Tsuchi's "Taiko Strange Story" 27th episode | Captivated by "Silence"

Dear readers of the JPC Newsletter, the time has come for the familiar taiko stories.
By the time this issue comes out, it will already be April. I have safely reached my 51st birthday and am definitely getting older.
I can't even imagine turning 60 in nine years. Well, just because you've reached your 60th birthday doesn't mean that anything particularly good will happen in today's world, it's just that the prospect of old age, which you can only worry about, is slowly approaching.

I am writing this manuscript at the beginning of February, which coincides with the preparation period for final tax returns when we, sole proprietors, have to deal with a large amount of receipts, payment records, and ledgers.
This final tax return is a pain.
No, all I need to do is keep proper account books and manage my deposits and withdrawals, but since I'm an old man who only cares about music and eating, drinking and having fun, there's no way I have that kind of self-management ability.If I had, I think I would have started a company by now and lived a reasonably wealthy life. But even if I say that now, nothing will change. I am staring solemnly at the numbers.

This year, my tour coincided with that, so I decided to quietly file my tax return at the hotel I was traveling to, so I packed all my documents into a suitcase, set out on a trip, spread them out in the hotel room, and said, ``Okay, let's do it! Push!'' What's that sound? What is Push? Oh, I'm going to drink a beer... So I listen to music in my room, drink a beer, get in a good mood, and go to bed... As you can probably imagine, the tax return documents just add up to extra baggage and I don't make any progress. I regained my composure and spent some time alone at home typing numbers into my computer, and just when I thought I had made good progress today, I fell into a deep state of drowsiness. I can't resist this.

"Yoshi, since you worked so hard, let's take a nap for just an hour..."

There is nothing more pleasant than taking a nap in the middle of the day.
As I sit by the window and feel the winter sunlight, the gentle warmth of the oil heater that heats my home lulls me into a deep sleep...The faint smell of tatami mats and the scent of frankincense melts the depths of my brain...
When I woke up, the room was already pitch black.
I nervously looked at the clock...9 o'clock. I slept too much.
Well, I wonder what this drunkard is writing in these difficult times.

Off topic Q topic.

I took a nice nap and my head felt refreshed.
I've been living in this room for about three years now, and for some reason I'm able to sleep really well. Especially during the daytime in early summer, when the window is open, a refreshing breeze blows through the room, even though there is a slight summer heat.
Place your pillow on the tatami, wrap your towel over your stomach, and let's go! nap.
On weekday afternoons, the city is bustling with people, but the apartment I live in is a quiet place just one block from the street.
It's so quiet that you can't believe it's in the middle of Tokyo.
Ever since I moved here, I seem to have become addicted to the ``tranquility''.
Maybe it's because I usually work with drums, which are such a noisy instrument, that when I get home I find myself looking for silence.

The phrase "rest your ears" has been familiar to me for a long time, and no matter how great music I've been exposed to at work, when I get home I have a habit of listening to completely different music to reset my ears. Sometimes it's not music, but reading, a late night movie, or even going out for drinks. I have done various resets from time to time.
However, in recent years, the most popular reset method by far has been ``stillness''.
I come home from a busy workplace, put my luggage down, change into loungewear, and take a breather.
While having a casual conversation with my wife, I listened to the events of the day over a beer in hand.

When it's my day off, it's a big fuss to clean and do laundry in the morning, but even then I don't feel noisy.
At the beginning of this year, I was organizing the data that had accumulated on my laptop, which I always carry with me, and I was sorting out the folder that contained my favorite movies that I watch when I'm in my room on tour.But since they were all my favorites, I couldn't delete them, and the number of folders kept increasing, and when I found a title that I hadn't seen in a long time, I would start watching the movie, and time would flow by. Most of the time, my wife is at work during the day and I'm the househusband.

Meanwhile, one of my favorite movies that I watched for the first time in a while the other day was a movie called ``The Mathematical Formula That the Doctor Loved.''
The original work was written by Yoko Ogawa and won first place at the first Bookstore Award.
It was published in 2003 and made into a movie in 2006.

The general synopsis is a movie version of the work that depicts the emotional interaction between a former mathematician named ``Doctor'' whose memory lasts only 80 minutes due to brain damage caused by a traffic accident, his new housekeeper ``I'', and her son ``Root (the pet name the doctor gave to his son, derived from his flat head like the √ symbol), along with beautiful mathematical equations. I think many of you know this.
The cast is also gorgeous, with Satoshi Terao playing the mathematics doctor, Eri Fukatsu playing the housekeeper, and Ruriko Asaoka playing the doctor's sister-in-law. Music is by Takashi Kako.
That's right. When I was in junior high school, I went to a long-established live house called Roppongi Pit Inn to hear Takashi Kako Trio.
It was a wonderful trio with Takashi Kako on piano, Hiroshi Yoshino on wood bass, and Ponta on drums. After the show, Takashi Kako friendly approached me while I was holding an empty paper cup of Coke.I almost poured a beer on him, so I said, ``Oh, I'm still a junior high school student...'' and we laughed, and I remember it like it was yesterday.
Mr. Kako kindly asked me, ``Do you play any instruments?'' I answered, ``I play the drums!'' and then he connected me to Mr. Ponta, who was drinking nearby, and said, ``Hey, Ponta, please tell me that this kid is a drummer.'' I was still naive, but I was so surprised and confused that I have fond memories of that.

Let's get back to the movie.
What I like about this movie is the ``tranquility.''
Various events that occur in the quiet daily life, and the patterns of each person's heart that change in daily life.
The doctor, who usually stays in his room and makes love with mathematical equations, changes as time passes, and he watches the housekeeper cook...The sound of cooking, the sound of knives and chopping boards, the sound of washing dishes, all of which are just simple housework, and the doctor says, ``Oh, how quiet...''.
The expression on his face was one of feeling peace throughout his body, surrendering to the moment, and enjoying the blissful moment.
I understand that feeling very well. Every time I see that scene, I also feel a sense of peace.

Lately, even when I'm tuning my drums, I can't get this feeling of silence out of my head.
I think one of the charms of the drum instrument is the power it brings. However, lately I find myself looking for silence in my drums.
That was when Van Dyke Parks, the maestro of American pop music, came to Japan.
Van Dyke brought a drummer and played bass and harp.JapanIt was a live performance work for Billboard in collaboration with musicians from. The drummer, Don Huffington, never played loudly.
Not only the style of the music, but also the tranquil tone had a big impact on me. Simply put, it's like, ``Even though the sound is small, the energy of the groove is amazing.''
If you don't know Van Dyke Parks' music, please give it a listen.
I recommend "Song Cycle" and "Discover America."
I like hot play, but I don't like hot play.
Well, sometimes it's fine as long as it matches the music...lol
As someone who doesn't often listen to hot music, I couldn't forget the groove I felt at that time.
That's right, just the other day, before I saw this movie, I was listening to deep music such as Van Dyke Parks, Harper's Bizarre, the Byrds, and Procol Harum in a hotel. While I was searching through my laptop to see if I could watch a movie while listening to that, I opened the file for ``The Doctor's Beloved Formula'' for the first time in a while.
Takashi Kako's music, which can be heard quietly throughout the movie, is wonderful. I'm sure it won the Academy Award for Best Music.

Well, the drum is an instrument that anyone can make a sound by hitting it with a piece of stick. It's very simple. If you hit it, it will resonate.
Particularly in the last 15 years or so, various musical instruments have proliferated, and the range of expression for both professionals and amateurs seems to have expanded.
But what do you think? I feel like some people have the misconception that now that we can easily obtain a variety of sounds, we can also play music easily. There was a time when drummers preferred hard sounds because they were easier to hear, and mellow sounds were being pushed to the margins.
Dark and low sounds seem to be popular right now, but they are far from quiet. Well, a lot of the pop music trends of the times are not lively and glamorous, so I enjoy listening to them and helping with the sound making, but I still want to add a little bit of the essence of ``tranquility'' to the intonation of the snare, the sexiness of the toms, and the fullness of the kick. Yes, like a faint scent of incense.

The town I live in now is an old town, so there are shrines and temples all over the place. When I was taking a walk with my wife on my days off, there were times when the scent of incense wafted out of nowhere, and if I followed the scent, I would find a temple. I took the opportunity to visit the temple grounds, toss an offering, and join hands.
The tranquility that lurks in ordinary everyday scenery is so fleeting and small that it can be quickly drowned out by slightly loud sounds or voices.
It would be great if that loud voice were beautiful, but even among the loud voices that can be heard these days, there are hardly any beautiful voices.
Not only music, but even when the TV was on, there was a lot of noise.
If you try to look into social media, you'll be bombarded with abuse, so much so that you can't help but look at it.
We wonder if there has ever been a time when the world's politics, economics, and culture were as tense as this one. Information is so harsh that it hits us with such a rasping sound.
Perhaps the reason why I began to seek and love ``tranquility'' was to protect myself from such indiscriminate attacks.

I think it's sometimes important to play difficult and fast phrases incessantly, but it's also important to play the cymbals gently at a slow, deep-breathing tempo.
In search of such music, I've been wandering through the vast oceans of the Internet until the wee hours of the night.
Joao Gilberto, Thelonious Monk, Alva Noto, James Blake, Glenn Gould, Chet Baker, Bivio, Bon Iver, Dylan, Haruomi Hosono, Professor Longhair, Bill Withers, Debussy, Hibari Misora ​​(non-AI), Cinematic Orchestra, Duke Ellington, Fairouz, Francis Ray...and many more. Tonight, I will take you on a journey through the rich music created by various eras, countries, and people.

So, that's it for now. We will soon be leaving for our next trip. No tickets or travel preparations required. Just drop the needle on the record or touch the play button.

Hello everyone. Until the day we can meet again.

Wishing you love and peace.