interview Otomo Yoshihide Post-March 11, 2011 Musical Explorations Showing “The Thing that Isn’t That” (3/7)
interview and organized by Ito Junnosuke
published in Beyond Boundaries: Comparative Civilizations Now 23 (2023)
translated by Suzuki Yoshiyuki and Cathy Fishman(Futarri)
I like ondo because it’s loose
Q: I think you’ve also written a lot of ondo [a type of Japanese folk music].Ondo stirs up a lot of excitement, too, doesn’t it?
Otomo: Right, ondo does, too. I think it must be an extension of Orchestra FUKUSHIMA!, since I’m doing it within that current. But I personally think ondo has no power. Does that kind of thing have power? Like starting a popular uprising with bon odori [music and dance performed during the bon holiday]
and going to raid the Japanese Parliament building—I don’t think it has that kind of power. Unfortunately. If you look at it just in terms of musical power, there may be a big contrast between ondo and Derek Bailey or the Otoasobi Project, for instance, but I really don’t like it when something develops in just one direction—like if people say Derek Bailey-style music is good, and then do nothing but that. It’s OK if an individual does that. But, for instance, if you’re teaching and you say, “Everyone try to make music like Derek Bailey—it’s the music of the future”…I really dislike that way of thinking. I mean, that’s an extreme way to put it. I don’t like it when one specific thing has a lot of power and sweeps over everything else. Whatever it is. Whether it’s something good or something awful. Actually, there isn’t anything that has no power. Even Derek Bailey—I might say he has no power, but he has a lot of power—look at how many musicians he’s influenced all over the world. But what’s important is that—this is a really trendy and obnoxious way to put it—I don’t like something unless it takes an approach that doesn’t deny the existence of a variety of things. So I can’t stand it when something ends up being all the same. So I like ondo because it’s loose. Originally I didn’t like it very much. I thought ondo itself was kind of corny.
Q: When did you start writing ondo?
Otomo: In 2013. Around the time of Amachan. Michiro [Endo] kept saying he wanted to do ondo, so I gave in and wrote something. When I did, it was interesting. I gradually started thinking, I like this type of music. It was when I went and saw the actual scene—it was more about that than about the structure of the music. I’ve written this in various places, but when we play ondo, we’re performing live. People are singing on the yagura [bandstand tower], people are playing on stage, everyone is dancing. Normally people think of the audience as customers, and the customers watch the musicians and singers. But when you
do ondo, no one is watching them at all—probably not one person. Everyone is looking in different directions and dancing. I mean, if anyone is watching something, the people who don’t do the dance well are watching the good dancers. And everyone is having a great time in their own way. Also, ondo goes around in a circle, so if there’s a center, it’s the middle of the circle, but absolutely no one is looking at the middle of that center. When it’s over, people clap with their hands up in the air, in a really natural way. When I saw that, I thought, in terms of power, this is the ideal kind. No one is interested in looking at me, the person performing. That’s why seeing the actual setting made me think ondo was one of the things I really wanted to do—it wasn’t so much the style or structure of the music itself. So in 2013 I started really getting into ondo. I’m still into it.
Q: Sometimes there are songs in ondo. In your interview with Hosoda-san, you said you had some hesitation about writing songs and can’t write them unless there’s a reason. What about in ondo?
Otomo: In ondo, there’s a clear reason. There are various reasons for writing a song. I get a request, or I write an ondo song for a summer festival, for instance. Or I write something as a TV theme song. Now I get commissions from schools to write school songs. If there isn’t that kind of reason, I can’t do it. It’s almost always a request. Even though I have music in me, I don’t have any reason at all to write a song. It’s like what I was saying before. I have no reason to use a song to do something, but I can write one if I get a request. I [think about] what the person is aiming for and what is needed in the situation. For “Eejanaika ondo,” everyone contributed lyrics, and I actually put them together. I say there’s no reason to sing it, but it’s very clearly a parody song. There’s really a lot in it. It might be the first time—that’s what I thought. But I can do that kind of thing because I don’t think it has power.
Q: You mean the nature of ondo music, you might say—the way it comes about through a balance with the nature of the setting.
Otomo: Right. People are smiling and dancing and singing “Eejanaika, eejanaika” [“It doesn’t matter”]—it feels really irresponsible. Something like that is possible for me, but if it came to writing a more aggressive kind of song, I don’t think I could. I couldn’t and I wouldn’t want to.
Q: In around 2003, “sound demos” (sound demonstrations) started happening in Japan. Later, at demonstration sites, I think rap-style calls emerged within the call and response. What are your thoughts about the musical approach in sound demos like that?
Otomo: I have no problem at all with the thinking of people who do sound demos, and I always think those people are going to dislike me when I say this, but I can’t help wondering how it’s different from the right wing. Right-wing people have been doing something like sound demos for ages—playing awful music like military songs and things like that. I can’t stand that—I really hate it. It’s intimidating and frightening. Everyone was delighted when sound demos started, but for me they brought back memories of right-wing sound trucks [from which sound was played at high volume on loudspeakers], so I couldn’t feel that way. Of course, the content is different. The content of the songs and the type of music may be different, but… I don’t know. I don’t like that approach. If it were a bon dance, it would be all right.
Something that isn’t Takayanagi-san
Q: Going back to what we were saying before, a feature of group improvisation performance like the Otoasobi Project and Orchestra FUKUSHIMA! is that professionals and amateurs play together. Were there any references or influences from other people behind this idea?
Otomo: Actually, this was—hmm, I thought there might be something, but maybe not. Of course, in terms of having a lot of amateurs participate, there are plenty of examples, like the Scratch Orchestra and Cornelius Cardew’s experiments in the UK, but I hardly referred to them.
Q: Recently on TV I saw you covering music by Toru Takemitsu. (7) Was there something inherited from Takemitsu-san’s way of thinking, for instance? This is just my guess, but I thought it was probably not Takayanagi-san.
Otomo: But I don’t really have any memory of whether or not Takemitsu-san said something like that. Also, even though I really like his way of thinking and what he did—I kind of let this slip out on the program—I don’t really like it when a choir or something is singing. Maybe it’s partly because I don’t like choral music that much to begin with. I think, why don’t they sing in a chest voice? Choirs are all right, but I think it would be better if they sang in a basic chest voice. So the reference isn’t Takemitsu-san, either. On the contrary, I think I did refer to Takayanagi-san—in the sense of [doing] something that isn’t Takayanagi-san. Because he strongly rejected amateur music. I loved Takayanagi-san too much, and that became a driving force in the period when I rebelled against him. If I hadn’t rebelled against Takayanagi-san, I might not have had the idea of music performed with people
from the general public. On the other hand, it wasn’t so much about a reference —it was that, thinking about it more and more, I could only conclude that music was better when it wasn’t made only by professionals. Physically, though, I
thought it was more comfortable to play with professionals only. It feels great to work really smoothly with good musicians. I didn’t like the idea of having untalented people join in, to be honest. I often make this comparison, but it’s
more fun for people like Olympic athletes to run with people on their own level —if a slow runner suddenly comes in, they have to match the person’s speed and it’s annoying, right? That’s basically how I looked at it. My thinking was kind of elitist—in those days. Even now, I fully appreciate how enjoyable it is when a bunch of athletes let loose and go at incredible speed. On the other hand, the more I think about it, the more I think that isn’t enough. But at first I didn’t have a foothold—I didn’t really know what working with “regular” people involved. Also, there was no opportunity. I think it was the Otoasobi Project that gave me the chance to really experience that—to realize that you can’t underestimate regular people, that they’re amazing. It was probably around that time that my thinking gradually started changing. But even before that, I’d sensed the need for it. I’m certain about that. But I don’t know why that happened. It might have been about Takayanagi-san.
