Archive for the ‘Idol Culture’ Category
New Vocaloid Keyboard by Yamaha
Posted on: March 21, 2012
A new type of keyboard by Yamaha allows for live performances of Vocaloid songs. The keyboard works like this: your left hand selects the kana sound you want for your lyrics, your right hand performs the pitch and length of the note you want. And, voila! You get a singing voice! (without all of the labor-intensive programming in Vocaloid editor…)
This new technology raises a few thoughts.
Let’s get Neolithic. Singing started with a voice. The first music was most likely sung. Shortly after that, our ancestors started making instruments to compliment singing. Though they were likely nothing more than bones with holes carved to make a primordial flute, we can think of these early instruments as technologies.
Fast forward a few thousand years. The rise of digital technologies has allowed synthetic instruments to be created and played back via digital audio workstations (like Acid, Fruity Loops, Garageband and Pro Tools) without any physical manipulation. Vocaloid, though somehow linked to the ancient act of singing, has relied on these workstations for the singing to happen.
So, with the Vocaloid keyboard, the historical order of music technology (voice -> instrument -> DAW) is reversed. And, in its place, we have a new order of musical technology: a voice is recorded, synthesized in a DAW, then released in the form of a keyboard.
Imagine a time in the (perhaps not so) distant future, when people might not think of music as coming from physical instruments at all. Music to them might simply be the aural experience of listening to music; it won’t be accompanied by any physical apparatus. As we’ve seen over the course of the twentieth century, not only have playback devices gotten smaller (think of the cell phone in your pocket v.s. a phonograph), but the sources of these sounds are increasingly removed from any physical apparatus (think player piano v.s. Korg DS-10 synth). Sounds cool, but isn’t something missing?
Certainly, things seem to be moving in the direction of smaller to invisible. But, perhaps our innate human desire to tinker with our hands (silly as it is) might override this trend. Maybe we need to have that physical connection to music. Maybe we need to experience the struggle of the performer to appreciate a performance’s value. We need to affirm our connection as listeners to the people who create the music we like. This makes us a part of a musical community, not just passive listeners.
Simon Frith talks about this in his book, “Performing Rights.” He says:
“A good rock concert… is measured by the audience’s physical response, by how quickly people get out of their seats, onto the dance floor, by how loudly they shout and scream. And rock performers are expected to revel in their own physicality too, to strain and sweat and collapse with tiredness… Rock acts conceal not the physical but the technological sources of their sounds; rock audiences remain uneasy about musical instruments that appear to require no effort to be played” (Frith 1996: 125)So, perhaps the listening experience cannot be just an aural activity, and Yamaha is picking up on this feeling of loss. Any fan of Vocaloid knows that it isn’t just about the software, it’s about the community coming together and making music, singing and dancing together. This is something that we innately appreciate as human beings. Nowadays, we’ve got way sweeter instruments than carved out bones, but the sense of community that we get from music is precisely the same.
The new keyboard, while having broad implications in terms of Vocaloid itself or even in the field of music technology, seems to extend beyond the question of “well, is a Vocaloid a singing voice? An instrument? Something else?” This instrument also suggests a fundamental human need for visual performance, an image to match the sound.
For now, Yamaha has no plans to release this product, even though digital instrument sales are on the rise (amid an ever desiccating singles and album sales revenue stream). But, it suggests that Yamaha is aware of our need for a good performance on top of good music. While Vocaloid P’s likely spend millions of collective hours producing Vocaloid content, this effort seems to go unnoticed by listeners. This technology might allow composers an opportunity to show off their virtuosity. Or perhaps it will create a new type of instrumentalist, someone capable of playing a Vocaloid to its broadest emotive depths.
Either way, this instrument is going to start a whole new moe movement… Speaking of which…
- In: Idol Culture | Uncategorized | Vocaloid
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I doubt it.
But, we can hope so.
And it seems thousands of other people feel as strongly as I do. Or perhaps Vocaloid fans are just good at hacking. Even if this isn’t enough to bring Nebula to the Olympics, it’s definitely catching some attention. I heard about it from a friend online, but this article confirms it.
Frankly, I don’t think Queen Elizabeth II would quite know how to take that. I wonder if anyone watching would know the truth behind Vocaloid music producer’s intentions. Perhaps Hatsune Miku performing at that event could give this community a powerful voice.
As much as you can swing Vocaloid fans as being eerily obsessed with a not-quite-real, real-ish 16 year old Japanese girl named Hatsune Miku, it’s not really an accurate portrayal. Vocaloid fans are primarily anti-label, not anti-life. Their primary concern is being able to produce content without the influence of traditional record labels. Certainly, fanmade sexual content is floating around out there, but it’s really more about the ability of people to lay claim to their eternal right to make and share in musical activity. So, for starters, let’s just set that whole “strange Japan” bundle aside, and look at the real material issues out there that effect the works that created Hatsune Miku.
This doesn’t have to be done in a library or court house. We can solve this puzzle together just by listening. I like following along with Vocaloid lyrics, seeing if I can understand what they mean. Let’s not underestimate the P’s animacy in creation of their content here. Metaphors abound. And, there may be camps forming. Groups of P’s with varying philosophical stances toward music production, and the monetary value of music. We can listen to the production quality of the music. Is the texture of the music smooth? Does the song capture my attention? Could someone profit from this music? Let’s not forget that the cheapest labor is and has always been free labor.
Is there something that I’m missing out on? Obviously! There’s tons! Like, is there some tab of the transgressions noted by producers toward the record labels? What about producers who sign to major labels? Or is this, as Raymond Williams suggests, a “structure of feeling?” Is the micro-struggle between the concept of a virtual Japanese idol singer, supported by her producers/consumers, and the assumably conservative reaction in England to these results something worthy of attention? Or is it just a blip in history?
Be it by pure technological shock value or an expression of political-economic turmoil, Hatsune Miku and Vocaloid as a concept seem always to ensnare attention. But often this attention is misdirected toward unproductive means. Vocaloid is a powerful new technology that has the ability to change the game. Our macabre fascination with Hatsune Miku culminates in a question that society must address one day soon.
- In: Idol Culture | Pop
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I recently finished an amazing monograph by Prof. Hiroshi Aoyagi called, “Islands of Eight Million Smiles: Idol Performance and Symbolic Production in Contemporary Japan,” and it got me thinking about how the events of the 60s through 80s (yes, those archaic times before the internet and cell phones) have informed the present. Musically, the Japan of today is more diverse than ever, but remnants of the “culture of cute,” (Aoyagi, 2005) from J-Pop’s formative years, still linger. There is something whole-heartedly nostalgic about the music of those bubbly, vivacious 80s idols. Its a system of attraction so compelling that despite being musically dated, we can still relate to their charisma and seeming innocence. Let’s take a look at one of the top idol songs of the 80s, “Tender Rain” and the idol that carried this tune to success, Takai Mamiko.
Japan in the 80s could have been described as a decadent place. It was the height of the bubble economy, and Japan was at its peak in terms of productivity and economic power after WWII. Having secured its position in a number of international industries (motor vehicles, electronics), people had good jobs, a large expendable income and girl groups, price pointed at the convenient “I guess I’ll buy this thing” level, often had exactly the right formula to attract droves of people itching to burn pocket-money. Mamiko Takai got her start in the wildly successful 80s idol group, Onyanko Club (think: Morning Musume + 80s). This exposure proved successful enough for Takai to begin a solo career. After releasing a few singles in the latter half of the decade, she unexpectedly retired from the stage, marrying her producer, Yasushi Akimoto. Takai isn’t known as the most successful idol of the 80s (a one, Seiko, comes to mind), but her image is famliar to anyone interested in idol culture. She embodies the cute and youthful image of an idol singer: the girl next door, the high-school crush, the confident best friend. These real life fantasies came to life in idols like Takai Mamiko, and therein lies the appeal. Certainly these ideals live on today in idol groups from all around the world, particularly Southeast Asia. It’s interesting to compare the idols of that time and today in Japan and America, and consider the methods of attraction they employ/ed.
Though I wasn’t cognizant enough to experience it first hand (well, I guess I was just a baby then), the arguably greatest American girl idol of the 80s was Madonna. Madonna brought us a new type of female idol; one who used her sexuality as a tool for attraction. 80s Madonna seemed to relish in the controversy surrounding her music videos and live performance, breaking the traditional model of idol singer in America in her wake. She was arguably the first to bring female sexuality to our television screens (this coinciding with the birth and explosion of MTV), and, coming from such a young woman, surprised us all the more. Somehow this all felt deliciously transgressive, even empowering. This was the age of women abandoning the chains of domesticity, entering the workplace, competing against men, wearing sports bras and blazers. Not gonna lie, I’ve gotta rep my fellow Detroiter-turned-New-Yorker for becoming the representative of this movement and taking the reactionary backlash that followed (see: Nine to Five)
But, wait a tic… Madonna doesn’t sound similar to Takai Mamiko at all!
That’s right, Jimmy! Many of the factors that led to Madonna’s success in America simply wouldn’t have been popular enough to garner massive support in Japan. Madonna seems pretty out of place in the conservative atmosphere of Japanese popular music in the 80s. Check out this interview to see what I mean. Perhaps Madonna seemed exotic to 80s Japan, but Japanese consumer tastes by and large preferred “Japanese” Japanese idols. This fact has spurred a kind of ideological “idol battle” between the U.S. and Japan over the past thirty years. This struggle seems to strike at the core of our cultural sentiment. We love pop groups. We hate pop groups. We love individual artists. We hate individual artists. These spontaneous negotiations highlight our rarely static opinions and tastes about ourselves and the sub-cultures we identity with through the music we listen to. The idea that there were few, if any, “American” (by this I mean, “American-style,” or borrowing in musical idiom or image from successful Anglo-American musical acts) Japanese idols, whereas today there is a proliferation of International borrowings occurring in Japan, and to a lesser extent, the West, reminds us that the stances we take toward musical ideas and boundaries are very much subject to change.
This is definitely not something to overlook. So, please keep stopping by for more of my inane rambling on this topic, and a wee blog post (spot of post, anyone?) examining two modern idols, so we can see how this concept has evolved over the years. Until then!! ♪┏(・o･)┛♪
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