The Comparative Civilizations Society of Rikkyo University
Translation by Cathy Fishman