Artist Statement assingment #5

I play music because I can realize myself through music best. I get a lot of information out of recordings of my performances like things you really like and really hate. In fact, I grow up as a musician by facing those things and getting over them. In other words, I could see myself more objectively by listening to my performances like how I got this idea from.

First, my guitar playing is directly related to my emotion. For instance, if I’m very angry, I’m usually very tense and stiff. I play unnecessary loud when I am in bad mood. In terms of communication, my emotion is a big part in my improvisation because the emotion can make notes meaningful. For me, that’s one of the differences between mere notes and good phrases. On the other hand, controlling my emotion is one of the big issues in my performance. It is easy to get exciting for me in any situation even when I am not playing a guitar. In this case, my guitar playing is closely related to my emotion.

Second, my background affects my performance a lot. My ethnic background gave me many ideas for improvisation. For example, I was writing a song about rain, but Japanese rain noise is very different from American one. The rain in Japan is much softer and quieter than American rain because of the climate difference. This different sense made my song very exotic and interesting. My favor of music is influenced by my parents. Both of my parents are big fans of the classical music in the Romantic period such as Schubert. They didn’t like 20th century avant-garde music at all. I’ve been listening to that music, so that music influenced me tremendously. In fact, I really like the music which is emotional and conventional rather than modern avant-garde music. Moreover, my improvisation sounds emotional and conventional.

Lastly, I can compare my recordings due to figure out what has changed. Usually, many things change like favorite genre, tempo, tone, harmonies. For instance, I can tell my technique improvement by faster tempo. Listening to variety of genre gave me new ideas of harmonies and tones. Those comparisons have kept me developing.

Overall, I see myself through my music especially things you didn’t really notice. All I have to do is fixing what I don’t like and keep the good image of performance. More I play music, more I understand myself because my improvisation is like a photography of myself which exposes the unconscious side of me.