Electronic sound in post-war Japan: creation, consumption, representations

Jeremy Corral (1, 2)

1 IFRAE - Institut français de recherche sur l’Asie de l’Est
2 D2iA - Dynamiques, Interactions, Interculturalité Asiatiques

According to the definition proposed by Leigh Landy, electroacoustic music is music in which electricity is used not only to record and amplify sound, but also to create the musical material. Electroacoustic music thus has more to do with the question of means and material than with the question of stylistic traits. Although in electroacoustic music the sound material is recorded sound, it can be of two types: microphonic, that is to say picked up by a microphone, or electronic, that is to say synthesised. Each of these two types has a profound influence on the way in which this sound material is developed and on the understanding of the sound. I would like to look at representations of electronic sound in Japan. This research project will look specifically at the evolution of representations of electronic sound as it became a commodity in the 1970s. I will present some questions that form the starting point of my reflections. These questions concern, on the one hand, the ways in which electronic sound is perceived in the continuation of microphonic sound in the context of the creation of electroacoustic music and, on the other hand, the ways in which electronic sound is perceived in the context of its widespread dissemination in society.

Mots clés: electronic sound, electroacoustic music, contemporary Japan,

Domaines: Musique, musicologie et arts de la scène; Histoire

Jeremy Corral. Electronic sound in post-war Japan: creation, consumption, representations. AAS 2024 Annual Conference, Association for Asian Studies, Mar 2024, Seattle (USA), Washington, United States. ⟨hal-04518737⟩