interview Otomo Yoshihide Post-March 11, 2011 Musical Explorations Showing “The Thing that Isn’t That” (5/7)
interview and organized by Ito Junnosuke
published in Beyond Boundaries: Comparative Civilizations Now 23 (2023)
translated by Suzuki Yoshiyuki and Cathy Fishman(Futarri)
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 wrotethis, 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 Wagosan 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.
