World Music Or Japanese - the Gagaku of Tôgi Hideki Author(S): Terence Lancashire Reviewed Work(S): Source: Popular Music, Vol
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World Music or Japanese - The Gagaku of Tôgi Hideki Author(s): Terence Lancashire Reviewed work(s): Source: Popular Music, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Jan., 2003), pp. 21-39 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/853554 . Accessed: 29/05/2012 21:52 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Popular Music. http://www.jstor.org Popular Music (2003)Volume 22/1. CopyrightC) 2003 CambridgeUniversity Press, pp. 21-39. DOI:10.1017/S0261143003003027Printed in the United Kingdom World music or Japanese - the gagaku of T8gi Hideki TERENCE LANCASHIRE Abstract The term 'world music' usually conjures up images of musics from 'remote' corners of the world. However, that remoteness is not always geographicaland can, for example, be chronological.Togi Hideki, a former musician from the Imperial court in Japan, has sought to introduce court music - gagaku - to a wider audience through the reworkingof traditionalgagaku pieces and new compo- sitions for gagaku instruments. Gagaku boasts a history of over 1,200 years and its esoteric nature inhibits popular interest. Togi Hideki's popularised gagaku, on the other hand, has found a new audiencefor gagaku, and his music serves as a bridge introducing Japaneseback to a remotepart of Japanesemusical culture. Introduction The formal emergence of 'world music' in 1987 as a commercialgloss denoting a body of music which hitherto defied conventional categorisation- namely musics other than popular and classic forms from North America and Western Europe- or, alternatively,the incorporationof such musics into Westernpopular genres, has met with a variety of responses from musicologists/ethnomusicologists seeking to clarify the dynamics that underlie the production and reception of world musics and the related and sometimes indistinguishablegenres of 'new age' and 'healing'.l Regional case studies and overviews (e.g. Frith 1991; Keil and Feld 1994; Taylor 1997) often draw attention towards the relationshipbetween the West and the rest where production and presentationof non-Westernmusic has often meant some form of Western control in terms of 'discovery', production, marketing and distribution.Accusations of culturalexploitation and appropriationhave, therefore, often run centralto the debate on what appears to be yet another dimension of that unbalanced and uneasy relation between the first and third worlds. In reality, the question of who is exploiting whom is often a complicatedone as non-Westernmusicians find access to marketshitherto only dreamtof. Neverthe- less, in order for such musical projectsto be realised, financialbacking is essential and it is here that resources are, more often than not, concentratedin the West. Thus, a music flow from south to north and east to west seems to define the 'world music' equation. Yet, there are other players who, through cultural ambiguity, occupy an alternativearena less easily defined. Economic development in the Far East, coupled with rapid modernisation, has meant the emergence of countries which share similar economic goals, cultural interests and perceptions with the West but, resulting from other cultural differ- 21 22 TerenceLancashire ences, most obviously language, are not so often included in debates on musics both 'popular'and 'world'. In the Far East, one country which exemplifies this ambiguous position is Japan. From the end of the nineteenth century and into the first quarter of the twentieth century in particular,it served as a conduit receiving and in turn channel- ling various aspects of Western culture, including Western music, to its neighbour- ing countries. Today the ambiguity remains, as modes and practices rooted in the West have become an integral and indistinguishable part of daily life. Current trends in music, too, fall within a similarpattern, as parallelmovements to the West reiterate the power of superculturaldiscourses. Yet, although the discourses are recognisable,they also have their own peculiarities. This article focuses on the musical activities of Togi Hideki,2 a former member of the Music Division of the Imperial Household Agency in Japan. It examines his attempts to introduce gagaku- the music of the Imperial court - to a wider public through the creation of new, popular compositions or re- workings of established traditional forms. It looks at the response and percep- tions in Japan to his new 'gagaku' and the resulting obfuscation of the bound- aries between Japanese and 'world music' to which his music has contributed. In this respect this article resonates with ideas discussed by Mitsui Toru in his article, 'Domestic exoticism: a recent trend in Japanese popular music', where Mitsui discusses the 'exotic' appeal of Japanese traditional music, from Okinawa to the main islands, for a younger generation of Japanese who, as Mitsui sees it, are turning their eyes to the East as part of a search for their own Asian identity (Mitsui 1998, pp. 1-12). World music - a Japanese perspective Arjun Appadurai's use of the five -scapes - finanscape, mediascape, ethnoscape, technoscape and ideoscape - to conceptualise various seams of globalisation pro- duces a skewed picture when applied to Japan (Appadurai 1996, pp. 334). Japan appears to be very visible in the finanscape, technoscape and mediascape, if, in this last example, financial control and ownership of the media are included in its definition. However, in terms of influence - an outward flow of ideas or cultural traits - visibility in the global ideoscape and ethnoscape is, by contrast,minimal.3 Given the size of the Japanese music market and the direct control of both popular music and 'world music' through corporation giants such as Sony and Toshiba EMI, English language publications on 'world music' and popular music in Japan- thriving, viable industries in their own right - are few when compared to the attention that is directed towards Anglo-Americanpopular music. Popular Music devoted an issue to the Japanese scene in 1991 and a number of overviews of Japanese popular music have, at last, begun to emerge, particularlyfrom the 1980s on (Tsurumi 1987; Fujie 1989, 2001; Stanlaw 1989; Mitsui 1991, 1997, 2002; Sweeney 1991; Cahoon 1993; Hosokawa 1994;McClure 1998). Likewise, The most recent edition of WorldMusic The RoughGuide, aimed more at the mass market, provides a balanced account of the Japanesepopular music scene in the late 1990s (Broughtonand Ellingham2000, pp. 143-59). Nevertheless, from a Western stand- point, interest in Japanesepopular music tends to be more academic than popular. In his article, 'Not so big in Japan.Western pop music in the Japanesemarket', Guy de Launcey demonstratesthat Japanesepopular music coexists with its West- Worldmusic or Japanese 23 ern counterpartsand, in terms of CD sales, the music charts show complete market domination by the former rather than the latter (de Launcey 1995). Utada Hikaru, Mr. Children, and the highest earning J-pop performer today, Hamasaki Ayumi (figures released 17 May 2002), to name just a few of the top performingartists or groups in Japantoday, are household names and, as far as the Japanesestudents I teach, are certainlymore familiarfigures than Westernpop or rock acts. In terms of Slobin's 'imaginarylandscape' of supercultures,subcultures and intercultures,Japan's popular music occupies positions in all three (Slobin 1992).It is rooted in the Westernidiom being subjectto both superculturaland intercultural forces. And yet the music seldom travels beyond its borders other than to neigh- bouring East Asian countries.4In this respect,Japan's popular music can be seen as a global subculture making it possible for Utada Hikaru to lead a quiet existence as a student at Columbia University in the United States, returning for the occasional concert and even more occasional interview in Japan. 'World music' too occupies a place in the JapaneseCD store. Tower Records, HMV and Virgin Records,as in the cities of most Western countries, have become the major CD outlets in Osaka where I live. The classificationof music follows a 'supercultural'pattern of classic, rock and pop, jazz, 'new age', 'healing'and 'world music' but, in addition to these, what would be 'world music' from a Western perspective becomes 'J-pop' (Japanese pop - sometimes referred to as hogaku, 'Japanesemusic'), junhogaku,'pure Japanese music' - an alternative title to tra- ditional Japanesemusic, and sections for enkaand kayokyoku(Japanese popular bal- lads of the 1960s and 1970s).These occupy their own significant spaces within the geography of Tower records, Virgin and HMV. 'Worldmusic' in Japanincorporates the popular music from the neighbouring countries of Korea,China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. This is the music of the 'other' along with the staple diet of examples from the Indian sub-continent,Africa, the Caribbeanand Latin America. Yet, if 'world music' derives from a fascinationwith the other and sees new- ness in that which, in its indigenous environment,is rooted