Joe Hisaishi's Musical Contributions to Hayao Miyazaki's Animated Worlds

Joe Hisaishi’s musical contributions to Hayao Miyazaki’s Animated Worlds A Division III Project By James Scaramuzzino "1 Hayao Miyazaki, a Japanese film director, producer, writer, and animator, has quickly become known for some of the most iconic animated films of the late twentieth to early twenty first century. His imaginative movies are known for fusing modern elements with traditional Japanese folklore in order to explore questions of change, growth, love, and home. His movies however, would, not be what they are today without the partnership he formed early in his career with Mamoru Fujisawa a music composer who goes by the professional name of Joe Hisaishi. Their partnership formed while Hayao Miyazaki was searching for a composer to score his second animated feature film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984). Hi- saishi had an impressive resume having graduated from Kunitachi College of Music, in addition to studying directly under the famous film composer Masaru Sato who is known for the music in Seven Samurai and early Godzilla films. Hisaishi’s second album, titled Information caught the attention of Miyazaki, and Hisaishi was hired to score Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984). With its huge success consequently every other prom- inent movie of Miyazaki’s since. (Koizumi, Kyoko. 2010) Hisaishi’s minimalistic yet evocative melodies paired with Miyazaki’s creative im- agery and stories proved to be an incredible partnership and many films of theirs have been critically acclaimed, such as Princess Mononoke (1997), which was the first animated film to win Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards; or Spirited Away (2001), which was the first anime film to win an American Academy Award. So why are these movies so compelling? Why have they captured the hearts of a worldwide audience? The animation and stories that are told are very beautiful, however I believe an often overlooked aspect of these films is the music, and the overall at- "2 mosphere of the animated world that the score helps to create. Therefore I have set out to analyze Joe Hisaishi’s musical contributions to Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films. To do so I will take a look at some of their most celebrated pieces: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Princess Mononoke (1997), and Spirited Away (2001). I chose these three films because the stories are all relatively similar, in that something happens which forces the protagonist on a journey to rebalance the world. Because the stories are similar, the use of thematic music material is relatively similar as well. By looking into these examples we can start to gain a better understanding of Hisaishi’s role in cre- ating these rich atmospheres. Some common elements that we will be looking at are Hisaishi’s use of thematic transformation, instrumentation, stylistic approaches, and a melodic analysis of repeated themes. Princess Mononoke (1997) This film follows Ashitaka, a prince of a small tribe called the Imishi. One day his village gets invaded by a demon from a far off land, which curses Ashitaka to die a slow painful death. In order to find a cure Ashitaka leaves his tribe to find the great forest spirit, who is rumored to be able to save him. But what Ashitaka finds on his journey is that this curse that he suffers from has been bred from a war that has been waging between humans and the forest, and that in order to cure himself he must first help resolve the conflicts in the world that are breeding this curse. The story takes place in Feudal Japan, probably around the 16th or 17th century based on the presence of matchlock rifles, which were brought to Japan by European countries around 1549 (Baker, Mike Maikeru. 2016). This blending of cultures in the "3 world of the film is also reflected in the music, which mainly uses traditional Japanese melodies with traditional Western instrumentation. A significant amount of the music is written in a Dorian mode. There is also a heavy use of pentatonic movement which is a classic characteristic of traditional Japanese folk music. This collision of the Dorian mode, which was not commonly used in early Japan, with traditional Japanese folk melodies also adds another layer to the conflict that is appearing on screen (Koizumi, Kyoko 2010). One could argue that the Western instrumentation is the standard ap- proach to film composition and that this observation is digging too far, however I believe that the Western instrumentation is important to take note of because of the presence of traditional Japanese melodies and rhythms in almost every piece of music on the score. This in turn makes the non-standard traditional instruments, such as those in a Western orchestra, stand out. Although Europeans are never present in the film, you can see and hear their influence in almost every scene. Similar to other Miyazaki / Hisaishi collaborations there is a theme that is introduced at the very beginning of the film, (titled “The Legend Of Ashitaka”) which sets the scene for the entire world of the film. [Example #1: main melodic sequence from “The Legend Of Ashitaka”] "4 1 Melodic pieces of the theme in Example #1 are taken, and elaborated on in other pieces of music throughout the film. For example in the “Legend of Ashitaka” the melody played on a flute (which is shown above) from 1:27 - 1:39 also appears a bit later in the movie in the piece titled “The Journey to the West” from 0:58 - 1:06. That same melody can be heard later in the film in a track titled “The Land of the Impure” from 1:14 - 1:32. This bit of borrowing from the main theme can be heard in almost every track on the OST (Orig- inal Soundtrack), appearing in many different contexts and instrumentations. Since this theme was introduced at the very beginning of the film, it gives the audience member a sense of home, and when it appears in a context very far from home it produces an emotion of yearning for something unattainable. This feeling that this theme produces is a crucial element to understanding Ashitaka and his place in all of the conflicts in the animated world. Additionally a sense of growth is created as we see and hear Ashitaka travel through all of these different environments, which makes the full return of Ashitaka’s theme in the middle of the movie so much more powerful. For example at 49:47 Ashita- ka is so frustrated by the constant fighting of the humans and the forest who are refus- ing to listen to each other that he decides to put himself at risk and physically intervene, knocking both Lady Eboshi and Princess Mononoke unconscious and separating them. This scene is so powerful because Ashitaka, whose musical theme has been struggling to be heard up until this point (besides at the beginning), only appearing faintly here and there, comes in at full volume and Ashitaka finally gains some control of the situation. 1 All transcriptions unless stated otherwise are transcribed by the present author, James Scara- muzzino. "5 The melody of this theme in Example #1 appears to be written in F natural minor until measure 4 when a D natural appears (the raised 6th scale degree of the natural minor scale which is the defining note of the Dorian mode), and reveals that the melody is actually in F Dorian. This melody is written in a manner which resembles a traditional Japanese folk tune, where melodic fragments or “words” are framed between two intervals a fourth apart. Fumio Koizumi, a scholar of traditional Japanese music, called these framework of fourths “nuclear tones”. In linguistics, “nuclear tones” refers to the sylla- bles at the beginning and end of a word. These intervals of fourths serve a central melodic function while the notes in between the “nuclear tones” function as leading tones, passing tones, upper or lower neighbor tones, etc. (Hughes, David W. 2008). Below is an example of a Japanese Folk tune titled “Yama no Uta” [Example #2: Yama no Uta] [Transcription from “Traditional Folk Song In Modern Japan” pg. 135] In this tune we can clearly see the movement of fourths all throughout this piece. In measure 1 the first note A moves to a D in the second measure (this movement is not a direct fourth but displays the “nuclear tone” function), which immediately jumps up another fourth to a G. In measure 5 the fourth from G to D appears again this time de- scending, which leads us to an A in measure 7 (this is another example of a “nuclear "6 tone). Then up a fourth to a D, and then back down a fourth again to the A in measure 8 (also a “nuclear tone”) to close the phrase. In the theme from Princess Mononoke, “The Legend of Ashitaka” (Example #1) this movement of fourths can be seen in almost every measure. For example: in measure 1, the intervals are a fourth followed by a fifth, then in the next measure C moves down a fourth to a G (this is not a direct fourth but is an example of a “nuclear tone” and its function). Then in the third measure the first note is another C which moves up this time to an F (another “nuclear tone”). And in the next measure an E moves down a fourth to a B (yet another “nuclear tone”), etc. There are two pieces of music that feature vocals.

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