Monthly Archives: August 2019

European music

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European music is created by combining classical music by nobles, traditional music handed down by locals, Islamic, and gypsy cultures.

Classic
It is also the basis of music prospering around the European court, contemporary music, and music theory. Developmental music, baroque music, classical music, romantic music, opera, etc., has been developed in various ways by age, style, music, music style, and has been passed down to the present age. In addition, after two world wars, contemporary music was born as something that defeats the old music format, and the methodology is widely spread to other genres such as accidental music, music concreting, electronic music, environmental music (ambient), minimal music, etc. It has an impact.

Irish Folk (Ireland)
Folk music based on Irish tradition. It is also a source of American folk songs and countries. In the 1960’s Ireland, there was a move aspect to restore the traditional Irish folk.

Liverpool Sound (Liverpool, UK)
In the early 1960s, bands from all over Britain went to the United States. From 1964 to 1965, about half of Billboard’s hit charts were occupied by British bands. In Japan, British bands that appeared at this time are collectively called Liverpool Sound.

British Beat (London, UK)
A generic term for the 1960’s British beat group. At first he played rock and roll, rhythm and blues covers, but his originality gradually deepened and British beat was formed.

Punk Rock (London, UK)
In New York in the 1970s, the backlash of commercialized and formalized rock created a style of emphasizing anti-social and political lyrics and doing radical fashion with frantic beats. That sparked London. The rough sound of punk rock has a great influence not only on music but also on fashion and ideas.

Chanson (Paris, France)
A popular song created in Paris, France. Chanson does not refer to music of a specific genre in the meaning of “song” in French, but in the world, it imagines music consisting of “melody like to talk”.

Canzone (Italy)
In French, “Song” is Chanson, but in Italian it is “Canzone”. In Japan, in Japan, it tends to imagine the Neapolitan people who sing imposingly as Canzone, but it refers to all popular Italian music. The Italian song popular in Japan from the 1960s to the 1970s is sometimes called Canzone.

Flamenco (Spain)
Flamenco is a performing arts born in the Andalusia region of southern Spain, brought by gypsy (people of exile). Based on the song, with the addition of Gita and dance, it is said that in the 19th century, it became a style that can be seen today. The guitar used is a unique scale (gypsy scale) and the guitar itself is also special.

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North American Music

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It can be said that the origin of popular music in the world is in North America. While focusing on New York, new music has been created throughout the United States, leading the world.

Rockabilly (Tennessee)
The birthplace of Memphis, Tennessee. It features a dark rock and roll style with a country colour. When black music such as blues and gospel was active, it could be said that it was used as white music, and it became a popular target for young people, along with its fashion, with a performance style that shines on the stage.

Modern Jazz (New York)
Originated in the 1940’s in New York called “Bebop”, it was originally a jazz song incorporating ad libs, and swing jazz became a mannerizing, and it was supposed to be born after a jam session after the closing of a live house and a restaurant.

Gospel (Southern)
It was sung at church gatherings in a style that should be called an American black music prototype. Since the 1930s, it has also been used as a spiritual foundation for the black community, sometimes as a companion-to-peer code. At first it was only singing voice, but eventually it began to use instruments.

Salsa (New York)
“Latin American music” which became a big boom in the 1970s. It occurred mainly in Hispanic immigrants in New York in the 1960s and spread to blacks. Salsa is a spice used in Central and South America. Introduced the taste of rock and jazz, it spread around the world.

Folk song (New York)
Also known as folk music. Originally pointed to the blues of folk songs and blacks. It is mainly a protest song. Typical accompaniment styles use acoustic guitars and banjos, not electric guitars.

Rhythm & Blues (R & B) (New York)
In New York in the 1940s, black music began with jazz, blues and gospel, and developed into popular music for the masses. There was no clear distinction between rock and roll. After that, rhythm & blues developed into soul music and so on.

Soul Music (New York)
Seoul or soul music is basically music developed from the 1950s to the early 1960s. As time went by, Rhythm & Blues came to call the widely developed and expanded style soul music.

Hip Hop (New York)
A style created by the next generation of young people, who has developed rhythms & blues that were born and developed in the 1940s. It refers to soul music born in New York in the 1980s. In the club scene, black street culture was spotlighted along with unique fashions such as raps with good rhyme, DJing with scratching of analog records, and break dance.

Surf music (California)
From the late 1950s, there was a surf boom on the American West Coast. The party music of the surfers developed.

Psychedelic Rock (San Francisco)
In the mid 1960’s, trip music influenced by the primary color art “Psychedelic” with hippie ideas as the background. The hallucinations obtained by Druck were introduced into the elements of music, and it was tried to express distinctive visual images with music. In the late 60’s of the flourish flower movement, waves of psychedelic rushed to the whole world, and many artists have left works of this genre.

Fork Rock (Los Angeles)
Born in Los Angeles, California in the mid 1960’s. A folk musician changes the guitar to electric and locks it. The singer-songwriters at the time used the song as their repertoire, singing with harmony, and playing electric guitars in addition to conventional instruments. Folks were characterized by strong social lyrics, but they introduced rocking techniques to broaden the range of expressions and increase communication to the audience.

Asian music

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Asian music is being reviewed worldwide. The size of the market, which accounts for 40% of the world’s population alone in two countries, China and India, and economic development seem to be the background. Indonesia and India are one of the world’s music centers.

Kecak (Indonesia)
Kecak is a touristic dance art performed in Bali, also known as monkey dance. Several tens to a hundred men with shirtless shirts and waistbands appear, and form a circle with several circles of overlapping circles. They are called “kecha” because they sound like a “chuck” or “chuck” that mimics the animal’s call and that they sound like a 16 beat rhythm called “kecak kecak kecak kecak”.

Dan Dud (Indonesia)
Dance music popular with young people in Indonesia. A unique roll rhythm music that combines Arab music, reggae, and rock. It’s an Islamic culture, with a drum called Surin and a drum called Gundang.

Indian film song (India)
India is the world’s largest movie country. In a movie tailored to a musical, an actor does not sing, and a singer called playback of a film song specialist plays back.

Kawali (Pakistan)
Music created as a result of the fusion of Indian culture and Turkish-Iranian traditions. With the growing interest in Islamic culture, attraction is re-recognized. It is derived from the Arabic “Kaul (speaking)” and originally sung at the religious ceremonial occasion of Islamic mysticism (sufism). With clapping as an accompaniment, we proceed in an impromptu dialogue between the advocate and the recursor.

Homey (Mongolia)
It is also called fumy. Among the music transmitted among the Mongolian people, it is the name of the singing method transmitted to the Western Mongolian tribes, and it simultaneously utters a roaring bass and a high-pitched whistle. The word “Mongolian” means “pharynx, animal’s abdominal fur”.

Paradigm shift of music business

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Business done through the Internet can achieve significant cost reductions by eliminating intermediaries. In the flow, it is said that the phenomenon that the copyright which was protected before was pressed down, the unit price falls, or it approaches to free as much as possible.

What matters about the music business is the question of how the copyright fee, which is the reward for creative activities, can be secured in the current situation where it will be as free as possible. There are also many things that I can think of as a musician.

Up until now, we had been doing live activities to sell music CDs explosively, but after 10 years, the value of live activities jumped up to 10 times, and music CDs and online distribution itself approached as free of charge as possible. It may take on the role of promotion.

Digitized music is copied from anywhere, regardless of how strict it is managed, and spreads all over the world in no time.

Until now, it has been profitable to contain, package and sell digital information in concrete “things” such as music CDs. The benefit was turning to copyright holders and artists who write and compose songs.

However, in the age of online distribution, a copy that does not differ slightly from the master by the artist will be delivered to the users’ hands. The master is a clone and splatters all over the world.

In the digital world, the value of something that can be replicated is as close to zero as possible. It is very difficult to stop it. There, we need to go back to the origin of the music business. In the first place, music was not what was stored on a digitized music CD.

The origin of music is to enjoy yourself, but the origin of music appreciation is to live activities. The raw voice, the live instrument, the passion of the artist in real time, the emotion of emotions, the place of the live activity where it was directly transmitted was the origin of music.

Yes, the artist’s value returns to its origin as it would be born again in live activities. As the priming for live activities, a master disc of music that makes the best sound and invites to live is born.

Streaming is a guiding tool

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In Japan, the music CD specialty store survived and the business style of rental was established, so Apple’s iTunes Store, which has spread worldwide, did not spread as expected. What will happen in the future?

In Japan, CD rental stores can be rented for ¥ 300 for albums and ¥ 200 for singles, so they are cheaper than downloading on iTunes. From now on, with the spread of streaming, the music CD rental business will be forced to change the business format, but unlike the US, its speed is slow, and I think the conversion will proceed slowly to around 2025 years.

In the meantime, the music business will definitely go live, but the form of the live will change as well. The music business in the streaming age has a strong relationship with SNS, and its taste changes from the live before digitization. Streaming will be used as a tool to easily obtain “music information” rather than enjoying music itself. Then, when you found the music you liked by streaming, you buy a music CD to support the artist, or go to “mini live”. By reporting the situation via SNS, users will face music.

Once the media of television became popular, programs of the world travel were hit and images from around the world were introduced on television. At that time, people were told that “You can not go on a trip because you can watch a picture on TV”. Of course, the result is the opposite. We have learned that there is a wonderful world on TV, we went on a trip to compete, see, and experience the “real thing”.

Both large star artists and indie artists who are supported by a few special fans in the niche market are different in shape, but for “you who are fans, within reach of you, “Singing close to voice” will be mainstream. In other words, all artists will be converted from “all artists” to “your artists”. Why is it inevitable? That is because in the age of AI (Artificial Intelligence), there is an iron rule that values ​​human beings as important.

Similarly, users who are attracted by streaming will want to cheer up artists in a realistic setting. It is important to have a place where live is at hand.

Basics of overseas market capture

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From now on, it should not be closed only to the Japanese market. Overseas should also be active at the same time. I would like to organize the way of thinking about music activities overseas.

Create “Tribe”.

It is natural, but overseas activities have disadvantages compared to activities in Japan. Even if you do a live, you won’t be able to sell it because there are no artists’ friends. The weak point is that there is not enough information to choose what to do, such as media choice and live house selection.

How do you grab a certain number of early fans and how do you access users ? The initial task is to create the first “Tribe” that supports the artist and the song.

Fortunately, Japanese artists have a context of cool Japan. It is a fact that the word “Cool Japan” is attached to the word, so if you hate it, you don’t have to use it. In short, quite a few users like Japanese pop culture represented by animation, comics, games etc. It means that you are in the world. There is no way not to use this context.

People who do not know the circumstances of foreign countries argue that “I do not want to be confined to Japan.” “Well, what do you start out and get interested?” I think. The world of international competition is not as easy as Japan. There is exactly a fight. It is true that the power of the Japanese government is weaker than in other countries, but the idea of ​​“it does not require because it is cool” is just like Japan’s island nationality. If you are confident in your artist or work, you should use all that is available and increase your exposure opportunities.

What I want you to know is that niche genres have networks globally. For example, metal rock, dance music such as house etc… has connections all over the world. There are many active visuals bands in overseas because the combination of warp and weft of otaku culture and rock scene is easy to build.

Global niche and Japanese pop culture. Let’s make a tribe and be conscious of these two things.

Mastering basics

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The basic goal of mastering is to make the mastered sound feel as the artist or mix-down engineer listens think “It sounds better than the mix, although it is not much different from the mix.” Of course, if the mix itself sounds awful, this is not the case.

So, the most important of the basic techniques of mastering is listening to the mix you receive to determine what is extra and what is missing. Specifically, the following points are carefully judged while listening to the sound source.

・ Aren’t there any frequencies that jumped out somewhere?
・ Does unnecessary frequency do not pile up and muddy the whole?
・ Is the high end and the low end sufficient or not too high?
・ Is the presence of main vocals and instruments enough?
・ Is the spread of sound enough?
・ Is it necessary to apply a compressor all over?
・ Is the volume sufficient compared to commercial CDs?

At this time, the criteria for judgment also change depending on the direction of the song or artist, so it is necessary to closely check with the artist or producer about the target sound. In the case of an artist who is new to mastering, I always try to listen to a song that the artist likes and wants to make this sound.