Wagakki and Japanese Popular Music: the Perception of Music and Cultural Identity
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STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies Wagakki and Japanese Popular Music: The Perception of Music and Cultural Identity Master’s Thesis in Japan Studies Spring 2020 Supervisor: Gunnar Jinmei Linder Author: Charly Rivel 2 Abstract This study focuses on the connection between cultural identity and Japanese popular music. It contains conducted interviews and semantic analyses on musicians who use Japanese traditional instruments and Western instruments in their repertoire. It uses performativity theory as theoretical framework. The analyses are divided in to the three levels of Sauter’s phenomenological path: the symbolic level, the sensory level and the artistic level. It concludes how musicians in Japan perceive their own musical identity, and gives insights on the role of cultural identity in Japanese music. The potential significance is to contribute to identity studies using a performativity perspective as explained above, and thereby elucidating both musicological and historical aspects. 3 4 Acknowledgments I want to start by thanking my supervisor professor Gunnar Jinmei Linder for his immense help in guiding and supporting me. He also introducing me to all the musicians whom without this study could not have been conducted. I also want to thank The Scholarship Foundation for Studies of Japanese Society and Fond for the Promotion of Swedish-Japanese relations for supporting this research economically. To professor Ewa Machotka and my fellow MA students for supporting and giving me great feedback. IZA Asakusa Guest house staff for helping me with printouts and answering all my questions. Finally, I want to thank Obama Akihito, Motonaga Hiromu, Nagasu Tomoka, Curtis Patterson and Kaminaga Daisuke for letting me do the interviews and being so kind to me. Thank you all, The Author May 26, 2020 5 6 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 9 1.1. Aim ................................................................................................................................................ 9 1.2. Contextualizing Japanese Traditional Instruments ..................................................................... 10 1.3. Literature review ......................................................................................................................... 11 2. Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 15 2.1. Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................................... 15 2.2. Method ........................................................................................................................................ 18 2.3. Material ....................................................................................................................................... 19 3. Wagakki and Japanese Popular Music ................................................................................. 23 3.1. Obama Akihito ............................................................................................................................ 23 3.1.1. The Symbolic Level ............................................................................................................. 23 3.1.2. The Sensory Level ............................................................................................................... 25 3.1.3 The Artistic Level ................................................................................................................. 26 3.2. Motonaga Hiromu ....................................................................................................................... 27 3.2.1. The Symbolic Level ............................................................................................................. 27 3.2.2. The Sensory Level ............................................................................................................... 29 3.2.3. The Artistic Level ................................................................................................................ 30 3.3. Nagasu Tomoka .......................................................................................................................... 32 3.3.1.The Symbolic Level .............................................................................................................. 32 3.3.2. The Sensory Level ............................................................................................................... 34 3.3.3. The Artistic Level ................................................................................................................ 35 3.4. Curtis Patterson ........................................................................................................................... 36 3.4.1. The Symbolic Level ............................................................................................................. 36 3.4.2. The Sensory Level ............................................................................................................... 38 3.4.3. The Artistic Level ................................................................................................................ 39 3.5. Kaminaga Daisuke ...................................................................................................................... 40 3.5.1. The Symbolic Level ............................................................................................................. 40 3.5.2. The Sensory Level ............................................................................................................... 42 3.5.3. The Artistic Level ................................................................................................................ 44 4. Discussion and Conclusions ................................................................................................. 47 4.1. Discussion ................................................................................................................................... 47 4.2. Conclusions ................................................................................................................................. 49 4.3. Implications and Further Research ............................................................................................. 50 4.4. Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 50 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 53 Appendix .................................................................................................................................. 57 7 Conventions Romanization of Japanese in this study is transcribed using the Hepburn system with words in italic letters. Long vowels are written with a macron above the letter. For example, shirō-kan, where the letter “o” is pronounced with a long vowel. Japanese instrument names are written with the first letter capitalized. For example, Shakuhachi. Japanese names are written according to Japanese conventions, with the family name first and the given name last, in the text as well as in both footnotes and bibliography. Western names are written according to Western conventions. References are given using Chicago Manual of Style seventeenth edition. Titles in Japanese are translated to English in parenthesis after the original title. All translations are done by me if not indicated otherwise. 8 1. Introduction 1.1. Aim Japanese popular music is today acknowledged as one of the largest music industries in the world. Western influences on Japanese popular music are today part of its identity and it can be traced back to the Meiji restoration (1868), when Japan established the arts of the West, and with it, Western music education as part of a new Japanese school system.1 To contextualize what is also modern and traditional the definition of the modern in this study is Japan after the Meiji restoration whereas the traditional is Japan before the Meiji restoration. Since World War II Japan has had big issues with how its identity has been perceived, with neighboring countries still feeling anger and suspicion towards Japan and its agendas.2 Moreover, a change in its identity may today also be perceived as successful where Japanese foreign policies since post- war are portraying its country as one of the most peacekeeping countries in the world.3 Japanese music in the post-war era has also been an interest of Western research. For example, musicologist Carolyn S. Stevens thinks that Japanese music can be divided into two areas: one connected to Japanese traditions and the other to J-pop and anime themes.4 Stevens also points out that cultural identity in Japanese popular music, among both Japanese and non-Japanese listeners, is dependent on a constructed tradition as a response to Westernization or modernization.5 Stevens says that in Japan particular music concepts can through a constructed tradition be introduced, allowing a separation of what is traditional Japanese musicology and Western musicology. Moreover, she claims that because of this separation Japanese popular music is often described as a fusion of these two concepts. 6 However, she also points