Interview with Otomo Yoshihide, The Mastery of Guitar & Turntable Achieved in His Mid-60s Part.1 (4/4)

2024-02-28 author:Narushi Hosoda

A change in the way I perceive improvisation

–In a conversation with Mr. Sakamoto in that radio program, you mentioned the Otoasobi no Kai and said that it made you rethink about “freedom.” Did your perception of improvisation change around that time?

Otomo: Yeah, it did pretty drastically. This may sound strange, but until then I thought that improvisation had to be done properly as improvisation. In other words, improvisation must not have included conventional melodies, harmonies, and rhythms. But since I started working with the Otoasobi no Kai, I have become less concerned with such things. Before, when I worked on “improvisation,” I used to think about how to incorporate various histories that were in different contexts from improvisation, but then I realized that my approach of focusing on improvisation itself was very biased. When I faced the children in that group, nothing would get started if I brought my history as the main focus. So, I changed my mindset and started thinking about the people I was playing with.

Also, it was a time when Mr. Sakamoto began to re-evaluate the improvisational music he used to play, so I feel that we were both influenced by each other. Of course, it is interesting to play improvised music as it is, but it was no longer a time when that was all that mattered. And this also coincided with the time when I started playing the guitar again. Perhaps because of this, I came to honestly believe that I don’t necessarily have to play the guitar with an obsession with noise. It didn’t matter if I tuned it or not anymore. I think that was a massive shift for me.

–In other words, rather than aiming for something new aesthetically through improvisation, you have come to emphasize communication between people as a methodology?

Otomo: I think so. Improvisation is like a conversation, and new things may come out of it, but that is not the only purpose. Besides, I have come to think that we should not place too much value on improvisation.

Well, when I say “conversation,” I don’t mean that you have to respond to the sound that another person makes with specific types of sounds that would correspond to it. It is a state of free exchange with the person you are performing with, with or without progressions. I thought I could do that more freely on the guitar than on the turntable. With a turntable, I am limited in how I respond, and above all, setting it up takes some doing, but with a guitar, I felt a bit more lighthearted.

Of course, it was my guitar, no matter how far I went, so I felt that frustration. However, in the past, I had to think a lot when I played free jazz, and I couldn’t play without having what I did with Mr. Takayanagi in mind. Since the 2010s, I haven’t thought about that too much, and I’ve moved toward doing what I can do. In the process, I became able to do various things frexibly.

“The situation I’m in now may not last 10 years.”

–What do you feel is the joy of playing the guitar for you now?

Otomo: I don’t know if this is good or bad, and I don’t know if this is the right way to put it, but my performance is getting better and better, which is fun. I become able to do more and more things that I couldn’t do before in terms of speed and accuracy of the performance, and techniques related to audio feedback. I have no idea whether this is good or bad musically, but I can’t resist the desire for such fun.

As long as I am physically able to do so, I will focus thoroughly on improving my techniques, such as increasing the speed and the ways I approach the sounds. Of course, there are physical limitations, but I feel like I can go further and further now. That’s why I decided to record this album, Solo Works 1 Guitar and Turntable. The fact that my opportunities to perform in front of people were drastically reduced due to the pandemic also motivated me to record. However, I also had a great sense of urgency that this situation I am in now may not last ten years, or even worse, it may only be ephemeral. Because people of my generation and a little older than myself have died one after another, especially in the past few years.

People like Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yukihiro Takahashi, and Michiro Endo, with whom I launched Project FUKUSHIMA!, passed away around the age of 70. Considering the fact that I am 64 years old now, I may not be alive 10 years from now. Due to this realization, I became even more motivated to release a solo improvisation album, which I have not released often. This is not only the case with my guitar but also with turntables. Technically, guitar and turntables are totaly different, but I’ve been able to play turntables far more freely than before, so I wanted to record both of them in their current state.

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