The Onkyo music movement or (translation: "reverberation of sound") is a form of free improvisation

Free improvisation

Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....

, emerging from Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 in the late 1990s. Onkyō (translation: "sound, noise, echo") places much more emphasis on sound texture than on musical structure, distilling elements of techno

Techno

Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...

, noise, and electronic music

Electronic music

Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...

 into a unique hybrid.

The Off Site, a venue in Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, is home to the Onkyo music movement, which is characterized by improvisation

Musical improvisation

Musical improvisation is the creative activity of immediate musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musicians...

, minimalism

Minimalist music

Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....

, and "quiet noise". Onkyo improvisation, "explores the fine-grained textural

Texture (music)

In music, texture is the way the melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic materials are combined in a composition , thus determining the overall quality of sound of a piece...

 details of acoustic

Acoustic music

Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...

 and electronic

Electronic music

Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...

 sound".

It is typified by small and often quiet musical gestures, and liberal use of both electronics and silence. Prominent musicians working in this area include Toshimaru Nakamura

Toshimaru Nakamura

Toshimaru Nakamura is a Japanese musician, active in free improvisation and Japanese onkyo.He began his career playing rock and roll guitar, but gradually explored other types of music, even abandoning guitar and started working on circuit bending...

, Sachiko M

Sachiko M

Sachiko Matsubara, who usually records as Sachiko M, is a Japanese musician, but she considers herself to be a "non-musician".She was a member of Otomo Yoshihide's Ground Zero from 1994 to 1997, where she used a sampler. More recently, she has concentrated on music made from sine waves...

, Yoshihide Otomo

Yoshihide Otomo

is a Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist.He first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the noise rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked in a variety of contexts, ranging from free improvisation to noise, jazz, avant-garde and contemporary classical...

, Tetuzi Akiyama

Tetuzi Akiyama

Tetuzi Akiyama is a Japanese guitarist, violinist, and instrument-maker.Akiyama formed the improvisation group Madhar in 1987, and the classical ensemble Hikyo String Quintet in 1994 . In 1995, Akiyama and Sugimoto formed a guitar duo, and played at venues in New York City, Chicago, and Detroit...

, and Taku Sugimoto

Taku Sugimoto

Taku Sugimoto is a Japanese guitarist.He initially gained attention in the late 1990s for his restrained, melodic playing, unusual in the world of free improvisation. Critic Bruce Russell describes this era of Sugimoto's music by writing: "Sugimoto is perhaps the pre-eminent stylist on the guitar .....

.

It influenced the development of electroacoustic improvisation

Electroacoustic improvisation

Electroacoustic improvisation is a style of music that incorporates aspects of both electroacoustic music and free improvisation.-Origins:Live electronics has been part of the sound art world since the 1930s with the early works of John Cage...

or EAI, a genre with which it is strongly intertwined. The transnational circulation of onkyo also influenced its representation as a form of "Japanese new music," despite claims by its authors that onkyo had little to do with Japanese cultural identity.

External links

• Tuesday, April 5, 2005. "Onkyo Music", The Exceptionalist.