ALL1441 University of Minnesota

I found Yano's article was interesting where it discussed the significance of the 'modern music', and how it was both enthusiastic about and disapproving of the new modernity of Japan. During the Meiji era, 'western elements such as diatonic scales, strophic forms, harmonization, and instrumentation' had already begun to be taught in both the public school system and the military, and by the middle of the Taisho period, these things had expanded into the general public and thus popular songs of the day. And even with the Japanese styles of storytelling, themes and verses mixed in the the already established western style of music, it's clear that the west had a very large influence on Japanese music during that time.
Add onto that the heightened sense of modernization and the Japanese people's enthusiasm for anything western at the time, I imagine it would make the newly modernized cites incredibly appealing to some and uninviting or even offensive to others who see the new westernized Japan as lowering the traditional Japanese image. Yano explains this through the investigation of songs from that era, such as “Tokyo bushi,” “Tokyo koshinkyoku,” and “Korokke no uta,” among others. He describes various ways that these and other songs either support or refute modernity, often times even within the same song, as in “Tokyo bushi.”
It's easy to tell that the singer is discontent with modernity when they say it straight out, but I was more interested in the more subtle ways of ridiculing that some other songs accomplished. “Tokyo koshinkyoku” expresses discontent by “describing the empty escapism of urban life. Here life rushes by in a flurry of activity, masking the loneliness that lies at it's root.” The example lyrics Yano took from that song were indeed more subtle and perhaps poetic than “Tokyo bushi.” And there were also songs that had a lighter approach, mocking urban life and modernization in an almost comedic set of lyrics, such as “Korokke no uta.” After reading that song, I found it rather ridiculous. Another interesting point I found was that a lot of songs mocked certain people, like the mobo, and not just the population in general.

The most interesting dynamic that I see in this paper is the evolution of the typical Japanese singer from Enkashi to radio star, and from anti-government songs to songs reinforcing the new government and social structure of Japan. The Enkashi originally singing songs against the new government and its emphasis on western social and economic restructuring later begin singing songs written for the popular ear and selling the sheet music that accompanies it. This job was considered low class and its lifestyle was difficult. The songs sung by these Enkashi are then used by the new recording industry and radio to tap into the market that the Enkashi had already created. After this the recording industries begin creating their own songs and start to pull away from the Enka toward more western modern song. At the same time radio and records begin to take the market traditionally held by the Enkashi, eventually forcing them out of business. To add to the irony the singers of this new medium enjoy a high social status, distinctly different from that of the Enkashi. In a further perversion these new singers help build a market with the help of NHK, the national radio, that will influence the entire population of Japan towards the new western governmental ideals of urban expansion and eventually towards war, the very things the Enkashi originally sang against. But NHK did much more than control the media for some 30 years it also forged a new sense of the Japanese nation and the 'modern'. As discussed in the paper, the songs that played on the radio promoted a new Japan, not just the good but also the bad, but more importantly than that it set the stage on which modern life was understood and interacted with. The radio became a way for the urban so communicate with the rural and vice versa whether for good or bad. The rural learned of the Urban in songs link 'Tokyo March' and the urban stayed tenuously connected to the rural through the idealized furusato, or home town. I must just say that this is and interesting story with a lot of good information and teaching that are relevant today as we look at an ever increasing mass media and its goals in informing us.

Adrian Johannessen Hawkins
ALL3920 Anderson

Week #3 “ Thinking Popular Music”

This week again I’m going to focus on the Frith selection.
Frith’s paper is an interesting one because he uses not only a music theory approach to dissecting music, but he brings in philosophy, musicology, sociology, and history while illustrating the deeper thoughts which composers convey through their works. Although there may be various interpretations of Frith’s work, my personal opinion is that there is a noticeable shift in direction. Frith has moved his selection from High/ Low culture into more importantly who constitutes as a listener and one who is a listener of distinction (pg. 66 course packet). Frith is further supporting one of the predominate issues from the first selection in which we read, “What and who makes decisions about what constitutes as High brow, Low brow. And that there is more of a blur between high/ low culture than a distinct line (or even none at all)”. It’s almost as if Frith is building upon past argumentations to further support his standpoint. I do like his thought process and how he validates his critical points, however, at the same time I find myself disliking how he continually flows in and out of his “life experiences”. It just baffles me as a reader because I do not fully understand the significance or what point he is trying to make.
On (pg. 68, course packet) He talks about music first “beginning described in terms of space rather than time”. I have no idea, and could not even pinpoint the meaning behind this statement (if it were art, or a sculpture I might have been able to). His other point being that music can be interpreted as a “score” (pg. 70) or an “infinite number of performances”. I can comprehend what he means when he is explaining it, but I can’t figure out why he is using it as a main point. I have yet to grasp his deeper understanding.
When Frith begins describing music’s power to create sadness as oppose to making the individual actually sad, I instantly wanted to reject and disprove his statement. However when critically thinking about it, his point was made to an extent. I have never been sad/ happy/ energetic because of listening to music but rather have only felt that way because of the music. So in turn this means music to a certain extent can influence our behavior and attitudes, but it is us (each individual human) that must interpret and elicit a response.

I apologize for what will be a decidedly narrow focus on Frith’s reading this week, but one comment in particular set me off.

Frith’s Meaning of Music seems to focus entirely on a “musical experience” (Frith 251) that is possessed wholly by the listener. I found it particularly odd that the relationship between production and reception is largely ignored and instead he focuses on explaining the problematic descriptions of “understanding music” and the subsequent distinction between high and low culture listeners.

In his opening examples Frith claims “The error in high cultural attitudes is the condescending assumption that popular listening describes a quite different sort of experience” (Frith 252). I was initially hesitant to grant him this premise, but the following example he offered was the perfect refutation of what Frith himself was trying to claim. Frith quotes Nicholas Cooks claim--presumably of the distinction between high and low culture listening--as the intellectualism in music he aims to argue against. He then proceeds to cite another example (I believe to also be Cook, though the notes page citing this source is missing from my course reader) of an intellectual interpretation of Led Zeppelin’s “The Crunge” and uses it as a foil to his argument. Frith asks “Is such understanding necessary?” (Frith 253) and proceeds to explain that he is a well versed rock credit who could offer no theoretical account of the value of music.

It is my contention that this point does not illustrate a short-coming in the argument for high and low culture distinction in music, but rather a short-coming in Frith’s understanding of music. At the risk of sounding elitist and turning my argument into an ad hominem, Frith just doesn’t fully understand music. In an interview on his professed love of music he was asked if he had any musical ability of his own. He responded saying, “No...I took piano lessons but I never found it enjoyable. I can’t play any instruments.” ( http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article6814761.ece ).

Art is context, and by ignoring the context and the music theory behind music, a listener (such as Frith) will have an entirely different experience than a person who recognizes and listens for these aspects of the music. By ignoring the fact that “The Crunge” is a funk parody a listener becomes deaf to the entire process by which the music was created. When I listen to “The Crunge” I laugh at Robert Plant mocking a man who is often hailed as the inventor of the bridge, and instead casts him as a man simply directing his band to take him to it; a listener without this knowledge may draw any number of conclusions as to what the lyrics are about, but they certainly wouldn’t conclude this. When I listen to John Bonham start in a triplet compound time signature (9/8) and then slide between simple signatures and back into complex signatures adding a quintuplet (5/8) I sit back and listen in awe; a listener who had never played the drums may simply wonder why he or she cannot quite seem to tap their foot in time to the song. When I hear Jimmy Page play sixteenth note major sevenths in perfect time with fantastic tone as a distillation of his perception of funk I smile concede his guitar genius even in its simplest forms; a listener with no knowledge of guitar may just hear a repetitive riff playing through the song.

I found no convincing argument in Frith’s writing that the experience of all listeners is the same as mine, and therefore I am unconvinced that there is no distinction between a musically literate listener and that of an ordinary (for lack of a better word) listener. Am I just being elitist? Maybe, but to me, Frith just sounds like a “bad listener” (Frith 256) lashing out at those who criticize him as such.

Yano’s article was interesting because I feel that the conflicting feelings about modernism and urbanism that was taking place during the Taisho period can still be relevant today. I feel like there’s a strong correlation between the shift from rural to urban with the increasing demand and influence of the West in Japan. In the music world there was obvious increasing influence of Western elements and recording technology and distribution methods (i.e. mass media such as radio) were also improving, but there was also the effort to bring in more traditionally Japanese elements as well. And simultaneously, music was defining the upper and middle class, an urban lifestyle was becoming more of a standard, and people were recognizing its duality, so it’s just interesting how all of these different factors came together in song to help what Yano calls defining the nation with modernity as a main concept.
I think that the selection of songs that Yano choose were well picked, because I think they were clear in showing how even though the urban lifestyle and materialistic gain can be so appealing and exciting, it can ultimately lead to figuring out that there is no meaning behind any of it and all one is left with is a crowded, dirty place that can create loneliness and discontentment. I especially found it interesting how the song Tokyo Bushi had both the positive and negative sentiments, since I’m sure that those conflicting and yet simultaneous feelings are still felt today by anyone who lives in a big city. This also ties in well with Yano’s claims about nationhood, in how nationhood can be thought of as “a modern project conceived in the late nineteenth century” but also can be “linked in song with premodern furusato, family, and nature” (258). I also think it’s not a mistake that Yano ties in love and romance here as well, since the romance and love in the songs can symbolize the love (either good or bad) for the changing landscape of Japan (otherwise modernity), and as Yano puts it, “romance also became a metaphor for frustrated dreams, the obstacle of which was often civil society” (261).

This position paper is on the article “Defining the Modern Nation in Japanese Popular Song” by Christine R. Yano. I found it interesting that many of the popular songs that were written in Japan during the early 20th century were about issues that were associated with urban life in Tokyo. This was caused by the rapid urbanization that occurred in Taisho Japan. The songs that were written were mostly about the life and city in Tokyo with most of them criticizing and mocking it. I thought that it was interesting that many of these songs that were performed on the street were by people who were trying to make money. But then in the 20s, radios started to spread in households across Japan but mostly in the urban cities like Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. They then started to use these songs that were sung on the street and play them over the radio to bring it right to you in your own home. I think that this was a good thing because it helped spread the influence of new music to everyone in Japan that had a radio and as more and more people started buying radios; even people in the rural parts of Japan, these influences were able to spread even farther and to a more diverse set of people. This helped to start the construction of the modern nation in Japan and to bring it together in terms of culture. With the introduction of the radio and radio stations, this brought in the record companies not just from Japan but from other parts of the world like Europe and the United States. This can be seen in the culture of Japan today because the Japanese have a lot of things that they took from other cultures and the musical styles of a lot of the music has many elements for other cultures music. Most of the songs were about people in Tokyo and the urban phenomena that were occurring in Japanese urban centers during this time period. Some of the songs that were sung talked about ones hometown (furusato) to bring about a sense of nostalgia. This was very different than most of the music that was about the urban centers. This article was interesting because I never knew that the radio industry started that way in Japan with the radio stations taking songs that were popular on the street and broadcasting them on the radio to everyone.

Defining the Modern Nation in Japanese Popular Song, 1914-1932
I love the song “Tokyo bushi” , it’s one of the model of urban style song. At the beginning of the article, it talks about the changing of the songs style from rural to urban which brought people together by imagining the “nationhood” . At the beginning of the period, most of the songs sing about sadness, and at that time singers which called “enkashi” sell sheet music on the street, the example in the book is this guy Sakuai Toshio who is the last performer of the “enkashi”, his life was hard and poor, he didn’t even want his kid to talk about him that he’s a “rnkashi”, and that’s how bad the society treat those “enkashi”. Then the radio invented, singers got more chance to percent their works, and people started to give those performers more respect. You also can say that radio and Television are the biggest thing that changes those singers social status. In the article, Nihon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) is the biggest corporation in Japan that control all the radio broadcasting till 1950, but I’m sure it’s still under control now.
There are three major recording companies, Nippon Columbia, Nippon Victor, and Nippon Polydor. I think it’s funny that how they start, basically they began with bad selling, then they “practice” selling by copying some famous songs, after they get the idea of how to make the songs sell, they hire composers, lyricists, arrangers and singers for new songs, and that’s how they starts which I think that’s really funny and smart, but it’s also cheating too. The new songs like “Tokyo bushi” and “korokke no uta” , either singing about the city, or it’s about home town, or about love and apart, I especially like “Tokyo bushi” because if you know the song, and able to sing it, you will not get lost in Tokyo, at less at that time, the song sing about the location of the buildings, and food (which is my favorite part) and trains, it talks about how the city looks. There also songs talk about love and home town that is very attractive to people at that period of time, the songs might make you feel homesick or missing love one, but it is not about darkness.

Week 3

In general, Yano’s “Defining the Modern Nation in Japanese Popular songs” is a really interesting and attractive article for me. Not only the topic is creative, but also the demonstration with particular lyrics made the reading a lot more fun than former ones, I think it can be called “the art of writing”.

Yano mentioned such phenomenon which was observed from Japanese popular songs that modernism certainly became a trend which represented material wealth, luxury consumption, and various entertainments, however, in this circumstance Japanese people began to dream and yearn for the country life which was more close to nature, they wanted to go back to the way the live in the past. It is really a good question that is worth pondering. Why people are always doing things in a cycle. When people were living a natural and quite life in the country, they looked forward to moving to urban area and want to catch up with modernism. But when they do living a rich and colorful life in the city, they begin to dream for the live with blue sky, green trees, and flying birds which they used to have. As a Chinese, I can totally understand their feelings. China is also facing this situation now. Although most poor people in the country still strive for moving to the city, the upper middle-class can no longer be satisfied with the so-called “bright lights, big city”, because the city is too crowded, too noise and full of cold reinforced concrete, the blue sky turns grey by air pollution and birds disappear by the reduction of green space. They now like to spend their spare time in the rural area, enjoying fresh air, fresh vegetables, and insects’ chirping.
People are always unsatisfied with their current lives. They want to fight for more beautiful lives; however, do they really know what they are fighting for? I think all problems came from the human’s greediness. No matter how much they have already gotten, they want more. As a result, we tried too hard to realize modernization, and did it over, which led to the change of its essence that modernization is for people to live a high quality live. How long will it take us to realize and restrain our greediness?

Another interesting thing is the change of themes in the love songs. It seems with the modernization, the mood of love songs transformed from earnest and benign manner to despair. For example, the song “Sendo kouta” used the metaphor that lovers are like withered eulalia tree. Eulalia tree is really a beautiful and distressed symbol, which perfectly expressed the nature of love. However, the song “Is Sake a Tear or a Sign” expressed the deep sorrow and decadence with the symbol “sake” and “tear”. It was more plain and direct. “Sake” is a representative symbol in the city, people who lost their love are likely to go for drinking, and hope that they can throw themselves in alcohol and be unable to feel the pain in their hearts. From my perspective, this transformation is quite an ingenious example for defining modern nation in popular songs.

In discussing Christine R. Yano's article, I have found it to be very interesting as to how in the beginning music was created and how it was spread. I find it interesting and new that Japanese music was first created by street singers and when those songs sounded good then producers, writers and record companies would want to produce the song. Then when technology has advanced and radio established then you start to have writers who are willing to create their own lyrics and music and then record companies who are willing to record the music, in a reverse process.

I found Sakurai Toshio, one of the interviewees, his story to be very sad but interesting because he was an "enka" singer and it was considered to be low of class, making him feel ashamed. However it ended up shaping his life and he made decent money and a decent living out of it.

Enka music is definitely important because it's significant and historical. Referring back to the examples Yano displays of the lyrics. The lyrics are descriptive and have significant meaning. You get a variety sense of emotions such as sadness, happiness, hate, irony, etc. Majority, the singers sang about their country and reminisce about the past and yearning. In a way, it's like a remedy for the Japanese and a reliever.

I think any kind of music that talks about past experiences or any kind that is historical will always exist and be important, even though it may not be popular as back in the days.

In reading the Yano article, one thing that stuck out to me was how modern life was described in popular songs’ lyrics. Oftentimes, it seemed, modern or urban life was something desired and praised. However, in several cases, the lyrics glorifying modernity were counteracted by lyrics expressing discontentment with urban life. Yano even writes, “One sometimes finds both sides of modernity within various verses of the same song” (253). I thought it was interesting that songwriters would have these contrasting views, but then again, I’m not really surprised. It seems to me that the Japanese take the approach of juxtaposing contrasting or different ideas and apply it in numerous forms. For instance, Western melodies are fused with traditional Japanese sounds. In addition, haiku, which have their roots in Japan, rely heavily on juxtaposing different ideas to add an element of surprise for the reader. So along this line of thought, perhaps combining contrasting views in popular media is something that is characteristic of Japanese culture. In that case, to say that popular songs defined the national identity is true not only in the sense of the lyrics used but also in the way that the lyrics are combined.

In the Frith chapter regarding the meaning of music, there were a couple things that I found interesting. Frith goes through the history of how music was analyzed. Through the centuries, critics have made claims of what the focus should be on when analyzing music. They range from the structure of the musical piece to the listener’s emotions and sensual response, and to the listener’s thoughts among other ideas. Reading this, I wondered why any one of these had to take precedence over others. Couldn’t they all be combined to represent the entire music experience and consequent analysis? Frith touches on this in the following chapter when he says a criticism can work by moving through description to emotion to identity. I personally like this as the criticism is seen as a process, and not just a static evaluation on one facet of the music experience. Another thing I found interesting was the evolution of music critiques. It just got me thinking of how critiques might change in the future. I can’t really offer any ideas on what that might look like, but I hope that critics don’t take a narrow view on what should be focused on.

Finally, I thought the last chapter in the Frith reading was interesting. We had talked in class about how music in Japan helped create a national identity, and this article provided more background on how that happens and how it can happen on an individual level. Each person is shaped by his or her experiences. Listening to a song is just another experience that shapes the person. And although the listener isn’t physically experiencing the story of the song, he or she is able to hear it and be a part of the song, if only in their mind. Frith says, “Music constructs our sense of identity through the experiences it offers of the body, time, and sociability, experiences which enable us to place ourselves in imaginative cultural narratives” (275). With that in mind, I can see how some songs would help shape a national sentiment. Looking at the song, “Sharp-dressed Man,” listeners can imagine themselves as the mobo who gets robbed in the city. While they didn’t actually experience what happened to the mobo, in listening to the song, they can imagine it. Therefore, whatever sentiment the mobo felt, they should be able to feel as well.

Al Anderson
Position Paper #3

For this week's position paper, I decided to write about the music that we've been listening to in class this past week. This decision was based upon a couple reasons: we haven't had many papers, if any, on the music that we listened to, and I was interested in this genre of music because of my lack of knowledge about it.
This past week we've been listening primarily to Koga Masao and the genre of Enka. These songs have been “Sake: Is it Tears or Sighs?,” “Attached to a Shadow,” “Tokyo Rhapsody,” “Pure Heart of a Man,” composed by Koga Masao and song by Fujiyama Ichiro. We'll just not mention the songs that we've listened to last Thursday, since it doesn't fit into the Enka genre.
So what is this “Enka” that I keep bringing up? Enka is a genre of Japanese popular music derived from traditional music. Throughout the years, Enka has changed and hold different meanings depending on the context. Originally, the music called Enka was a song form of political speeches sung by activists in the Meiji Era (1868–1912). Under this context, “Enka” was derived from "Enzetsu no Uta" or “Speech Song” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enka ). However, the Enka that has become widely accepted as the name of the genre refers to a completely different style of music. This ballad-like style of music was developed after World War II, and means "Enjiru Uta" or “Performance Song.” This genre of Japanese music is often compared to American country music and the blues due to the generally melancholic sound of the song and traditional Japanese instruments such as the shakuhachi and shamisen accompanying the songs.
Koga Masao has been given some credit as one of the founders of Enka, although he considered himself as a ryūkōka, meaning “popular music,”composer. I'm sure that you know a bit about him since he was covered extensively in class, there's no need to go into much further detail on him.
Tokyo Rhapsody – march, trumpets, more pop-like, fast paced
Now, onto the music itself. I equally liked “Pure Heart of a Man” and “Tokyo Rhapsody,” even though their styles were completely different. “Pure Heart of a Man” sounded exactly like what I thought Enka sounded like: a slow, sentimental intonation by the singer and a some strings in the background making it sound Japanese. And then there was “Tokyo Rhapsody” with its very pop-like sounding beat, even though it sounded much like a marching beat or an anthem. “Sake, Tears or Sighs” sounded especially Japanese with the shimasen and the ascending and descending inflections. However, “Attached to a Shadow” had less of an impact on me, most likely because I don't have the ear for these kinds of songs, with the particularly slow and nasally voice of the singer. This was my first time listening to Enka and found it curious but elegant at the same time.

I liked reading Christine Yano’s piece on finding a modern Japan through song. I especially found interesting the fact that in the period (1914-1932) that she discusses, melancholia was thought to bring a “Western” element to the song. This is funny because I think it’s completely opposite in the 21st century. Not to say that there is an absence of ballads in today’s Japanese popular music, but the norm is a cheerful, upbeat, and peppy rhythm.

What seems to be the main focus of her article are the songs. I found I did not much like “Tokyo bushi” because of its contradictory nature. If she cited the song in chronological order, the song pretty much praises cities like Tokyo and then shoots it down for the majority of the remainder of the song. I don’t doubt that the negative points are true, but if to be modern is to live in a city, the song is pretty much a deterrent to modernity. I do however like the sound of the “Zattsu Okei” song (from its verbal description that is). When I read that part about it, the first thing that came to mind was Otsuka Ai’s single, “Biidama.” It has an uplifting tempo and the lyrics pretty much say, “The past may be sad, but you can be happy again.”

I think the best way that popular songs (and artists) forged a modern Japan is through the Japanization of the Western diatonicism in the yonanuki scale. Nakayama Shinpei may have made just a minor change, but it gave Japan something to call its own. Also the fact that the first radio broadcasts in all of Asia was in Japan is pretty cool. Another interesting thing was that enka used to be a genre dedicated to antigovernment protest. I know we (as the Western world) have been expressing our political thoughts in song for many years, but I’m not aware of a specific genre dedicated to songs of protest.

With every generation, new areas of interest arise, chalenging and sometimes overtaking the old. Now we take these changes for granted, probably because we have reached the pinnicale of testing boundaries. Around 1910, however, most cultures had a set tradition that was to be followed, anything that challenged those traditions would stick out like a sore thumb. I like Yano's terminology, describing the mew music movements of the Taisho as "new urbanism". I feel that what she is describing is an ongoing cycle, between those who challenge tradition and those who preserve it. I find it funny how those who preserve tradition claim to be supirior, that urban dwellers and those with western education are corrupt, as metioned in "Tokyo bushi",

"...And even the sun does not appear
Dark and smelly, like a hole,
One might wonder if it is a dog house.
Why, on the contrary, human beings
Are alive and well in this hovel!"

"Korokke no uta" also points out flaws of western cooking and spending ill-gotten money. It seems that all cultures feared urbanism at this time. Young mobos probably were cocky, arrogant and probably deserved to get their clock cleaned, like the "sharp dressed man" but where is the logic to blame modernity on the corruption? Were there not young, rich snobs in the past, say children of governors, merchants and gamboling houses?
Did they not realize that new media and technology was a cause of unity, to a degree? Imagine how inconvinient for one to travel great distances to view a performance from a famous singer or actor. If one missed the performance, or the performer died, there would be no way to expirience the work. Records and later radio made performances possible to hear without the performer. Beyond that, the people would be more unified and imformed. The real issue the, would be control from the government.

The way Yano presents her piece, the people of Japan see modernity and urbanism as a mixed blessing. The capital is a place of wonder and excitement, both familiar and foreign. At the same time, people forget boundaries and act questionable, even depraved. I agree with this, one cannot dwell on one extreme or another. Over eighty years have passed and we seemed to have moved side-ways, rather than backward or forward. We see the same problems that plagued modernity: corruption, overcrowding, but at the same time, we see that foreign ifluences are not one of these sources. They can make life easier, moe interesting or pave the way for something better.

I chose to respond to Christine Yano’s article “Defining the Modern Nation in Japanese Popular Song”. From what I understood as I read through the article is the significance of modern songs in Japan and how it heightened modernity in the country. As Yano stated, “One of the most significant social aspects of the Taisho period was the mass migration from the rural to the urban areas.” Thus leading new urbanism to becoming the nexus of the nation and emerging modernity in Japan. I was surprised to read that most songs were primarily popular by street singers, which I think still happens today. I think enka music is a significant part of the Japanese popular songs because they are as describe “antigovernment protest song sung in the streets as an expression of the freedom and people’s rights” which holds some historical facts. As electronic media started to spread throughout Japan, the influence of music also spread; the military buildup and radios were in almost every household. I think it was in good terms for the government to allow citizens to have radio access that way they’ll also be about to receive news and mass media as well. The songs that Yano used in the articles were mostly written and focused about defining modern in the city of Tokyo. “According to these songs, to be modern is to live in the city” (252). These songs criticize both the positive and negative aspects. Some songs mocked the urban life and Western influx, for instance, the Westernized wives who only cook Western foods. Some mocked upon people such as the dwellers along the streets. I came to find this article interesting like the others that we’ve previously read. Because of the rural shift to the urban areas were increasing, demands of increasing Western influences in Japan created a sense of modernity that was needed at the time. I also found it interesting that there were themes which varied from concrete elements such as places and things to the failure of love. It seems to be that as Japan began to become more and more modernized, moods in love songs began to take different beats. I think Yano’s selections of the songs were good examples of how the urban city life can be appealing to many and yet it can degrade “the loneliness that lies at its root” (254). I guess that with the songs of love and romance during the Taisho period were expressions of sadness and pain for desire. “Romance became the basis for a different kind of desire, more sensually found derived and individualistic. Romance also became a metaphor for frustrated dreams, by obstacle of which was often civil society” (261).

Position Paper for Week three
ALL3920 Music
Eric Michelson

The Yano article talked in depth of the modern technologies bringing a country together in ways that would have been impossible before the advent of said technology. The technology that enabled the Japanese to broadcast a thing also gave the people across the nation the same access to the same material, and went a long way to standardization of the language. When people have access to the same thing they learn that they like something, thus when someone in a far distant part of the world likes the same thing they have a connection between them, that makes the distance between them matter less. if they meet they will have something to talk about, thus a sense of community is born when the members are miles apart. This helps the idea of a nation develop because people will be forced to think of each other as members of the same society that listens to the same things, wither they like them or not. It is a very interesting idea that the country that is entertained together will feel a kinship toward one another. Thus the idea of being a nation can begin to emerge, from distanced peoples having little in common with each other, to a unified nation that knows what all parts of the nation are doing at various times.
Another thing that the modern technology helped with is the standardization of language. It is a very important step in the development of a nation to have all members of the society understand each other. There are many nations that have several languages, and many of the members of the society cannot understand someone how is from a different part of the nation, but now with the modern technology we see that the variety of languages is lessening, because there is usually only one language used in the general broadcasts, thus all members of the society can understand each other, without too much trouble. This one language that the country speaks has various drawbacks and up points, the first of all being the obvious drawback of there being less verity in the nation, but the obvious good is that communication will become greatly easier between people in the same country.
The idea that this unification of the language and the connection inherent in a common entertainment are all present in the emergence of popular music sounds so basic that everyone should know it, yet until I read this article I was unaware that such a thing happened, and is still happening in countries all around the world.

John and Adrienne have both posted some interesting thoughts on Frith's article; if you are reading this and have not read their posts yet check them out.

I think I can shed a little light on Frith's intentions here in "Performing Rights," or rather, what I am interpreting to be his intention. Consider first the comment that is way back at the beginning of the article. It's not even written by Frith, and yet it may well be the most important paragraph in the whole article for understanding what Frith is writing about (I suppose this might appreciate it so much as well. I found Frith's own writing to be pretty narcissistic so I took everything he was writing with a grain of salt; but I digress.) In the beginning of the article Frith includes a quote from Ned Rorem (an American classical composer, won a whole bunch of awards including a Grammy and a Pulitzer). It states; “I used never to weep at great Art, at Couperin or Kirkegaard, maintaining it was too multi-dimensional for the specific of tears. I wept at the rapid associative revelations of a Piaf, or at Lana Turners soapy dilemmas. Crying was caused hence by entertainment, not masterworks……what counts is to be kinetically moved. And who says Edith and Lana aren’t art-or, if they are, that Kierkegaard is more so?”
So what we’re getting out of this is pretty self-explanatory, but it's the central point of Frith’s argument. Though he bounces around disjointedly throughout his writing, his primary focus is in comparing the experience of music, or more specifically the experience of pop “low” music as opposed to the experience of something else considered to be “high” art. Therefore, we get long arguments as he writes about the difficulty of studying pop art in the classroom when “everyday questions of the good and the bad become entangled with academic concepts of the high and the low.” Recall that he spent most of the first part of this article discussing how we all naturally have a concept of what we find appealing in pop art and placing value judgments on its products, a value judgment that we inevitably try to project on to others. This is something that, as Frith argues, is experienced almost universally, resulting in widespread common experience and debate. At least part of his intention, I believe, was to comment on this common experience and note it’s merit. What I saw here was an author intent on calling out either his own critics or, probably more likely, the critics of “high” arts and bringing attention to the more universal, and thus more valuable experience offered by popular music/art.

Frith mentions that the “meaning of music is not just an interpretation but a social process.” He discusses about how there are different “modes” of listening that people exhibit. I thought this was really interesting because it’s something I never think about but I do it anyways. Frith’s example about dancing during a symphony concert also brought up the concept of “appropriateness.” The social aspect of this appropriateness is already built into our minds because we have seen the way that society pressures or influences us to act. Of course there are some people who break this “appropriateness,” such as thing on break dancer on youtube that just barges into a family dance floor. He did it for entertainment purposes but this topic just reminded me of that video.

Frith quotes Nicholas Cook, “What I find perplexing, and stimulating, about music is the way in which people-most people-can gain intense enjoyment from it even though they know little or nothing about it in technical terms.” I find this very true because am one of those people who are musically challenged. I have taken only elementary music classes and that was nearly a decade ago but I can still enjoy various kinds of music ranging from pop to punk rock. I guess I enjoy music because I look for a meaning behind the song and the tune which allows me to like music across different genres and languages.

“Music which is designed to arouse feeling is clearly inferior to music which stimulates feeling through thought.” I do not agree with this because many songs that stimulate feeling are needed. A football team would need an upbeat song to get the crowd cheering for them which would encourage the players while possibly de-moralize the opposing team. Another example could be a mother singing a lullaby to her child. The lullaby could invoke a feeling of comfort and love. Music that stimulates through feeling is quite good as well. A while back I listed to a melancholic song but I did not understand the lyrics until I looked them up. The lyrics were about a young woman’s tragic story that involved her loved one dying in a war. I thought it was really sad at the time but then I kept thinking while doing my homework. I was completely lost in my own world thinking about what would happen if I died or lost a loved one.

“Lenin was reluctant to listen to Beethoven because the music made him want to pat people on the head.”

While I like the way Firth writes and the arguments he brings up, I don’t really understand the supposed paradox that exists in music. I think I understand what he’s saying, that music seems to carry meaning both created by the listener’s cultural standpoint and by some inner meaning that is part of the music itself, but to me it seems like a pretty flimsy argument that is hugely significant to other arguments if true.
While I don’t know a lot about cultural studies and I may be reading the argument wrong, there seem to be a few problems with the “inner meaning” involving music. I don’t think Firth was applying this idea to songs heard by non-native speakers, but in the terms he presents it he doesn’t discount the idea. While I think it’s possible to be moved or feel the “inner meaning” of, say, Japanese music where I only understand 1/10 of what is being said, listening to music wildly different from our culture’s, ie tribal music which hasn’t or has only been very minimally affected by western music, makes it harder to agree with this idea. Also, while a pop (genre, not status) song may be very moving to some people, others may think it is garbage. While much of this may depend on song tropes or other socially-constructed factors, these seem like pretty rigid structures to someone native to a culture. I don’t think Firth is really wrong, but I’d like to read what he has to say about these opposing arguments.
I also like the argument that he makes about how meaning is affected depending on where you listen to music. Where I listen to music certainly affects how much attention I give it, amongst other things, and there are certainly some songs I associate with certain places (which I guess impacts the “socially constructed meaning” I hold those places to have). Thinking about whether this meaning is from association with the song’s intrinsic qualities or through externally constructed meaning makes my head hurt, but I can appreciate the question.
One other feature of music he often brings up that makes me laugh a little is the intense morality that people associate with music, and how passionate people often are about others liking “bad” music. It’s reassuring to know that even cultural studies academics can be rubbed raw by some people’s tastes.

Define art at dictionary.com and you get more than sixteen definitions. In Frith’s piece, he points out that Jules Caombarieu says that music “is the art of thinking in sounds.” It drew to my attention when the word, art, was used in particular. I understand that music is a work of art but what’s considered art? To understand that and relate and dissect it becomes your own definition. I just think that there are guidelines to defining what art is but there is no concrete answer for it because, after all, they’re all theories, and theories exist to be contested. Having grown in believing that art has become something of a creation. And it is within this creation that the composer defines his line of work.
Ok, now considering music as a work of art, I don’t really even know where to start because I, myself, have fallen into the category of society that simply likes a piece of music simply because. It is through questioning why you like a certain piece of music that one can really start considering why they feel the way they do. It’s very curious as to why history is such a big part of music. Because so many don’t understand the history behind, say classical or jazz, we can’t all fully appreciate today’s music production. They always say that in order to understand oneself, one must reflect upon oneself. How to you really come to fully understand yourself if you don’t know where you’ve come to be where you are today? I really think that history is important to everything. I sometimes think that history is taken for granted. We become so focused on our own lives, the world with the social values we live in, that we simply don’t really care why we act is such ways.
This article approaches music theory using plenty of philosophy and history. Frith points out that music first in order “to grasp the meaning of a piece of music is to hear something not simply present to the ear. It is to understand a musical culture, to have ‘a scheme of interpretation’.” Because music has become an art that is associated by its space rather than its listener, there are endless ways to dissect a piece of music. He makes an analogy in this article which runs something along the lines of silence is to music as light is to painting. Thus, this means that in order to understand music listeners first must appreciate the silence in which the music is created.

Looking back over Frith’s “Performing Rites” articles I spot a few places where my attention was grabbed, as annotated by an asterisk beside the text.

Something that struck me as insane is the idea that people could believe it is perfectly acceptable to make judgments about music based solely on the score (Frith 257). As Frith rightly points out, the “score isn’t the music” (258), but I think about those people who might argue and wonder what is their position? Granted, looking at and analyzing the score may allow a person to judge the difficulty or complexity of a piece of music, but I find it hard to believe it could tell someone the tone merely through diminish or crescendo directives. That observation brings up the whole notion of interpretation and how one piece of music can change depending on who is conducting it and how he or she has read (and, or altered) the score. What of the pieces that are not transcribed, for example, the improv music mentioned later on (Frith 259)? If the score transcribed during a session of improvisation is enough to leave the player aghast and doubting his ability to play it from the resulting score, is his music somehow less valuable for not having been written down? How does one then classify “music” that is not recorded by anything other than “a fence of sounds, thoraces, catgut, wire, wood and brass” (Frith 258)? Music, as defined by (presumably) all dictionaries, has an auditory component which requires that sound is produced and heard. Even when defining music by the score, the score itself is labeled “musical” (Webster’s American Dictionary). So, barring that music consists solely of the score, hearing music becomes an essential dividing factor from which to judge. One cannot judge a piece without first hearing it.

The next item that caught my eye was the somewhat amusing, and completely relatable—in my case by replacing the word music with literature—observation that “someone could describe a piece of music perfectly accurately in technical terms while being quite unable to appreciate it.” (Frith 263). Taken partially out of context, for me, this quote makes a nice dovetailed connection with the earlier comment concerning high culture attitudes toward “low” music and the condescension toward popular listening (Frith 252). Regardless of how you, personally, may view a particular piece of music, it is not very difficult to perpetuate a socially accepted judgment of merits with regard to “high” music, but, should you presume to ascribe the same qualities to “low” or “pop” music you could expect a frigid reception. This concept that you listen differently to “classical” (historically considered “high” music) and “popular” music (usually excluded from musicology as “low”) is bewildering. I know, for me, I can easily say whether I genuinely like a piece of music and clarify why, but I also know that to disagree with an established and widely accepted tradition is inviting trouble within an academic setting. Therefore, I wonder whether historical value judgments are social products of the politically and financially powerful. How did we reach this moment, when value is found almost exclusively in what was produced in the past, but presently produced, popular items are regarded with derision (unless they fall into that nebulous avant-garde—practically universally unpopular outside of academia – classification)?

The conflicting times in the Yano article intrigued me, so I will focus on that. Beginning in Taisho Japan, the popular music was by far enkashi singers on the street selling music sheets. They sung to entertain and boost business. It was also used to make political statements in the form of music. As many have described, enkashi singers had a very low social status even among street performers and were regarded as such. After the passing of the political rights movement, the enkashi started singing about daily life and so forth still selling sheet music for a living.

With the introduction of the radio, the popularity of music increased. I mean before the radio, music structure and music in general was taught in schools and used in military and various other ventures. But with the coming of the radio in the 20s, more of Japan was exposed to the music. At first the radio industry, the NHK, took the songs that the enkashi were singing and broadcast them to the people who had radios. Then they went on their own ventures, creating their own music with their own (hired) singers, orchestras, and other musicians. These hired musicians became an elite class in society while the enkashi who started the rise of popular music were still lowly street performers. An ironic sense of fate, eventually leading to the last enkashi and the end of their era.

There was also the topic of the private home becoming public and the public becoming private with the introduction of the radios. Roughly by 1940 about half of Japan had radios. Radios were more common in the urban areas but the rural areas were not without radios, only a smaller portion of the people owned a radio. The private home of an owner would become public due to the radio broadcasting public announcements. Public became private and so forth. But the radio brought together the rural and the urban as the music and public announcements were played on radio broadcasts. It was a sort of unifier for the country, especially for the war. Overall radio played a significant role in the rise of popular music from enkashi to modern musicians, and forming the connection between the two societies of rural and urban.

There are many ways to describe and interpret the meaning of music. Music first of all, before we know what the meaning of the instruments being played and the lyrics of the song, we have to listen and hear the song. When Frith mention about John Cage, the first thing that came to mind was his famous song “4’33” which was also known as silence. This silence is not any kind of silence, with this silence you will hear other sounds and ‘music’. The sound of someone coughing, moving around in a chair, tapping their feet and so on, but the least a person could hear is their heartbeat. A lot of people who heard his song for the first time does not understand his logical, abstract or symbolical point of view on music.

Another point Frith points out is music is defined as a social process. What I got from this point is music needs to be understand before there are process of producing more music? In one of my classes I remember learning that music can be either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depending on how you look at it. Another words, music plays with your emotion. When you are in a good mood, you are most likely to play some upbeat song as to when you are down, depressed, or sad you are going to be playing slower sad songs. Some instruments that associates with sad music are the violin and cello. Upbeat music are usually the ‘good’ and sad are ‘bad’. Most of the time, I feel like your mood changes depending on the type of music you listen to.

Yano's article "Defining the Modern Nation in Japanese Popular Song, 1941-1932" has been my favorite reading so far.

Honestly, when I signed up for this class I was expecting more articles like Yano's. Although I do find the birth of the recording studios interesting, I much prefer learning about the people and the culture rather than events alone.

Even before Yano begins to discuss modern culture in relation to the lyrics of early 20th century pop she shares the history of music sales through the story of one man. Sakurai Toshio received little respect in his early years as an Enkashi, however once he was dubbed "the last Enkashi" suddenly he was invited to sing at high-class events. Strangely enough, while still in the middle of his career and being treated like an outcast, Sakurai was the first one in his neighborhood to have a radio and the first to have a television.

I found it interesting how the modern was defined in Yano’s article. What stood out to me in particular were the negative sentiments toward the modern that were conveyed in some songs. As with just about every large change or movement there are bound to also be emotions contrary to those of the movement. Oftentimes the change can get to be too much too fast and those sentiments against that change may even develop into an entire countermovement. A fine example would be how Romanticism developed in response to the Enlightenment. Unhappy with the emphasis on science and rationalization, romanticists emphasized mystery and awe in their art and often covered subject matter pertaining to the medieval and the antique.
Similarly we find elements of furusato in the Japanese songs during this time of modernization. The songwriters employed these elements to generate a sense of nostalgia that the rest of the nation could identify with, wherein “what is remembered is everything linked or constructed as Japan’s past – nature, abundance, beauty, purity, family, emotions of warmth and sense of belonging” (258). This sense of furusato, however, is furusato “not as lived, but as remembered, as dreamed”, and the modern is defined by the opposites of those characteristics. This bit of distortion is also somewhat reminiscent of Romanticism, in that the romanticists often portrayed and lauded the medieval as being more beautiful and resplendent than it actually was. I would not say, however, that the distortion of furusato was as severe as that of Romanticism.
What I find particularly intriguing is that there were sometimes “both sides of modernity within various verses of the same song” (253). One moment we are celebrating modern Tokyo, exclaiming all of its great qualities, but the next we also complain about its shortage of food and packed trains. I actually like this idea because it seems to give a song such as “Tokyo bushi” more complexity. The song looks at the city from two different angles, instead of viewing it through rose-tinted glasses. It shows the conflict of emotions regarding modern Tokyo at the time. I guess some people just weren’t sure how to feel about it.

I found it interesting how the modern was defined in Yano’s article. What stood out to me in particular were the negative sentiments toward the modern that were conveyed in some songs. As with just about every large change or movement there are bound to also be emotions contrary to those of the movement. Oftentimes the change can get to be too much too fast and those sentiments against that change may even develop into an entire countermovement. A fine example would be how Romanticism developed in response to the Enlightenment. Unhappy with the emphasis on science and rationalization, romanticists emphasized mystery and awe in their art and often covered subject matter pertaining to the medieval and the antique.
Similarly we find elements of furusato in the Japanese songs during this time of modernization. The songwriters employed these elements to generate a sense of nostalgia that the rest of the nation could identify with, wherein “what is remembered is everything linked or constructed as Japan’s past – nature, abundance, beauty, purity, family, emotions of warmth and sense of belonging” (258). This sense of furusato, however, is furusato “not as lived, but as remembered, as dreamed”, and the modern is defined by the opposites of those characteristics. This bit of distortion is also somewhat reminiscent of Romanticism, in that the romanticists often portrayed and lauded the medieval as being more beautiful and resplendent than it actually was. I would not say, however, that the distortion of furusato was as severe as that of Romanticism.
What I find particularly intriguing is that there were sometimes “both sides of modernity within various verses of the same song” (253). One moment we are celebrating modern Tokyo, exclaiming all of its great qualities, but the next we also complain about its shortage of food and packed trains. I actually like this idea because it seems to give a song such as “Tokyo bushi” more complexity. The song looks at the city from two different angles, instead of viewing it through rose-tinted glasses. It shows the conflict of emotions regarding modern Tokyo at the time. I guess some people just weren’t sure how to feel about it.

Christine Yano's article was so interesting in its critique of Fans and Fan clubs. My favorite part of the article was the part about Migawari. This body exchange actually has a logical reasoning and is perpetuated and encouraged by record companies to promote records/singers. Right away I thought about American Pop music in the late 1990's and early 2000's with band like NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, and 98 Degrees. Furthermore, the thought of Avatars in online chats and video games come to mind as the article defines Migawari is used "as a form of protection when the honnin is unable to preform a task" which in a fantasy world, which these women seem to be in, and in video games, they cannot perform certain tasks. The surrogate label for fans and their clubs seems to play a huge role in music advertisement here, not to mention this particular fan club is run by Mori's production company and Victor records. They sing a Star's enka songs as a, ""shadow performance" to prove its status and validate itself." In American pop now, billboard popularity provide the status and validity of each song and Karaoke doesn't play and significant role. It seems in Japan that an enka doesn't spread over mass media but rather through exchanges of spirit, from one dainin to a newly dainin.

As mentioned above, I also find it humorous and somewhat engaging to read that Frith is "bristling" over the fact that critics can find music as trivial because the listeners are unsophisticated. I agree with the authors hes is bristling about. in my opinion you don't have to like a particular song to judge it. You can look at art subjectively and objectively and still come up with a valid and logical response. I also find in my personal experience that pop music today copies and mimics each other so much that is starts to all blend together, mindlessly rambling off lyrics in an attempt to make it catchy and played a lot, and thus catchy.

Christine Yano's article was so interesting in its critique of Fans and Fan clubs. My favorite part of the article was the part about Migawari. This body exchange actually has a logical reasoning and is perpetuated and encouraged by record companies to promote records/singers. Right away I thought about American Pop music in the late 1990's and early 2000's with band like NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, and 98 Degrees. Furthermore, the thought of Avatars in online chats and video games come to mind as the article defines Migawari is used "as a form of protection when the honnin is unable to preform a task" which in a fantasy world, which these women seem to be in, and in video games, they cannot perform certain tasks. The surrogate label for fans and their clubs seems to play a huge role in music advertisement here, not to mention this particular fan club is run by Mori's production company and Victor records. They sing a Star's enka songs as a, ""shadow performance" to prove its status and validate itself." In American pop now, billboard popularity provide the status and validity of each song and Karaoke doesn't play and significant role. It seems in Japan that an enka doesn't spread over mass media but rather through exchanges of spirit, from one dainin to a newly dainin.

As mentioned above, I also find it humorous and somewhat engaging to read that Frith is "bristling" over the fact that critics can find music as trivial because the listeners are unsophisticated. I agree with the authors hes is bristling about. in my opinion you don't have to like a particular song to judge it. You can look at art subjectively and objectively and still come up with a valid and logical response. I also find in my personal experience that pop music today copies and mimics each other so much that is starts to all blend together, mindlessly rambling off lyrics in an attempt to make it catchy and played a lot, and thus catchy.

I thought Yano’s discussion of the significance of “modern music”, and how modernity itself was both embraced and rejected in songs by the Japanese people to be very interesting. First off “modern music” was according to Yano, “in many instances, Western elements combined with more indigenous elements,” (249). This didn’t really surprise me because in an earlier article that we read it said much of the same on this topic. But this article went more in depth and talked more about music before “modern music” and what exactly had changed namely the enkashi.
Originally, they started as a part of “the freedom and people’s rights movement” singing protest songs but then lasted after the movement was over (249). The enkashi are really fascinating to me because they’re like a hybrid of medieval Europe’s wandering minstrel and a modern day record promoter. Yano said in his article that were instrumental in popularizing earlier songs, because they sold lyric sheets and went around singing the songs (249). What surprised me was that even though they had so much power for making songs popular, they had very low social status. The article wasn’t quite clear but it made it sound like enkashi could be near the social level of burakumin. Yano interviewed a former enkashi named Sakurai Toshio, who was so successful he was the first in his neighborhood with both a radio and a television, yet his profession was considered so low status he never wanted his kids to tell their friends what his job was (250). Of course, this style of song eventually fell from popularity and just became kind of a gimmick.
The modern songs that followed as I said earlier featured both Western and traditional elements, along with conflicting views on modernity. Some songs would use the city as an exciting modern place, ideal for a lover’s rendezvous, while others just expressed lament at the emptiness of urban life (254). Yano said on page 253 that “Modernity means putting up with modern irritations, urban frustrations- the suffering of individuals from whom control over their surroundings has been wrested.” I kind of disagree with this because in lots of old folk tales and even historical documents that predate this transition time, there are frustrations where people have no control over their surroundings. I suppose citing the source as the city might be new and it could be tied into the concept of furusato. Where modern or “this place” is terrible but much like the ancestral homes of Americans, furusato is dreamed about and idealized like “the old country”.

Position paper – Week 3
Kevin Tieng – 3698825
In Frith’s article, he writes about Scruton, who “presumes that a high theorist can talk about the meaning of low music without listening to it, without liking it, without needing to know anything much about it at all.” I agree with Frith disagreeing with Scruton. I think that if you truly want to discuss about music, even if you don’t like the music, you should now a little bit about it, and even if you don’t know anything about it, at least listen to it a few times. Sure, maybe some people are able to “hear” the music in their mind when they read a score sheet, but those few people would be considered musical geniuses who would know a lot about music. It is like with an elite chef, while cooking food, he or she very often tastes the food he or she makes and knows about all the ingredients used. It is the same with music; you should at least listen to the music you will be discussing about.

In the article, there was this quote, “Both experience of the music and the music’s meanings themselves change complexly in relation to the style-competence of the [listener], and to the social situations in which they occur… music can never be played or heard outside a situation, and every situation will affect the music’s meaning.” I totally agree with this quote and want to also add that it is not just the situation you are in but also how you are feeling at that time that can affect the meaning of music. If you are feeling happy and it’s the best day of your life and so on… you could listen to just about any type of music and still like it. But on the other hand, if you are feeling depressed, like nothing is going your way, any type of music could depress you even more. While not always true, how you are feeling has a big impact on how you view things, including music.

What is music? What causes emotional reactions to music? Is music universally acceptable? Do people make music or does music make people. Is there a difference between music made as art, and music made as a product? These are all question firth explores; however his focus simply seems to explain that there is no hierarchy in music. Ranking is only the product socially designed factors in the way it is produced and consumed/listened to. This evident when he quotes Lucy Greene, ”music can never be played or heard outside a situation, and every situation will affect the music’s meaning.” (p.250) What is more compelling is the innate practice of music production all cultures, and individual produce there own music from simple percussion and whistling, to complex arrangement with socially relevant poetic feelings. This universal nature of music is reinforced when he writes, “This would explain why, for example, in music (unlike the other arts) a child prodigy can move us.” (p.262) This universality is amplified by the diverse nature of genres, sub genres and their connections to mass market, niche market, and sub-cultural identity all over. Every time someone listens to a song it connects with the artist and any other listeners regardless off opinion it creates common ground and communicates and conscious and subconscious levels.
Taking this concept into mind when reading Yano’s work on music’s interplay with newly immerging socio-cultural standards in Japan one can see that as Japan went through varied and rapid change so to did the nations music. The varied content of pro-modernization, nostalgic, and ambivalent lyrics, all seem like they are normal reactions wide rapid socio-cultural change. Though mass media defiantly helped unify and connect rural and urban people in Taisho Japan as Yano suggests, the economics and motivation behind this connection seems to have been ignored.
Yano writes about the connections formed through radio listening when he writes, “”Listeners in Niigata- gradually increasing in numbers- could imagine greater to fellow listeners in Urban Tokyo.” (p260) This statement does not seem to include that especially early radio listeners would have been wealthy; this social status would likely separate wealthy rural listeners from their neighbors. This idea coupled with the romanticized views of modernity would suggest that the listeners wanted to be better connected to the financial and cultural superiority, that urban life and modernization. Meaning that well The radio connected people it was also an explicit symbol of division and social status.

I found Yano’s article to be quite interesting, I especially enjoyed reading the different song lyrics. Some of the songs were funny, but many of them seemed sort of depressing.
The beginning of the article discusses how a lot of the popular music in Japan had Western elements like diatonic scales, harmonization, instrumentation, etc. Enkashi singers became less and less popular as more and more technology was used. People didn’t have to watch performers anymore to hear music, they could just listen to it on the radio. I also found it interesting that the Japanese government recognized the power of the radio and became in control of the radio stations and established the NHK. In the 1940s, 45 percent of all households had a radio. Performers used to make songs that would become popular then be picked up by record companies, but later as time went on, record companies were the ones making the hits, and hiring singers, composers, etc., to make a new hit. Yano also explains how popular songs define the modern by taking intangible things like thoughts and sentiments and making it a commodity.
Most of the songs Yano brings up all have to do with modern life. The first several songs are about Tokyo. The first few describe the positives of Tokyo. Descriptions like “Tokyo is a great place, full of interesting things.” Or “Movies! Twelve-story buildings! Flower gardens!” Then the next few songs describe Tokyo as “famous for jam packed trains” or “dark and smelly, like a hole.” These songs, even though they describe Tokyo very differently, are both products of a modern Japan. They both express the results of a modern Tokyo. Modern Tokyo has its ups and downs, it has so many things to do, a consumers dream, but at the same time it becomes dirty and leaves the past behind.
One song that I found particularly humorous was the “Korokke no uta.” This songs shows the modernity of Japan by singing about a wife who cooks Western food, Croquettes. The idea of being modern is to be like the West. In the song it says, “I had a wife and was so happy, but all she ever cooks is Croquettes, croquettes.” This song criticizes western food and westernized wives. I found that many of the songs in this article criticized modern life, which makes me wonder if the majority of the songs made during that time period were about the negatives of modern life. Although Japan kept on moving forward into modernity, it seems like many of them had a negative opinion of it.
And of course, I like the song about the mobo in share otoko. I thought it was funny how other mobos from the country would laugh at this mobo’s story, when the same thing could happen to them. I thought this was a good article and I like how Yano integrated the songs into her article, which made it much more interesting.

Natasha Spernick
Position Paper 3

While reading the article, it had never before occurred to me that there was a connection between the formation of a national identity and the evolution of popular music. Ms. Yano points our three important factors that lead to the development of the modern Japanese nation. I was interested to learn that the movement of the population from rural to urban areas was so influential to the development of the concept of the modern nation through Japanese popular music. According to music, to be modern is to live in a city. Songs praised cities for their material goods and pleasures, and therefore made them very attractive to rural families.
Since one of the earliest forms of music reproduction was street singers, as city population grew the audiences for these songs also grew, bringing the same message to more people. With the development of electronic media, audiences for music became limitless. I find this very interesting because we can see currently, a further extension of this through our ability to share music via computers with other people. As modern technology grew, so could the ability of various musical groups to form a national philosophy.
Many songs praised the city for the variety of goods and services you could obtain, and the ease at which you could fulfill your pleasures. Songs emphasized the cities as the seat of political power wealth, and technological progress. Juxtaposed with this were songs that directly criticized the city as places of loneliness. Lyrics became nostalgic for ones hometown and the rural life. However the nature of these songs has more to do with imagined perfection than the reality of living in a rural area. This aspect of the article was the thing that affected me the most. For me music is something that is here for an entertainment purpose. When I listen to music I listen to the beat and the melody. I listen to a variety music and not all of the genres I like have positive lyrics that present a message I agree with. I do not let this change the way I see the world as a whole. I never thought about music being a purpose of propaganda. It was very surprising to find that the popular music in Japan was able to sway the people of Japan’s views about their own country.

Natasha Spernick
Position Paper 2

While reading the article, it had never before occurred to me that there was a connection between the formation of a national identity and the evolution of popular music. Ms. Yano points our three important factors that lead to the development of the modern Japanese nation. I was interested to learn that the movement of the population from rural to urban areas was so influential to the development of the concept of the modern nation through Japanese popular music. According to music, to be modern is to live in a city. Songs praised cities for their material goods and pleasures, and therefore made them very attractive to rural families.
Since one of the earliest forms of music reproduction was street singers, as city population grew the audiences for these songs also grew, bringing the same message to more people. With the development of electronic media, audiences for music became limitless. I find this very interesting because we can see currently, a further extension of this through our ability to share music via computers with other people. As modern technology grew, so could the ability of various musical groups to form a national philosophy.
Many songs praised the city for the variety of goods and services you could obtain, and the ease at which you could fulfill your pleasures. Songs emphasized the cities as the seat of political power wealth, and technological progress. Juxtaposed with this were songs that directly criticized the city as places of loneliness. Lyrics became nostalgic for ones hometown and the rural life. However the nature of these songs has more to do with imagined perfection than the reality of living in a rural area. This aspect of the article was the thing that affected me the most. For me music is something that is here for an entertainment purpose. When I listen to music I listen to the beat and the melody. I listen to a variety music and not all of the genres I like have positive lyrics that present a message I agree with. I do not let this change the way I see the world as a whole. I never thought about music being a purpose of propaganda. It was very surprising to find that the popular music in Japan was able to sway the people of Japan’s views about their own country.

I found Frith's basic argument to be quite interesting. In noting that popular culture is subjective by nature, he makes a key point about its role in society. The very existence of popular culture, that is, culture for the public masses, is preceded by the necessity of conversation. Friendships and rivalries are, in part, based upon how a person feels about a specific cultural reference point. Is this any different from popular culture in high society? He continues his discussion by analyzing how popular culture has gained more relative worth in the eyes of its followers. While the historical noble class has viewed popular culture as a degradation of human's noble nature, to be obtuse, Frith highlights the sentiments of its followers that truly connect to the music and art. The sound of rock, while barbaric to some at its inception, nonetheless inspired millions of maturing adults.
This article also reminds me of arguments by Marcuse of the Frankfurt school of though. He theorized that popular culture of both high and low society was but a tool to control the masses. In the modern world, where man is alienated from his labor, entertainment and the arts exists solely as a way to pacify the mind into a state of contention. This contention, Marcuse stated, is necessary to continue the unnatural capitalist lifestyle. His arguments contrast sharply with Frith, but it would have been interesting to see how Frith would have handled the counter-argument in his essay.

I found the explanation of the advancement of Japanese music interesting. Orginally starting as local street performers then virtually becoming national stars is a great testament to the power of mass media. Of course in their origin the songs were only locally popular and the music was live. Hiring singers to sing at bars and being paid per song was common place but the introduction of electronic media and transmission revolutionized the art. Yano explains that “Electronic transmission of popular songs[], begun in the 1920s, became part of the construction of the modern nation”(Yano 250). This change from very local personal music got turned upside down when broadcasting became affordable. This changed the way people listened to music as well as turning musicians into icons.
I found Yano’s explanation on “mass nationhood” to be one of the most important aspects. This introduction of mass media made it easier to unite a nation. With everyone able to listen to the same songs it created a more unified nation. In addition to the music going from being something that one could only enjoy in public became private; which made public announcements easier and the invasion of the home with propaganda easier. This I feel this unity between the entire country of Japan sparked it to be the mass media super power that it is today. It became a race of becoming more modern which we see in japan still today. Just as The man Yano interviewed committed his life to being the first in his town to have a radio and to have a TV and keep up with the mass media race speaks volumes to perhaps the entirety of the country of Japan. I also feel that this instant spread of mass media and modernism is both a blessing and a curse. Just as the music spread and gave rise to popular song it also has a dark side. The dark side being control and slightly paranoid idea that one cannot trust everything that you hear. The Japanese government strictly controlled radio at its start and because of that they were better able to control the thoughts and feelings of the people as well as sensor anything they wanted. As I value freedom of speech more than anything this aspect of control that has gone on and still continues scares me to my core.

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