Isao Tomita: The Father of Japanese Electronic Music

Works Cited

Isao Tomita: The Father of Japanese Electronic Music

As a big country of electronic music, Japan contributes significantly to the world’s electronic music market as the Japanese market earns lots of profits from electronic music each year. Many electronic music festivals are held regularly throughout the country. Japan also gave birth to many famous musicians using synthesizers such as Tetsuya Komuro, Daisuke Asakura, Yasutaka Nakata, and so on (St.Michel). This blooming era of Japanese electronic music started with Isao Tomita, the father of synthesizers in Japan. Tomita greatly influenced contemporary music by introducing Moog IIIc into Japan and combining traditional and electronic music, and he continued to make an impact in the 21st century.

Tomita was born in 1932 in Tokyo, Japan. Due to his father’s job, Tomita moved to China when he was four years old until primary school. During his time in China, Tomita visited the Temple of Heaven in Beijing with his father. Standing in front of the Wall of Echoes, Young Tomita decided to become a musician (Saitō 360). Tomita went to Keio University in the 1950s, studying with composers Kishio Hirano and Koujirou Kobune, and got a job at a music program under NHK. Later, he began composing music for several TV dramas and animes (Nippon Columbia).

During his college days, Tomita mainly arranged orchestrated versions of existing songs for commercial usage. He soon realized that he wanted to create music with his sounds (Winston). In the 1970s, Tomita started to compose with synthesizers. During an interview, he mentioned his interest in music and electronics which he stated: “At first, my interests in music and electronics were quite separate. It was the marketing of synthesizers that unexpectedly merged my two hobbies.” (Moog Music) After hearing a piece by Walter Carlos, Tomita determined to purchase a Moog synthesizer for music composition (Moog Music). He also listened to several works by rock bands such as Emerson Lake & Palmer, Pink Floyd, and Yes. These bands only incorporated synthesized sounds from Minimoog into their rock music, but Carlos composed music with only synthesizers (Winston). Therefore, he traveled to the United States and bought a Moog IIIc, waiting for about a month until the synthesizer was finally delivered to his hand (Moog Music). Tomita recalled that it was a challenging experience to wait for the customs to release the synthesizer (Winston).

There was little synthesizer experience in Japan as almost no composer had used it for composition. Tomita had to experiment with the synthesizer by himself (Moog Music). Before traveling to the United States, Tomita expected the Moog synthesizer to be as simple as an electronic organ. However, when he finally received the synthesizer, he found it much more complicated than his imagination. He had to change his perception of how the machine works. The synthesizer came with a 15-page instruction booklet, but it only told users its functions instead of creating sounds (Winston). At first, the synthesizer only generated nothing but noises. Then, Tomita started to play around the machine to emulate acoustic sounds such as bells or whistles (Moog Music).

Tomita brought the Moog synthesizer for his use and let other musicians learn about it. After realizing how to use the synthesizer to create sound, Tomita invited younger musicians to try it out. However, Tomita did not teach them how to use the synthesizer but led them to play with the machine by themselves since he saw no point in teaching them to imitate his sounds. Hideki Matsutake, a young musician from the group Yellow Magic Orchestra, recalled that he and his fellow musicians played with Moog synthesizer on their own and learned to create sounds by analyzing Tomita’s recording. Therefore, Yellow Magic Orchestra created their sounds using the same machine but different from Tomita’s sounds (Winston). Therefore, Tomita is the first Japanese musician experimenting with synthesizers and introduced synthesizers to Japan. He shared the machine with the younger musicians so that more Japanese musicians could create electronic music.

Then, here comes the milestone of Tomita’s music career. In 1974, Tomita released his album titled “Snowflakes are Dancing,” and he was nominated for the Grammy Award for the best classical album (Fox). He is the first Japanese musician to be nominated for four Grammy Awards (Nippon Columbia). In this album, Tomita rearranged Debussy’s “Clair de Lune”  with the Moog synthesizer entirely. He chose to perform a classical song because he was inspired by Walter Carlos’s piece of Bach’s classical music. However, Tomita believed that Debussy’s music is more about tone and color than chords and melody. Therefore, Tomita chose to rearrange Debussy’s piece as competing with Carlos’s recording (Tomita). In this way, Tomita combined classical musical elements with modern music from synthesizers and exhibited synthesizers’ possibilities to the world.

In this piece, Tomita presented the sense of stereo sound, tone, and color he was pursuing since he became determined to become a musician. It is an entirely new world that anyone else cannot exhibit, entering the following electronic music stage (Matsuyama [120]). Speaking about the background of the arrangement of Debussy’s piece, Tomita claimed that he wanted to create a strong foundation for electronic music since he believed that electronic music, a new form of music, would evolve significantly with solid ground. He also suggested that musicians use synthesizers to imitate conventional sounds from instruments and experiment with different sounds later. Tomita appreciated sounds from traditional instruments and believed that musicians should not deny those instruments (Kuni [57]). After the success of “Snowflakes are Dancing,” Tomita continued using the Moog synthesizer to create orchestra pieces such as “The Planets” and “Bermuda Triangle.” (Matsuyama [121]) Although there were several critiques of Tomita’s work, he continued to create music and greatly influenced later Japanese electronic musicians (Fox). Tomita’s use of synthesizers for creating classical music undoubtedly created a foundation for electronic music that he experimented with the possibility of synthesizers while keeping the conventions. He set the groundwork for younger generations to discover more about what synthesizers can do from his work.

Tomita is also one of the first Japanese musicians who went outside Japan into the world. At first, the Japanese market had no interest in releasing Tomita’s “Snowflakes are Dancing.” Although the record stores were selling Walter Carlos’s albums, these albums were placed in the sound effect section instead of the music section (Moog Music). While Tomita was producing his album, several producers listened to Tomita’s piece and told him that they were not sure which section in the record stores they could sell it. Tomita did not want his album to be sold in the sound effect section as Carlos’s album. Tomita contacted the producer of Carlos’s album, and thus “Snowflakes are Dancing” was successfully released in the United States. Due to the massive success of this album, the Japanese market finally recognized Tomita’s piece as music and released the album in Tomita’s home country (Winston). Thus, Tomita’s groundbreaking work also made electronic music recognized by the Japanese market, encouraging more musicians to explore this new music genre.

Besides incorporating classical music elements into electronic music, Tomita was the first Japanese musician to experiment with stereo sound with synthesizers. During Tomita’s time, several critiques commented that electronic music lacks some depth in sound. Tomita discovered what synthesizers could do for stereo sounds as he played with modules on the Moog synthesizer to make the sounds have more depth. Tomita first used the filter to attenuate the frequencies of the strings, and then he added the hissing noise from tape recorders to the strings’ sounds (Tomita). He also adopted four-channel stereo sound in his recordings, and this technique became the surround sound today (Winston). Therefore, he successfully created depth to the synthesized sound. Tomita blended sounds created by synthesizers and tape recordings and discovered that synthesizers can do more than imitating sounds.

Entering the 21st century, although more and more digital synthesizers appeared in the music industry, Tomita did not stop creating new frontiers of synthesizers, and people can still see his influence in modern Japanese electronic music. In 2012, Tomita composed “Symphony Ihatov” along with Hatsune Miku, the voice synthesizer engine (VOCALOID) developed by Yamaha, as the singer for the symphony, and the piece was performed in Tokyo, Japan in the same year (Matsuyama [121]). Tomita passed away in 2016, but his contribution to electronic music still influences the Japanese music industry. As a pioneer who first explored the possibilities of synthesizers, Tomita is no doubt the father of Japanese electronic music, and he left younger musicians with countless valuable experiences which set the groundwork for later generations to continue creating electronic music.

Fox, Margalit. "Isao Tomita Dies at 84; Combined Electronic and Classical Music." The New York Times, 11 May 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/arts/music/isao-tomita-widely-considered-the-father-of-japanese-electronic-music-dies-at-84.html. Accessed 19 Nov. 2020.

Kuni, Masami. "The Musical World of Tomita Isao." Japan Quarterly, vol. 30, Jan. 1983.

Matsuyama, Shinya. "ドビッシーから初音ミクへ" ["From Debussy to Hatsune Miku"]. WIRED, vol. 6, 9 Nov. 2012.

Moog Music. "Isao Tomita | Moog Alchemist." Moog Music, www.moogmusic.com/news/isao-tomita-moog-alchemist. Accessed 19 Nov. 2020.

Nippon Columbia. "冨田勲" ["Isao Tomita"]. Nippon Columbia, columbia.jp/tomita/prof.html. Accessed 19 Nov. 2020.

Saitō, Akemi. Ie No Rirekisho: Bunkajin Geijutsukahen. Tōkyō, Kinemajunpōsha, 2011.

St.Michel, Patrick. "Remaking the EDM experience for Japan." The Japantimes, Japan Times, 23 Sept. 2014, www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2014/09/23/music/remaking-edm-experience-japan/. Accessed 19 Nov. 2020.

Tomita, Isao. "2014 Red Bull Music Academy Tokyo Lecture." 2014. Red Bull Music Academy, 2014, www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/isao-tomita. Accessed 19 Nov. 2020. Lecture.

Winston, Danny Masao, translator. "Isao Tomita: Moog Reverie." ResidentAdvisor, 13 July 2012, www.residentadvisor.net/features/1586. Accessed 20 Nov. 2020.