I started to think about becoming a singer-songwriter in the beginning
of 1980’s when I still lived in my hometown of Japan where I was born
and grew up. By the end of the first month as a college student, I had
lost interest in a college life since I didn’t care about getting a
degree or being hired by a renowned company after graduation. A college
had turned into an unnecessary place for me because of music. Only I
tried to follow the footsteps of a Japanese band that I had admired
most. Before they became professional, they started their careers by
forming bands at universities and colleges where they were enrolled. I
tried to do the same. As I had easily known, I found nobody in my
college all of which students were women and most of which students
attended as preparations for homemaking and marrying a doctor. I
searched other universities for band members, for which I used my
otherwise wasteful college life.
At that time, PCs or smartphones
were yet to come. Even CDs didn’t exist. To listen to music, you needed
to buy a record, put it on a turn table of a stereo carefully and
gingerly not to scar the record surface, put down a record needle softly
onto the start groove, and wait for music to begin while watching the
record turning fast. The moment music started, the space shifted in a
flash from where you had been. That was the essence I used to feel with a
record. The sound of an analog record is different from the digitalized
CD’s one. I feel the former round and deep that vibrates and seeps into
the heart. Both Western and Japanese rock music I had listened to back
then conveyed something to inspire like a struggle for life or for
freedom. I’ve seen quite a few people whose life was actually changed by
music.
A record has been given way to a CD, and then to download and
streaming. On the making side, recording on a tape by physical
instruments has turned more and more into entering data on a computer by
software. The sound has become mechanical with copying and pasting.
Having an impact is valued more than being dramatic. I hadn’t the
slightest idea this kind of music scene would arrive in the future when I
lived the beginning of 80’s. I simply had believed that music could
change the world and save someone by healing a sore heart just as it did
to me. While the music scene did change, my belief remains unchanged.
I’ve been striving to make music by taking advantage of the digital side
into inspiring songs.
Back in the eighties, I was trying to form a
band to have my songs heard as soon as I started a college. I came
across a bulletin board of a band circle at one university that was
recruiting new members. I went to the meeting where many freshmen
gathered. The circle leaders were matching a new member to an existent
band according to which part the new comer played and which part the
band needed. Because I intended to join a professional-aiming,
high-grade band, I pitched earnestly my skills of writing songs,
singing, playing the keyboard and the guitar, and most especially, my
passion for music. The person who interviewed me said outright that
there was no available band for me to join. While I was preparing to
leave, I noticed that other freshmen got assigned to a band one after
another. They all said they had no skills or had never played an
instrument, except that they all were cute and had a flirty smile.
Again, my passionate, serious attitude backfired there too, as if it
foretold my subsequent music career. I learned that bands at Japanese
universities and colleges in 80’s were for those who just wanted to
enjoy a campus life not for those who sought a music career.
I was
excluded from campus musicians and couldn’t use my college life for
member hunting. As a college has become useless to me more than ever, I
was sent outside the campus to look for a member in the real world.
Friday, April 16, 2021
Early 80s – The Beginning of My Music Career hr641
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