Takahashi transforms traditional music

Takahashi transforms traditional music

By Y. Bintang Prakarsa

JAKARTA (JP): Many Asian musicians have preoccupied themselves
with the question of how to transform traditional music. In Java,
many innovations have concentrated on exploring new sounds
through new instruments or new ways of playing the gamelan.

At concerts for the Yogyakarta Gamelan Festival many groups of
musicians could be heard playing an amazing variety of
imaginative contraptions. It seemed that they were trying to
extend the meaning of gamelan in every direction imaginable.

Often, innovations like that are hailed as exciting and
original, when in fact they have no significant impact on the
musical structure of traditional gamelan itself. Tradition
remains untouched and untransformed.

Japanese composer Yuji Takahashi, whose visit to Indonesia was
supported by the Japan Foundation on the occasion of the Third
Art Summit Indonesia 2001 International Festival on Performing
Contemporary Arts, explores a different style.

He attempts to transform traditional music from within. He
uses its basic premise to create entirely new music with a new
philosophy.

His music still sounds very Japanese, though his use of the
traditional melody (Zen?) is infrequent, and the way he mixes
music and speech, even the simultaneous narration of different
texts or sentences, is obviously non-traditional. It's
surprising, then, to hear from the composer himself that his
understanding of music has nothing to do with Zen Buddhism.

While many Westerners seek inspiration and enlightenment by
studying Zen philosophy, he choose a different path. Lately he
has come into contact with meditational practices of Theravada
Buddhism, a branch of Buddhism that prospers in South and
Southeast Asia.

This, in turn, has influenced his musical practice. Music is
not a fixed object, but changes in relation with the environment.
Everything that happens outside -- the movements of the hands,
the sounds, etc. -- is drawn inside, while the player looks
inward in constant observation.

When observing, one tries to relate what is inside with what
is outside, and makes continuous adjustment.

The first session of Yuji Takahashi's concert with his group
Sora (Sky) at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta on Sept. 16 and Sept. 17
was a concert of mainly traditional instruments: sangen or
shamisen (lute), koto (zither) and flutes (the percussion were
more or less mixed). From the traditional, he takes the
techniques (such as fingering patterns of koto or flute playing
techniques) and fills them with new music.

His compositions for traditional instruments performed at the
concerts are based on this principle. The notation has to be
realized with improvisations. Therefore, no two performances are
alike, because in every performance players have to make
different sound utterances in concert with his or her colleagues'
moves.

He also expands the possibilities by incorporating foreign
techniques and patterns into his music. In the first piece,
Sangen, played by Kazuko Takada, there is even melodic fragments
resembling Arabic music and sounds taken from a Malaysian jaw's
harp.

The second session featured mixed media, including a slide
show. Here, the music is more outward-looking and
straightforward, and more appealing for those unfamiliar with the
traditional Japanese idioms. Illuminated with projected artwork
by Taeko Tomiyama, the two works speak more direct and
immediately stir emotions.

The Prayer in Memory: Kwangju, May 1980 was a succinct, moving
interpretation of the people's uprising at Kwangju, South Korea,
against the U.S.-backed military following the assassination of
the authoritarian president Park Chung-hee.

Tomiyama's mostly black-and-white woodcuts and quotations from
Korean folk songs and student protest songs enhance the poignancy
of the music, played on piano by Takahashi with Yukihiko
Nishizawa playing flute.

One of the songs is a children's song about the peasant revolt
at the end of the 19th century. A song of hope for those who were
defeated.

The Fox Story: Illusion by the Cherry Blossoms and
Chrysanthemums is another story about Japan in the 20th century.
Here, the paintings are more exuberant, with foxes marching to
war and defeat, and the rise of prosperity that in turn attracts
protests by Asian countries.

The music is also for piano and flute, and full of musical
borrowings, quotations and allusions.

A passage including a Western military horn call and Japanese
pentatonic song (while the slides show the march of foxes waving
Japanese flags) is quite obvious symbolism.

Others, like the Korean songs or the Burmese harp techniques
transformed for the piano, are presented more subtly. This is not
music of victory.

The hero is a young village boy who joined the army and was
killed during World War II. Becoming a ghost, he sees how Japan
prospers. He also sees a boat carrying people from Asian
countries, protesting and bringing new winds of change to Japan.

Takahashi, who was born in Tokyo in 1938 and learned both
Western (with Iannis Xenakis among others) and traditional
Japanese music, says that what he does is only open doors that
have been closed for centuries. Back in ancient times, musical
cultures were more open and prepared for cross-cultural
influences. Then each tradition closed itself and developed
along narrow paths.

"If we can step back a little to learn about musical cross-
fertilization in ancient times, then we will be able to enrich
our music with many musical traditions that are available,"
Takahashi said.