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Interview : Otomo Yoshihide, The Mastery of Guitar & Turntable Achieved in His Mid-60s, Part.1 (1/4)
2024-02-28
author:Narushi Hosoda

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The first part of an extensive interview with Otomo Yoshihide, a musician who has built a unique career spanning more than 35 years. This part focuses on his practices as a guitarist.

Otomo Yoshihide
Otomo Yoshihide is a musician born in 1959 who has been creating a wide variety of music from improvisation and noise pieces to pop music, always simultaneously and independently, and performs all over the world. As a film music producer, he has composed music for more than 100 films. After the earthquake disaster, he launched Project FUKUSHIMA! in his hometown Fukushima, and has continued various practices up to the present. He is also the director of the renewal of the signature summer festival in Fukushima, “Waraji Matsuri”.

Musician Otomo Yoshihide started his live music performances in earnest in the late 1980s and has since built a one-of-a-kind career spanning more than 35 years. He has been active in the independent noise/improvisation scene, has composed music for numerous films and TV dramas, and has been involved in public participatory project, as well as creating installations and serving as director of art festivals. In August 2023, Solo Works 1 Guitar and Turntable, a fully improvised studio album he recorded as a guitarist and turntablist, was released.

Few musicians can perform as original as Otomo Yoshihide, both as a guitarist and turntablist. Solo Works 1, an album consisting of 20 small tracks, is a clear record of where he is today. In the first part of this interview, we focus on Otomo’s musical practices as a guitarist. We asked him why he started playing guitar again and how he came to establish his own distinctive style.


The reason why Otomo started playing guitar again

–You first picked up a guitar when you were in middle school, but since then, your relationship with the guitar has undergone various changes, such as learning under legendary jazz guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi when you were in your 20s, and building your own guitar that only produces noise. How do you view your career as a guitarist?

Otomo Yoshihide (Otomo): When I studied under Mr. Takayanagi from 1980 to 1986, I had yet to make a name for myself and was just a guitarist in the making. After I left Mr. Takayanagi, I thought I had failed and was determined not to make it as a guitarist anymore. So, from the end of the 1980s to the 1990s, I decided to use turntables instead. However, I wanted to keep the guitar element, so I dared to use a guitar I made by myself. I also wanted to make an ostensible excuse for not being a “guitarist” by using the guitar as a noise generator that could not be tuned.

It was around 2000 that this situation changed. It is true that Naruyoshi Kikuchi and Yasuhiro Yoshigaki always encouraged me to play the guitar, but more than that, I honestly wanted to play the guitar, which I had been holding back for so long. So I started playing guitar again around 2000, thinking that it would be okay to play guitar as long as I didn’t try to play like everyone else. So after that, I officially started my career as a guitarist.

–You could have stuck to using the guitar as a tabletop instrument and a noise generator like Keith Rowe, but why did you decide to play guitar in a normal manner?

Otomo: It was because you did not necessarily need a guitar to make a noise generator. I could do it with a turntable and all kinds of self-made gadgets I made back then. I still wanted to play a standard tuning guitar. In the first place, I joined Mr. Takayanagi’s class because I wanted to work as a so-called guitarist. After leaving him, I gradually became more liberated from a mentoring relationship with Mr. Takayanagi, so I decided again to play guitar, not as a noise generator.

–What guitarists were you listening to at that time? Were there any albums that struck you?

Otomo: It was when I was with Mr. Takayanagi that I listened to and studied a variety of guitarists’ albums. I just listened to many different music. When I restarted playing the guitar, I had to start practicing it all over again, so I was re-listening to many classics like Jim Hall. Of course, that does not mean I wanted to play guitar orthodoxly, so I just referred to how he makes harmonies instead of adopting his playing style. My aim was to become able to play guitar in my own unique way.

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