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Mitsuhiro Yoshimura (born 1973,
Kanagawa is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...
,
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
) is, primarily, a
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese
musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...
Mitsuhiro Yoshimura - And So On
/ref> who is, as of 2008, active in the field of
electroacoustic improvisation Live electronic music (also known as live electronics) is a form of music that can include traditional electronic sound-generating devices, modified electric musical instruments, hacked sound generating technologies, and computers. Initially the pr ...
(eai) and, in particular, the
Onkyokei The Onkyo music movement or (translation: "reverberation of sound"Cox, Christoph and Warner, Daniel, eds. (2004). ''Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music'', p.413. .) is a form of free improvisation, emerging from Japan in the late 1990s. Onky� ...
(onkyo) style. He also runs the
label A label (as distinct from signage) is a piece of paper, plastic film, cloth, metal, or other material affixed to a container or product, on which is written or printed information or symbols about the product or item. Information printed dir ...
(h)ear rings and, since 2006, has been the editor and publisher of the free
paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...
Santa Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnight ...
which he works on with
Taku Sugimoto Taku Sugimoto, born December 20, 1965, in Tokyo, 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 o ...
and
Toshiya Tsunoda Toshiya is a masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Toshiya can be written using different combinations of kanji characters. Here are some examples: *敏也, "agile, to be" *敏矢, "agile, arrow" *敏哉, "agile, how (interrogative par ...
.


Music

Yoshimura's music makes use of auditory
feedback Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled ...
which he creates using a
microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and public ...
(to pick up the noise in the room of performance), a small
mixing console A mixing console or mixing desk is an electronic device for mixing audio signals, used in sound recording and reproduction and sound reinforcement systems. Inputs to the console include microphones, signals from electric or electronic inst ...
(used to carry the signal and to record performances), an equalizer (to adjust the frequencies sent to the output - the equaliser is set up prior to, and is left untouched throughout, the performance) and a set of
headphones Headphones are a pair of small loudspeaker drivers worn on or around the head over a user's ears. They are electroacoustic transducers, which convert an electrical signal to a corresponding sound. Headphones let a single user listen to an au ...
(which project the sound back into the room - no other amplification is used).ihatemusic • Information
/ref> This process of sound creation is somewhat similar to that of
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 be ...
who uses a mixing console with its output connected to its input to create "no input" feedback. The techniques are not indistinguishable however; Yoshimura's music, unlike Nakamura's, can be altered by the noises which occur in the room in which it is performed (such an audience members moving or other musicians playing instruments etc.) because these sounds will be picked up by the microphone and alter the
timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or musical tone, tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voice ...
or pitch of the feedback. As a result of this, Yoshimura has the ability to leave the music, if he wishes, to effectively play itself.ihatemusic • Information
/ref> By distancing himself from the musical process in this way (see
indeterminate music Indeterminacy is a composing approach in which some aspects of a musical work are left open to chance or to the interpreter's free choice. John Cage, a pioneer of indeterminacy, defined it as "the ability of a piece to be performed in substantially ...
and
aleatoric music Aleatoric music (also aleatory music or chance music; from the Latin word ''alea'', meaning "dice") is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the ...
) he raises questions of what can be called 'improvisation' and even, some may say, what can be called
music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
. This is a recurring trend in much of onkyo - particularly Sachiko M's work with sinewaves (e.g. her playing on Filament's album "
29092000 9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and ...
" on Sachiko's own '
Amoebic An amoeba (; less commonly spelled ameba or amœba; plural ''am(o)ebas'' or ''am(o)ebae'' ), often called an amoeboid, is a type of Cell (biology), cell or unicellular organism with the ability to alter its shape, primarily by extending and ret ...
' label). Similarities can also be found with the music of
composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...
s like
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
(see
4′33″ ''4′33″'' (pronounced "four minutes, thirty-three seconds" or just "four thirty-three") is a three- movement composition by American experimental composer John Cage. It was composed in 1952, for any instrument or combination of instruments, ...
) and much
process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...
and
minimalist music In visual arts, Minimal music, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimal ...
. For many fans of the style this lack of involvement adds to the music's appeal.


(h)ear rings

''(h)ear rings'' is the name of a record label founded and run by Yoshimura. As of March 2008 only two
CDs The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Octo ...
have been released, both involving Yoshimura as a performer, but the label extends its activities beyond record publishing. This includes organising live performances of improvised music in
Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
(mostly with Yoshimura, and others, performing) and publishing the "Santa journal.andsoonの日記
/ref>


Releases

Yoshimura has appeared on four released recordings. The first was a
solo Solo or SOLO may refer to: Arts and entertainment Comics * ''Solo'' (DC Comics), a DC comics series * Solo, a 1996 mini-series from Dark Horse Comics Characters * Han Solo, a ''Star Wars'' character * Jacen Solo, a Jedi in the non-canonical ''S ...
disc titled ''" And so on"'' which was released in January 2007. Each of the tracks on the album were recorded by Yoshimura himself on three dates and at three locations. The first track, 'And,' was recorded at Loop-Line, Tokyo on July 9, 2005; the second track, "so," was recorded at Mone, Tokyo on August 7, 2005; the third, and final, track, titled "on," was recorded at Art Space Tetra,
Fukuoka is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...
on September 22, 2006. Yoshimura
mastered Mastering, a form of audio post production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master), the source from which all copies will be produced (via meth ...
the album himself and the artwork was supplied by Yuka Nimura. The second release he has appeared on was a
duo Duo may refer to: Places *Duo, West Virginia, an unincorporated community and coal town in Greenbrier County, West Virginia *Duo, Tampere, a shopping centre in Hervanta, Tampere, Finland * DUO, a twin-tower development in Singapore Arts, enterta ...
with Taku Sugimoto (who played electric fan, CD, acoustic guitar and lightsabersMitsuhiro Yoshimura/Taku Sugimoto - Not BGM and So On
/ref>) which was recorded live, again by Yoshimura, at Loop-Line on July 8, 2007. The CD was released in October of the same year under the title ''" Not BGM and So On."'' As with "And so on," "Not BGM and So On" was mastered by Yoshimura and had artwork drawn by Yuka Nimura. Yoshimura's most recent recordings are ''Santa'' with Taku Sugimoto and Toshiya Tsunoda, and ''Trio'' with Masahiko Okura (both 2008).


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yoshimura, Mitsuhiro 1973 births Living people Electroacoustic improvisation Japanese electronic musicians Musicians from Kanagawa Prefecture