Information Changes the World – Technology, Society, and New

Art

Where is the music?

A special forum with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yasuo Kobayashi

■(Chapter 1)

Kobayashi: (...I think the people who are here wanted to be here.) First of all, welcome to the University of Tokyo. With that, let’s give Mr. Sakamoto a round of applause. (applause)

Sakamoto: Thanks, thanks a lot.

Kobayashi: We’ve laid out a nice carpet of ginkgo leaves for you today.

Sakamoto: I like ginkgo trees.

Kobayashi: Is that right?

Sakamoto: I think there’s something admirable about ginkgoes.

Kobayashi: You admire ginkgo trees? How’s that?

Sakamoto: You have to admit that they live a long time.

Kobayashi: Oh, I see. And just by coincidence today, the ginkgo trees are at the peak of their autumn colors; they’re really beautiful. I usually don’t have flowers on the stage like this. Not since the last times with Pina Bausch and Sayoko Yamaguchi have there been flowers adorning the stage. And now again today for you, Mr. Sakamoto. You’re a special guest.

Sakamoto: Pina has also been here?

Kobayashi: Yes, but that wasn’t here. I laid out a carpet of red roses for Pina Bausch at a different place; she said I did some pretty showy things.

Sakamoto: What, am I going to have to dance? Here, how’s this?

Kobayashi: And I end up decorating the stage like this for a man. On that note, I am Yasuo Kobayashi, professor of cultural symbolism here at the University of Tokyo (Komaba Campus). Is Professor Yoshimi here today? He’s the one in charge of organizing the whole forum. Isn’t Professor Yoshimi here? Professor Yoshimi is head of the department of informatics and also the reason I’m here; he chose me to speak with Mr. Sakamoto today. But now really, this is Mr. Sakamoto’s lecture, shall we say, and there’s no point in my speaking all the time; let’s encourage him to do most of the talking. And along with that, I thought I’d like to direct our discussions to things of a more radical nature. After thinking about what it was that I wanted to ask Mr. Sakamoto first, I realized that I want to know what you’re searching for. You seem to be the kind of person who has been continually searching for something. You seem to be more than someone who composes, of course, you do compose, but I just can’t help feeling that you’re more than just a composer, you want something beyond that, something above that, I don’t know exactly what that other thing is, but you seem to be a person who wants something, who continues to search for something. At this point it’s terribly impudent of me, but let me suggest that whatever it is you’re looking for, it’s not likely to be something human. So let me ask you, what is it exactly that you have been searching for?

Sakamoto: You know, I’m not even sure what it is.

Kobayashi: But you are searching for something, aren’t you?

Sakamoto: Rather than what I’m searching for, wouldn’t you say that none of us knows what it is we’re searching for? You often hear the teenagers on TV programs talking about what they want to be, what they want to do, their dreams, things like that. You see all of these dramatic lives where people go after what they want, accomplishing what they want, but I don’t think it’s anything at all like that. Professor Kobayashi, you never thought about becoming what you are now, did you?

Kobayashi: Never....

Sakamoto: Was it just coincidence?

Kobayashi: Well..

Sakamoto: What about it?

Kobayashi: No, see, I didn’t think it was ever your purpose to become what you are now.

Sakamoto: No, it wasn’t like that at all.

Kobayashi: So, that thing you want is something other than yourself.

Sakamoto: Right.

Kobayashi: So when people talk about their wants and desires, it’s usually just a search for self; I feel like telling them not to be so stupid. Don’t you think so, too?

Sakamoto: I agree. Of course.

Kobayashi: It’s not anything stupid like that, is it?

Sakamoto: No.

Kobayashi: But what should you do if you’re not seeking something other than yourself?

Sakamoto: It seems like lately whenever the question comes up, you usually hear something about dreams or something along that line, but I don’t think that’s the way it is. Just the fact that we live our lives is an interesting story. I never once thought about becoming a musician, it just happened to turn out this way. In fact, for the longest time I had no idea what I wanted to do. And what you want has a lot to do with it. On a more concrete subject, what I’m more interested in is the relationship between the brain and music, how did the process of human evolution and music come about. I sometimes

read on the subject but it doesn’t stop there. If it did, then all I would have to do is become a researcher. There were times when I was a college student that I thought the life of a researcher would be pretty interesting, but after all, I know I’m lazy and anyway, it would be more interesting to be on the producing end. I sort of drifted into doing things in music up to now; that’s how I became what I am. That’s why it’s hard to say.

Kobayashi: So you’re saying that you just accidentally drifted into all this? People are not going to like hearing that answer. (laughs)

Sakamoto: Oh, I see. (laughs) Sorry about that.

Kobayashi: No, but at the same time, I haven’t followed you throughout every stage of your career, but I think things seem to have worked out well for you by pure chance. Like when you were a movie actor, when you did the theme song for the Olympics, when you were making commercials, you’ve really done so many different things. Whenever I see you, and please don’t take this the wrong way, it seems that the work you are doing, rather than being the driving force in your life, is something you seem to be doing by chance, and that you’re just adapting yourself to it. But that chance is not simply by chance, and that any chance will be something that can lead to that search for something. At least that is the way it looks to a third-party like me. If there’s some sort of secret to this, I would like to be able to tell it to all the young people who are here.

Sakamoto: This is all fairly nebulous, but music is not food. No matter what kind of music it is, you can’t fill your stomach with it. Chimpanzees evolved from monkeys and then on to the Homo species and then Homo sapiens. What I have wanted to know since I was young, and what I’m truly interested in knowing now, is at what evolutionary point did members of the Homo species begin playing the thing called music. I’m also interested in the structure of the brain. The thing that I have been wondering about the longest is why did they start to play music, or let’s call it art. Along this same line, this happened quite a while ago, but I was talking to one of the keepers at the Ueno Zoo, they have gorillas, monkeys, chimpanzees, lots of other primates, and I asked him whether they do any musical activities like humans do. He told me they don’t. But he did say that what they do – beating and knocking – sounds like music to the human ear. Now I don’t know whether he’s right or not, but the zoo keeper said they do it for different reasons. It all depends on how it’s interpreted. If it has some meaning, then it’s

not music. That being said, music and its related activities come to be seen as having no meaning. If only humans play music, why do we do it? Is it only human beings that do it?

Kobayashi: Do you get the feeling it’s only human beings who play music?

Sakamoto: That’s a good question. Recently, we’ve come to learn more and more about the fairly complex melodies birds remember and sing. And then there are the famous whale songs. These are also quite complex; the longer songs can last up to 30 minutes. On top of that, they differ from individual to individual. And year by year, some songs become popular and others fall from favor, now, it’s not like the year’s Top Ten songs, but something kind of like that. There hasn’t been anywhere near enough research into this to say with any certainty. But it might mean that humans are not the only ones who make music. And then there’s the well-known bee activity, ethologists interpret its significance as part of reproduction. It very well might have a meaning as well. And even if had its beginning in that meaning, they might be continuing it because it looks cool or feels good to do. Of course, we won’t know the answer to that until we ask the bees, we can’t communicate so we won’t ever know. In the end, we interpret this all to fit with our own way of thinking. So, what is musical activity, anyway? What it all comes down to is that the dividing line is not so clear. Our brains recognize this as music; that is not music. Our lives are full of sounds that we recognize are not music. But once they are recognized, they become music. Somehow, there’s a dividing line somewhere that tells us this isn’t music. But there’s also a continual arbitrariness to it, with historical period and cultural background bringing about rapid changes, or there’s a stimulation threshold or a dividing line, but I’m not sure about that. That’s what holds a lot of interest for me.

Kobayashi: But at those times, you do have a general image of what music is, don’t you?

Sakamoto: I know what I think it is.

Kobayashi: Then you do have something. So if you believe those plaintive and mysterious sounds that connect the whales in the ocean might be a song, it might be a kind of communication, not simple communication, but do you want to say it’s something with a different element in the construction of its sound?

Sakamoto: The thing we call communication is first and foremost, delivering a message, it’s the information contained in the message, but it’s like the way the bees fly, it’s neither a kind of dance nor art, it just delivers a message, or it might be the meaning we put on it has something to do with reproduction. Well then, if we turn our attention back to human behavior, we can’t say that human dances and songs are completely devoid of elements of communication. If that’s the case, then the definition becomes blurred, or perhaps it can’t be defined, we don’t know where to put the dividing line. If that’s true, the number of bees flying and their movements might as well be seen as art. If you do that, though, there are going to be many more people who see it differently. Be prepared for people to bring up a lot of things. Just about anything will work, for example, the reproductive cycle of salmon when they return to the place of their birth to spawn. At that time, the male digs out a nest for the female at the urging of the female who trembles and shakes above the nest at the bottom of the river. You might as well think of that as a dance, too. There are numerous examples of things like that. So really, then, what this boils down to is the classic question. What is art? What is music? But that thing that makes music music is not separate from humanity. I think in the end it’s the brain that recognizes music as music.

Kobayashi: So then for you the brain is the focal point of this subject?

Sakamoto: That’s right. That’s what I want to know.

Kobayashi: In the beginning when I was listening to you talk about the question of when music began, my reaction was that I immediately wanted to say that rather than talk about when it started, everything started from it. I’m a metaphysician, so I make these turnabouts. When it comes down to it, I want to say that music, although it might be something other than what we recognize as music, that something like music on a colossal scale may have given birth to life itself. Just as with the phrase, “as old as gravity,” both have been around for a long time. I believe the original saying used “war.” Many of you might have heard that “War is as old as gravity,” is one of the motifs in Mr. Sakamoto’s music. I wonder if I can say “Music is as old as gravity.”

(music)

Sakamoto: But I wonder if I sound overly literary.

Kobayashi: In fact, it does seem literary.

Sakamoto: I thought so.

Kobayashi: You know, but, how shall I put this... Sakamoto: It’s as if there are all these vibrations first, right?

Kobayashi: Hm... Maybe. But what kind of emotions can music evoke, of course, romantic, personal, and largely human ones such as calls from the depths of despair, but it seems to me when I listen to your music that you’re peeling off the layers of emotion, but sometimes those emotions run deep. It seems to me that you could give free rein to your emotions, lead the romantic world with human emotions, let the sadness and joy take flight....

Sakamoto: I’m very careful when it comes to that. Kobayashi: So you’re peeling it off....

Sakamoto: I try not to go there very much. Kobayashi: Do you avoid going there?

Sakamoto: I moderate it.

Kobayashi: Are you moderating it? Abstaining from it? Looks like abstinence to me. Sakamoto: I’m moderating it.

Kobayashi: You’d like to let it all out, wouldn’t you?

Sakamoto: I wonder. (laughs)