Music and Multiplication

I believe that the significance of music is giving people pleasure, courage and peace.

When you live your life, there are times when you feel miserable, painful or sad, and sometimes you may feel your being overcome by it. This is being human but this moment comes just once. All the creatures including humans have rights to live their lives entirely. Therefore, we shouldn't permit destruction of nature or war that deprives those rights. This is the belief on which I do my activities and create music for the future.

I have no intention of leaving my name or bequathing my work. It's just a real delight for a composer that the pieces of music I wrote with all my heart reach people and give them joy without regard to time or place. When I hear that my work is performed not only in the US or Europe but also in Portugal or South Africa where I have never been, I feel happy and wonder how they like my work and what message they get from it.

However large a number is, if it is multiplied by zero, it becomes zero. Thus I will multiply my work by a number as large as possible.
This is what I think to myself nowadays.

When I write a piece of music, if I didn't publish it, it is as though it doesn't exist just like being multiplied by zero. However splendid it is, it is nothing for those who haven't heard it. When people get to know it, then it has some meaning. Until recently I had devoted myself to "writing great pieces of music" alone, but I noticed the above only lately and am now feeling fresh.

Life is short. Therefore, while I have strength and energy, I will give more concerts in collaboration with people from various fields and try to get my work known better. If there is a chance to listen to my work, don't miss it!

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Me, an Entity

A several million year old tree that has billions of leaves each of which falls after staying on a branch for dozens of years. Have you ever imagined such a tremendouly big tree?

I sometimes have a realization that the entity of me is only a leaf of a huge tree of mankind. When seeing this from the universe, does a life of a human being seem as trifling as a green drake that is said to live only for a day after getting out of a pupa or a cicada that comes out of the ground and 7 days later turns to dust, I wonder?

People love, rejoice and sorrow. While singing the joys of life, people distress themselves and find conflict with each other. Such is the human condition. Therefore lots of dramas occur and that is the zest of life.

On the earth there are lots of huge towering trees of animals and plants beside the tree of mankind. There are also trees that have perished.

Now that mankind has gained nuclear weapons and even the technology of gene manipulation, I hope that we accumulate wisdom so as not to cause the tree of mankind to perish. Maybe the humans are not that stupid. Let's be optimistic.

The earth is just one of planets. Planets and stars aggregate to the Milky Way System and galaxies like ours aggregate to....Ahhhh.

Having such things on my mind, when I look up at the stunningly beautiful winter sky glittered with a myriad of stars, I realize how precious my time is in this vast space-time, and start feeling foolish to bother about trifles.

When feeling like writing a song, write it now. When feeling like doing a thing, do it straight away. I say so to myself.

In everyday life we tend to pay attention only to things around us, but it is good to look at ourselves from the universal point of view once in a while.

John Lennon sings, "Imagine there's no countries,.... No religion too" in Imagine, which sinks into my mind.

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A Thing I Learned from a Fly

One day a fly came into my room.
Annoyed, I whisked it off and it rested on a table. Next I rolled up a newspaper within my reach and tried to hit it. The fly, as if it felt my intention, got away. After I tried several times and it managed to escape each time, I realized this was amazing.

The fly seemed to feel my intention to hit it, which might mean that if I had the favorable intention it felt that too. So, I switched my mind and slowly held out my hand, saying, "Sorry. Come here and I'll let you go outside".

This time it didn't escape. On the contrary, it climbed on my finger. "It sensed what I was thinking, as I expected," I thought happily. It didn't understand my words literally, of course, but did sense my feelings. I carried it outside and let it go, as I promised.

Music is said to be universal language in a way, as it expresses the inner world, free from words. I suppose the mechanism of how music gives an impression on people may be similar to that of flies sensing my feelings.

We use words in our every day life. We get various benefits of this useful tool. On the other hand, I suspect we may cut off or miss a lot of precious thoughts and information that haven't formed words yet. I'm not confident whether music can move a fly or not. Still, it is true that we, humans, are, like flies, a kind of creatures which has the ability to understand each other by a means other than words.

I think Mr. (or Ms.?) Fly taught me the preciousness of thoughts that have yet to become words or expressions as well as the importance of seeing things with one's inner eyes.

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Culture and Pride

"I heard that Japanese slept directly on the floor. Is it true?"
An Englishman, who was our landlord when my family and I lived in London, asked me one day. "In Japan you usually take off your shoes before entering the house and sleep on a thick futon mats being laid on the floor," I answered him briefly. This small talk was lingering on my mind, wondering that even an Englishman like him who used to teach at a college had such little understanding about Japanese culture.

Some days later I asked my wife to cook Japanese buckwheat noodles and invited him to our house. As I expected, he was eating noodles not to make a noise. So I said, "I know well enough it is an English table manner to have soup without making a sipping noise. In Japan we have culture that when eating Japanese noodles we find deliciousness in sipping sounds. If you are having noodles without sounds at a Japanese noodle restaurant, a particular Tokyoite cook may tell you like this - You don't like my noodles? Then, get out." A bit exaggerated.

He managed to sip noodles the way I did and asked, "Is this OK?" I wondered if I might have been a little unkind to him, but this is an effective way to explain the difference between two cultures. (It's not that I think eating noodles with loud sipping noises is a proud Japanese culture.)

In history many wars were brought on by nations which intended to force their culture on other nations, but it is very important that we understand the difference between our cultures fairly and respect each other's.

It is the same domestically. It has been a long time since people started to recognize a local indentity in Japan. To build a real local-oriented society, we have to develop local culture people can be proud of, learning from other districts open-mindedly.

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The Rose of Hiroshima

Beautiful roses named "Hiroshima Children" are blooming at the rose garden in Regent's Park, London. Dr. Tomin Harada who was a surgeon from Hiroshima and passed away at age 87 in 1999 created this form of rose.

Japan is the only country that has experienced nuclear bombings. As a composer who was born in Japan, I had a period when I was determined to write a piece of music whose theme was the hope of global peace. I got to know a lot of fabulous people through my Hiroshima friends and listened to their stories.

Dr. Tomin Harada was one of them. When I went to Hiroshima, I always visited his house and listened to his stories, viewing his garden full of roses in bloom.

It seems very significant that he developed roses after he rose from the disastrous ruins, worked on treatment for A-bomb sickness and was dedicated to pacifist movement.

There are more than 10,000 forms of roses and each has a name. For instance, a rose called "Peace" was created when World War I ended. Its large beautiful flowers are loved all over the world.

Dr. Harada's strong desire to develop a rose whose name starts with Hiroshima made it possible to create this new flower. He became friends with an English Poet because of their mutual interest in roses. And Dr. Harada was very happy when he told me his English friend named the rose "Hiroshima Children".

I was determined to write music like Hiroshima roses.

"Out of flaming tragedy, Out of the bright fire, Hiroshima with fire and hope, New life and hope"

This poem was written by Dr. Harada. I wrote music to it. This chorus has since been performed by Hiroshima musicians not only in Japan but also overseas.

I wondered what thoughts came and went when he first listened to this tune. I will never forget the tears glittering in his eyes at that time.

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The Fourth Horn

In my college days I decided to do a hands-on study of orchestration and joined an orchestra as a horn player. This orchestra mainly gave concerts for kids at schools but there was a yearly concert at a hall and I played as a member too. (How foolhardy I was! It was just the privileges of youth.)

Horn players create harmony in a set of four. In general the 1st and 3rd horn play treble and the 2nd and 4th play bass. Therefore, while beautiful melodies are assigned to the 1st and 3rd horn, the 2nd and 4th horn rarely play melodies but blow sounds like boo or pu most of the time.

As I was not a good horn player, it was inevitable for me to play the 4th horn. I was always longing to blow the splendid melodies of the 1st horn.

Although the 4th horn was low-profile, it is necessary to enrich harmony of the orchestra. I understood this well, but I wanted to blow like the 1st horn.

I should have improved myself and got upgraded to the 1st horn. Things weren't that easy.

Then, I encountered an exciting piece of music as a 4th horn player. We were going to play Tchaikovsky's Symphony no.4 in our yearly concert.

At the beginning of this symphony four horn players as well as fagotto players blow the theme in octaval unison fortissimo. I was so happy that I blew vigorously to my heart's content. Immediately the conductor snapped, "The 4th horn, too loud!"

The balance is very important. If I was a conductor, I would say the same thing. As a player I knew I had to blow the horn, keeping the balance of my part against the orchestra. Still, I couldn't deny my feelings that I wanted to play striking melodies for a change.

There is a 30 minute symphony where a cymbalist is supposed to strike only once. In Dvorak's Symphony no.9 a tuba is played for only 8 bars in the 2nd movement and do nothing but just stay on stage in the 1st, 3rd and 4th movements, while other players are kept busy. It seems as if they are sidetracked employees who still can't leave a company. They come round to a venue with heavy instruments. I feel sorry for them. It isn't their fault. I constantly think that it would be great if they have parts to play in the 3rd and 4th movements too.

Because of this experience of mine, when I write a piece of music, I try to assign important melodies to the 2nd violin, 2nd oboe or contrabass, which are not featured yet necessary.

I think the real life is the same. The world is sustained by anonymous people who take their roles nicely and steadily. They get any notice or attention but their roles are necessary to the society. I prefer the world where people living their 4th horn lives get more lights. Do you agree?

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The New Millennium's Renaissance

Computers have been introduced into various fields. It is the same in my field. I used to write music in music paper with a pen one by one. Nowadays I just play melodies on a keyboard and a computer displays notes accordingly. My work has become less laborious.

Judging from the recent computer progress, it doesn't seem the distant future that you can compose a great piece of music without technical knowledge but ample sensibility.

Seeing me use a computer to write or play music, some people say, "Your job looks easy, as a computer does it for you." Regarding simple work like writing notes or playing complex melodies, a computer is very helpful.

However, there is no difference in artistic activities to create the essence of musical expressions, which arouses emotion, between using a pen and a computer.

We, humans, have red blood circulating in our bodies and feelings such as joy and sorrow. As long as this basic fact exists, however far computers progress, the relationship with computers won't change, or rather shouldn't be changed.

The mankind is one of ceatures and they are living. Children should play, using their bodies fully, or make something by hand. I suppose only those actual experiences do nourish their sensibility exuberantly.

Today computer games are everywhere around children, games that can make them take virtual experiences for real ones. When seeing them, I sometimes have a dreadful feeling, wondering if such games would ever develop their sensibilities.

We shouldn't get enslaved to computers but make use of them as great servants so that the modern renaissance full of human nature will bloom. I'd like to continue my musical activities that contribute to that.

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Pray, and Any Flower of Yours Will Come Out
contribution to the book celebrating the 50th anniversary of Kano high school music course

In the hall of my house there is a square piece of fancy paper hung on a wall. It says, with a strong brushstroke, "Pray, and any flower of yours will come out". I got it from Mr. Shinmin Sakamura who is a poet that lives in Shikoku and wrote the poem. This phrase has been an important guidepost not only musicwise, such as writing music, conducting an orchestra or playing instruments, but also when thinking how to live my life.

At 15 I decided to become a composer and applied for admission to the music course of Kano high school. As the school didn't have a composition course, I took an entrance examination for a piano course. I managed to play a test piece of Beyer, making some 10 errors before the last note. It has become a good old memory. Now that my pieces of music are played and released on CDs not only in Japan but also in Europe and the US, I am filled with deep emotion.

Desires to do this and to become like that make us act.

I get pieces of music I want by imaging the music I want to compose or the themes I want to express, intensely in my mind.

It requires ideas and efforts to express fabulous images that appear in your mind into the better form of music. For which improving your technique is necessary. It's not that technique is a priority. I find it more suitable that necessity is the mother of improvement on technique.

Japan has a tradition that when you begin to learn something you should adopt the form first. Because of which or not, superficial skill is often regarded as important in Japan's academic classical music education, so much so that spirit can be neglected. As a result, I saw, in Europe or somewhere, young Japanese musicians being told, "Your technique is fine but what do you want to express?" It's very sad and these musicians are miserable.

When it comes to playing music accurately, computers are more reliable nowadays. They can reproduce even waver or human clumsiness precisely. I suppose, in such an age musicians who do nothing but reproduce music won't be needed!

I think what is expected more in the future is expression that only humans can create and that gushes out from inside of flesh and blood.

Every human has their own looks, liking, ways of thinking and feeling. People are all different. Each person's imagination has limitless possibility. This is just the magnificence of humans. Computers can imitate the surface but can't excel us in essence. The future musical education should put emphasis on that, otherwise it will be of no use.

If everyone builds up a wonderful image in their mind and tries their best to bring it to fruition in the belief of "Pray, and any flower of yours will come out", how fantastic it will be! Computers can never write music that is created through the process like that.

I believe that the significance of music is giving people deep emotion, dreams and hope.

Some say others' tragedies they saw or heard of purified them of their tragedy. Some say music raised hopes for tomorrow, encouraged them, healed them, consoled them or cheered them up. When I hear those voices, I'm really happy as a musician.

I will build up a fabulous image in my mind like in the poem of "Pray, and any flower of yours will come out" and pursue my musical activities so that the image will bloom. I always think this way.

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Mr. Only Now

There is a visible framed clipping of newspaper on a wall in my room. The article is about a 93 year old designer, Shichiro Imatake, and he says in it, "I'm over 90 and still need to soak in fresh spirits. So I'm going to stay in an exciting city, New York, for a month."

I was impressed by it and cut it out. At that time I just thought, "He is lucky that he is some 90 years old and still full of energy to act like that." Some time later I read the news of his death in the paper and knew the fact that he had been confined to a wheelchair for years. In spite of which, he held a positive attitude and visited NY every two years to absorb fresh trends. I wondered if he took "Imatake" as his pen name because of his way of life that is "only now". I became a big fan of his and thought I did want to live like him.
(In Japanese "only now" is imadake. Fujikake counts that imadake and imatake might be a kind of pun.)

There are many who have handicaps about eyes or legs and who still try to live their one and only lives as fully as they can. My poet friend, Masaji Chujo, became 94 years old recently. He told me that as he still had a new territory of poetry to write, he would keep challenging himself.

I think the object in life is to make the most of this precious life which is one and only and to live a life which you think is worth living.

It is not difficult. There are a lot of ways and you can find an object in life or a suitable delight: to feel the beauty of flowers / to breathe the fresh air / to relish food / to enjoy music or paitings / to have a talk with friends and so on. You have to find the way of life where you think that life is good. There were a lot of lives who wanted to live but couldn't. There is no end when you start to count wrong points. I'd rather grasp good points and nourish them.

Firstly you live a full life and then convey the delight of it to as many people as possible. Would it be more splendid?

I always think I want to live like that.

There is another poet who is over 90 years old and still active. His name is Shinmin Sakamura and here is one of his poems.

         Blooming with an innocent mind
         Falling with an innocent mind

         Flowers have no complaint
         They only live this moment

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To Live a Life
what I thought at the beginning of year 2002

At the sight of flowers, stars or morning dew and at the sound of birds' songs or murmuring of a stream, I don't want to fail to arouse fresh emotions. I want to have warm contact with as many lives as I can. I want to live a life where I think that I'm happy to come into the world. Because this moment is just once!

What a wonder it is that I exist here and now!

Three meals a day would be enough for one to enjoy. One bed is enough for one to sleep.

People conflict because of the difference in principles, contention or religion. What do they matter? That's ridiculous!

In 100 years or less you and I are all certainly dead and elements of our bodies are reduced to microscopic part of this huge universe.

How precious and wonderful this moment is, the moment when we live and breethe!

We shouldn't spend our energy or valuable time on worthless things but should focus our efforts just at making our lives fabulous.

I have such a feeling, when pondering upon the un-peaceful past year with terror and recession.

What one person can do is so little but I will make the most of my given life and do my musical activities with a determination to illuminate a corner.

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My Long Route Towards Being a Composer

A mountain stream shining in the sunlight filtering down through trees.
The smell of golden-rayed lilies in the woods so sweat and dense as to be smothered.
A lovely light purple balloon flower waving in a country path.
Mountains covered with young fresh green.
The deep colored surface of a river tinged with mountain green.
Ayu fish glistening through the surface of a river.
These images often come to mind when I write music.

I graduated from a junior high school and left my home village at 15. I still feel that the natural environment in which I spent my childhood nourished my sensibilities, and they are rooted in my mind and have become a source of my composition. That is when I think I was lucky to spend my boyhood in Higashi-shirakawa village.

I was in the 3rd grade of a junior high school when I realized I wanted to become a composer. As a child I was always playing in mountains or in a river and did nothing but things I liked to do. As I was strong-minded, I had a tendency to think, "I won't be beaten at fights", which was the only thing I was proud of as a kid. I didn't have a home or economical environment to study music, let alone learning the piano. So, it was no wonder that no one thought it was possible when I said that I wanted to become a composer. I was supposed to start working after graduation from junior high school. But then I had good results at an exam and my teacher suggested going on to high school working as a newspaper boy. It was only those days when I knew Beyer was a piano primer.

As a live-in newspaper boy, I delivered moning and evening papers, collected bills and solicited subscriptions for a newspaper along with going to school. Whenever I had my free time, I went to school and practiced the piano. My employer watched me doing like this, bought a piano and said, "Teach my grandchild the piano". As he put the piano in my room, I was able to practice the piano anytime and it became more efficient. I entered a university and continued to study composition, still working as a live-in newspaper boy with a different newspaper agency near the university. This new employer bought me a piano, saying, "You can pay for it when you make your way." I said, "Let me pay you little by little from my salary" It took years to repay all the money. Still, it was just like a dream to have my own piano. These two great employers passed away long ago but are still alive in my mind with warm gratitude.

Later on I entered a lot of music contests and won many of them. The greatest turning point for my career was the Grand Prix of the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition of Belgium, which is one of the three most prestigeous music contests. The prize-winning work is "The Rope Crest", the symphonic work for a large piece orchestra, into which I put the imagination inspired by the earthware of Japan's pre-agricultural civilization that suggested powerful human vitality. To attend the award ceremony I visited Europe for the first time in 1978. As I thought I would surely go to Europe one day, I studied English hard too. That helped a lot at the time. On this occasion my wife and I visited various places in Europe, spending 2 months, which was also a great experience.

At the concert of the prize-winning piece the Belgian National Orchestra gave a fabulous performance and the capacity audience did a standing ovation for a good number of minutes. It was a great success. At the award ceremony I talked to Queen Fabiola directly and received a golden medal and a certification from her. She read the exposition I wrote about this piece of music for the concert program in English, and said, "The work is certainly great but I do love the message very much. Where did you study, in the US or in Europe?" "This is the first time for me to be abroad," I replied. She was very surprised. Finally she said, "When you returned to Japan, please give my best regards to Hirohito." When I asked, "Who is Hirohito?" the Japanese Ambassador was flustered and whispered in my ear, "Ah, she meant the Emperor of Japan." He must have been startled but I didn't know people called the Emperor Hirohito until then.

Like this I have been focusing on being a composer, but as a matter of course things didn't go smoothly. There were times when I was nearly overwhelmed with a sense of inferiority or dispirited in the face of various problems. In those situations I always said to myself, "As I started at zero, I will try the best of my ability," and managed to get over them. It seems that a sense of inferiority provided momentum all the more and gave me positive power.

Even though my family wasn't rich, I feel the fact that I spent my childhood freely in the midst of nature has turned into great mental possessions for writing music. I'm grateful for that.

I am determined to do my best in the future too. After the example of myself, I want children who are starting their lives not to assume that it is impossible or that they can't do it before trying. They call up their courage and can do anything they truly want to. Here is a nice phrase my English friend told me several times and that I always remind myself of: Nothing is impossible!

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