The Ondo Series
The Ondo Series
Ondo is Japanese sorts of folk dance music, most popular in the early 20th century, typically used for bon odori taikai (ie, folk dance
festivals), whose images are linked
here.
Such festivals are held everywhere in every summer. There are countless styles
of the ondo music region by region. In 2020 most of such events have been
cancelled due to COVID-19.
The typical beat in ondo is like above, being played on the Japanese huge drum called "taiko." This phrase is altered in
various ways in these tracks, but basically the beat sounds continually.
Ondo originally means a sound trigger and also means a musical style of solo and collective singing taking turn with the same or different phrases. This characteristic was adopted in "Ondo Of Evaporated Ego" in part.
What is common in these tracks is not only their beats but also the structure. On composition new phrases were added afterwards just on the consistent rhythm without considering the context within the track. In other words, I composed the sections as if those were completely new tracks on the same concept. "Ondo Of Fortified Id" is basically the same but slightly different.
After recording, I feel there are remarkable contrasts between Ondo Of Evaporated Ego ("Ego") and Ondo Of Fortified Id ("Id"). "Ego" shows the dynamism of mass energy, while "Id" is more static, having vigorously rebellious passion inside.
But both use some common phrases. One thing I thought was important is that
there are many modern ondo tracks in Japan but literally, nothing is musically
interesting. In my opinion they have not been evolved at all.
Ondo Of Evaporated Ego
Composition tool: MuseScore, Studio One 4 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 4 Professional
Number of tracks: 76(1st),33(2nd),30(3rd)
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Mai-Tai, Mojito (All built-in sound
sources of Studio One), TAL-NOIZEMAKER
Composition and Recording period: July 7 2020 - Aug 30 2020
(TI writes:)
[About the Production (Background and Process)]
This track is a salvaged version of a discarded song, so to speak. I worked on
it with TM until halfway through, but then I completed it by myself.
(Conversely, for Id, TM created the track by himself, whereas I was the mixing
engineer for the song, and I just put the sound together as he instructed).
At first, we started out by exchanging MuseScore data as usual, but TM said
that it would be difficult to complete the track as a work if we continued,
but I already had an idea of what the finished product would look like, so I
just took over.
The way I created the music was different from FMT's music, so I decided that
I didn't need to exchange data, so I moved it to Studio One. Normally, I leave
MIDI data in the mix so that I can change phrases in the middle of the mix.
However, I regretted that I should have left the MIDI data in the mix to make
room for modifications if it was going to work so well.
This production method and finish is also an homage to club music methods of
the 90s. For example, KLF, Altern-8, SL2... It's been a long time since last
time I wrote their names. However, their method of making music, where they
quoted and pasted all kinds of music, was like an eye-opener for me at the
time. That's how I felt about this track, especially the part from the middle
break to the part before the ending where the voice sample comes in.
On a different note, I think the costumes from Altern-8 are perfect for today's
times. I was trying to create a new kind of traditional dance music using that
technique. There's no point in that. I just wanted to listen to it.
[Concept/Beat, Melody and Verse]
This piece is based on a one beat rhythm. One beat is a concept that does not
exist in Western musical textbooks, but in traditional Japanese dance, the groove
is sometimes described as "one beat".
Specifically, it is the interval between the clapping of the hands together
and the release of the hands. There are two times during a beat, once when the
hands are joined and once when the hands are released. In other words, the
rhythm is a swinging rhythm, where you can feel the backbeat during the first
beat.
The way the beat swings is similar to a shuffle, but it is unique in that
there is no concept of a measure, and the beat is complete in one beat only.
However, it is only a beat within a beat, so it is not completely shuffled,
but somewhat square. Therefore, I used triplets to represent it in the score,
but after porting the data to Studio One, I shifted the backbeat forward a
bit.
This rhythm is a common rhythm in the music of ancient Japanese popular
dances. It is also evident in the ancient Japanese nursery rhymes. For
example, the song cited below “Antagata Dokosa” (meaning "Where do you come from?") is
a song that everyone who was born and raised in Japan has heard before, and is
often sung in kindergarten games. However, if you listen to the score, it is a
song with an extremely complex irregular beat. You may wonder how a child can
understand such a complex beat.
This One beat rhythm is similar to the rhythm of the Japanese Buddhist sutras.
The sutra is basically an evenly spaced beat, but there is no concept of a
measure. In fact, there is even a style of Ondo that parodies the sutra
(or monk), with the Ondo playing in the background as a parody of the sutra.
(Starting around the 1:26 mark.)
[Ondo]
Since TM has already talked about Ondo, I won't go into details that overlap.
In recent years, events such as Bon Odori in Japan have included not only Ondo
but also a wide range of popular Japanese songs and dance music, and although
the proportion of traditional Ondo is decreasing, local Ondo's can be found
almost anywhere in Japan, and the rhythms and styles of Ondo's can be found in
many places. The song has been quoted in anime and in the theme songs of
children's TV shows.
Especially in Osaka, Kyoto, and other areas of the Kansai region, even today
(although most of them have been cancelled this year), "Bon Dances" are held
every day in summer in parks, street corners, school playgrounds, gymnasiums,
etc., where ondo singers and their teams (dancers and performers) perform ondo
with live music and everyone dances together.
Ondo is a dance music, but it has songs. Some songs have fixed lyrics, but
others are more improvisational. In terms of lyrical content, most of the
songs celebrate their hometowns, but the improvisational type of songs can
range from mere wordplay and vulgar topics to serious subjects that lead to
current events, satire, and political and social criticism.
This is similar to Reggae and Hip-Hop MCs, and in fact, the music is very
similar in some ways. The Japanese rap-like voice in this song is taken from a
live tape recording of an actual festival ondo from over 30 years ago. Only
the rhythm is extracted by changing the quality of the voice and matching the
tempo.
Similarly, the Reggae MCs that relay the rhythm are also extracted to show the
similarity.
The shouting voice with one beat to the rhythm is the voice of "Kachashi"
(Okinawa's Ondo), which is an Okinawan song (only the voice is extracted and
the rhythm is programmed).
[Composition]
(TM writes:)
My first concept was to develop the ondo beat of the taiko drum into a
completely different groove, which even Japanese people cannot recognise as
ondo. I composed one phrase after another quite quickly as I became so excited
with them.
This track was structured in the way it was when I first composed, meaning any
section would hardly come back. When one section ends, it's just gone. But the
taiko ondo beat is consistent throughout the track.
One day when TI changed the MuseScore file the groove I was excited with had
disappeared. I was confused and that is why I gave it up on this track and
created another (Ego Of Fortified Id).
What TI finally developed the file into was, nevertheless, absolutely
fascinating, even though it was far different from what I had planned. It
turned to be one-beat dance music, which I love so much and would never be
able to create. It is especially remarkable that the rhythm was made not sound beat four, or that where the bars were located was made very unclear.
Moreover, that ended up helping me to further develop Ego Of Fortified Id very
differently, which I believe was also great. I will discuss it later.
[Ethnicity and Music]
(TI continues:)
I don't intend to insist on my own ethnicity in creating music, and when I did
use that motif, I intended to use it deliberately and explicitly. However, I
was surprised to find that the melody that came out of me on the first beat of
the song became a melody based on the ethnicity of the people.
But it's a melody that comes out of my head, not a song that comes out of my body. This melody is actually very difficult to sing. However, it sounds
natural in my head.
I've also discovered that the rhythm of this one beat is very close to the
beat of my walk. When I walk around with this song playing back to me, it
feels good to be completely in sync with my body's movements. In a way, it's
more of a march than a dance for me. Specifically, when I walk, I "land on the
heel of one foot, then the toe," while at the same time the other foot "kicks
up the toe and releases the heel". That time lag (similar to the timing of the
hands together and the timing of the hands apart) is the same as one beat.
When I walk in my slippers, I hear this one beat rhythm.
It is very interesting to know if this is just me, or if people from different
ethnic and cultural backgrounds have different rhythms when they walk.
[Tone]
I really like the sound of Japanese drums, but I created this one using only
the sine wave of a free sound font, not a sample of a Japanese drum.
I've found that the sound of the Japanese drums is more important than the
tone itself, which is the way the reverb is applied. This sound is not a taiko
sound at all if you remove the reverb.
[Mix]
It's a very complex layered process. We create a basic mix, drop it into a
2-mix, then load the master data with separate sampled sound sources, edit it,
mix it again to create another 2-mix, combine it, and in some cases, cut and
paste more phrases extracted from the multidata to create the final 2-mix.
Sometimes I want to cut the reverberations and change the sound image for each
scene.
Ondo Of Fortified Id
Track Data
Composition tool: MuseScore, Studio One 4 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 4 Professional
Number of tracks: 75
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Mai-Tai, Mojito (All built-in sound sources of Studio One), TAL-NOIZEMAKER
Composition and Recording period: July 7 2020 - Sep 16 2020
(TM recalls:)
I aimed at a track using an ondo beat as well as the same phrases with Ondo
Of Evaporated Ego ("Ego") in part but musically, completely different
from Ego. I think this is a kind of music I have wanted very much to realise
for so long time. Precisely designed grooves, atonal parts and massively
good-feeling tones.
This track is groove-first; the beat was the first element that I made. The
ondo beat in one-dimensional, so to speak, and this beat was developed to
two- or more-dimensional. In addition to the taiko drums, which are
essential in the ondo music and located at the centres of Ego and Id, three
drum kits are used here. Each of the three has mutually exclusive roles but
at the same time each one of them doesn’t make this groove alone. I was
extremely careful to make it into practice.
The vigour that this beat exhibits is the key factor. Even though the taiko
drums are thought in general as a symbol of vigour in Japan, but its use is
rather fixed. I hoped to look for another way.
The concept is a scene when samurais are planning a battle operation in a
hiding room at an upper floor of some pub with a background sound of
shamisen somewhere outside. My daughter drew the scene in manga for me. I
tried to describe an old, very Japanese scene with instrumental music, as
songs are the mainstream in the Japanese traditional music, rather than
instrumental.
Again, I have been feeling like creating such a piece for a very long period of time. To me it looks like the 1980s' music, or is just my love to it. That is a sort of nostalgy as well, which I tried to imply with the concept of an old Japanese scene like the above drawing. More musically, it's associated with complex and carefully structured rhythms, extra-ordinarily nice feeling percussion and an atonal style of a Japanese taste (without using Japanese scales) that does not exist at the moment.
Only a few notes on the shamisen are used for melody-like phrases. It’s
often the case that melodies and phrases in regional traditional music are
hard to be recognised at a glance at least by the Western musical framework.
The melodies are designed so that it be hard to recognise them as melodies.
This track is not based on the Japanese musical context at all and the
people, ancient or today, should not be able to recognise it as an ondo.
Thus, this track pursues no particular musical contexts.
Like Ego, the structure is a little experimental. In Ego new phrases were
added afterwards just on the consistent rhythm without considering the
context (within the track). This time in Id, it is similar but a little bit
different. Similarly, new phrases were added at the end, but differently, I
interposed them between minimal repetitions of the first motif. But strictly
speaking, there are no exact repetitions.
In addition, in terms of the rhythm, Ego emphasises one-beat based on the basis of ondo beat, whilst Id develops far from the ondo beat, which is changed into various styles there. That is a huge difference in my thought.
What forms the base of the beat in the main motif is the taiko beat, and if you name it as the first dimension, the second is the gong that TI located polyrhythmically in quarter notes. The third dimension is three drum kits of very different styles: a rhythm machine, brush, and comparatively heavy drums. Those are also multi-dimensional within the three.
But if you carefully listen to Ego and Id, you may find some identical phrases
used.
[Mix]
(TI adds:)
With Ego I tried to include as much as possible of what I
wanted to do and the sounds I wanted to produce, so, as I mentioned earlier,
I kept my intentions and directionality completely out of the equation and
concentrated on the sounds TM wanted me to make.
The technical aspects of the piece were difficult: expressing the
"difference in sound" in the rhythm and characterizing the instrumental
sounds. It was especially difficult to create the characteristic taiko sound of the track.
For Ego, it was easy to make the taiko sounds sound like taiko because I didn't use toms in drum sets, but this track uses a lot of toms,
which means that it doesn't sound the same , even if it sounds the same tone
and setting. I think this was largely resolved by the careful processing of the
overlapping sounds, which I'll discuss later.
He sometimes complained that the rhythms created in the MuseScore were not
reproduced in Studio One. In the end, I waveformed everything and matched the pronunciation timing
exactly to the grid by hand. However, when I waveformed it, the MIDI data was not what he had originally
intended, and I think TM was correct in his assertion.
Also, you can now hear the attack of his rhythmic characteristics, such as
the 64-minute ”flam” of his rhythms.
This is a very big lesson to be learned.
In this process, I also manually adjusted the tone release part of the tone,
which eliminated the extra reverberation and allowed me to express the
detailed rhythms I mentioned earlier. I think all of this work has made the beats intertwine much better and the
mix sounds clearer. (So I've been working on a few old songs as well for these weeks (as of late September, 2020), with a few modifications.)
As for the instrumental sounds, the mix itself wasn't difficult, as there
wasn't much in this track, but I had to make each note more distinctive
because there were fewer sounds.
I also had to adjust the reverb and dynamics so that they didn't interfere
with the rhythm. As these cannot be controlled by MIDI alone, I have to
check each note and adjust the dynamics, release and pan in detail. For long
notes in particular, if you play them as they are, but it's useless if you
just turn them down, so I fine-tune the envelope so that it doesn't
interfere with the rhythm while they're playing.
[Mastering]
Also, I think mastering contributes greatly to the sound quality. We did automatic mastering with the LANDR, and although the sound pressure
is very strong, the fine nuances are lost in the LANDR sound.
I think
Gary Rees did a
great job with the mastering. The combination of the rhythm and the bass, which I wasn't sure about at the
2Mix stage, comes out very clearly. (TM adds: Yes, indeed. Thanks a lot, Gary!!)
[Postscript]
Probably, we had different perceptions of the concept of "Ondo" to each
other.
I (TI) saw "Ondo" as a "Beat" and focused on expressing its uniqueness and
interest, while TM's goal was to dismantle the beat, and thus the structure,
of "Ondo" and recombine it into something new. In other words, I think it's the result of the same concept of
"concentration and diffusion".
However, it is very interesting to note that "concentration" diffused the
ego and "diffusion" strengthened the ego. Maybe it all comes and goes like a FURICO (= pendulum).
The key visuals always bother me, I was just having an exchange with "Boketto" about Ukiyoe, and this picture of a dancing cat came to mind. Each cat is drawn in a different piece of art, but when I cropped them
together, they looked symmetrical, and I noticed that the mouths of the cats
also happened to be "A-Un" shaped.
The word "A-Un" was
originally used in Sanskrit, where "A" (a) means "open mouth" and "Hūm"
(hūm) means "closed mouth", which means "beginning and end of the universe". (TM: In this sense, "A-Um" would be more suitable, rather than A-Un, I guess.) This motif can be found on "Koma-Inu" (guardian dogs) and statues of the "Nioh" in shrines
and temples in Japan.
I think there is connection to this work and FMT as well.
[Titles: The Ego And The Id]
(TM writes:)
The tentative titles were "Ondo1" for Ego and "Ondo2" for Id. These numbers tell us the branching process but I thought it would leave a mystery and be more interesting if the titles implied these are within an identical lineup but are very contrary.
TI suggested the word "ego" for Ego and I thought "Oh, that should fit it. Okay, the contrary must be 'id'" as I studied psychology long, long time ago. To me, this combination was suitable because Id is very, say, introverted and abstract whereas Ego extroverted dance music.
As you may know, "The Ego And The Id" is a masterpiece and break-through writing of psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud. By the way, when I was living in London in the 1990s, I visited his house there (which was then Freud Museum London). Then I met a famous Japanese psychologist. I love that moment.
Anyway, then I added adjectives to the two words along the concepts. Ego is "evaporated" by the mass heat of bon odori dance festivals, while Id is "fortified" because I was feeling "I shall definitely complete this track I have longed to create and listen to, no matter what others will tell me!" :)
Despite my struggle, I had a lot of fun and felt the production process went extremely quickly.
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