Focus Music in Contemporary Japan

Focus: Music in Contemporary Japan explores a diversity of musics being performed in Japan today, ranging from court genres to hardcore rock. Discussion of contemporary musical practice is situated within broader frames of musical and sociopolitical history.

Part I: Japanese Music in Cultural Context provides an overview of key characteristics of Japanese culture that inform the performance of many musics, addressing how geography, politics, religion, and cultural exchange have long shaped the quality of Japanese artistic expressions. Part II: Japanese Music and Percussion looks at the pervasiveness of percussion in musical styles throughout Japan’s history, demonstrating in the process how a focus on percussive traditions in Japanese music represents a particularly rich portal for understanding the performance of a range of musics in contemporary Japan.Part III: Performing Percussion in Contemporary Japan is organized around four case studies of specific sites in which individuals and groups make percussion-based music in a unique urban setting. Each chapter paints a vivid picture of its respective site, the music that is practiced, and the pedagogy and creative processes of each group and the people involved, while also connecting with larger issues at play in the performance of contemporary Japanese music.

Jennifer Milioto Matsue is an Associate Professor at Union College and specializes in modern Japanese music and culture.