Implementing Ongakudukuri: An Interview with Professor Yukiko Tsubonou

Professor Yukiko Tsubonou has advocated for the importance of enhancing musical creativity in children since the beginning of her career and has taken part in spreading “Creative Music-Making” through music lessons at the kindergarten, school, and university levels in Japan. Through her activities based on Creative Music-Making, she made several observations, including the idea that people need some rules, such as repetition or Q&A, to create music. It is difficult to work with musical elements, such as timbre or rhythm, without some form of guidance, as the rules that bind music are the foundations of musical traditions in various cultures (Tsubonou, 2019). Other observations are revealed in Professor Tsubonou’s interview responses.

Q: Why do we call creative music-making Ongakudukuri instead of calling it as composition or improvisation?

A: Originally, there used to be a direction naming music-making as composition, but I insisted that it should be creative music-making. I especially emphasized the word “creative” in the process and in the sentence. When it came to translate the sentence into Japanese, we first named them as sozotekiongakugakushu or sozoteki ongakudukuri. But the name was too long and too formal, so we decided to simply call it ongakudukuri. We made the word shorter!

Q: What did you most emphasize in the process of designing the curriculum of ongakudukuri?

A: Very important point! First, we put emphasis on including all musical genres such as contemporary music, classical music, popular music, Japanese traditional music, and world music. By broadening horizons, learners can use all different musical ideas to make music in ongakudukuri. Second, as for musical materials, ongakudukuri can include any sounds found in our environment. Third, we also emphasize the element of improvisation. Lastly, and most importantly, we consider creativity as a foundation and an essential element in ongakudukuri, and in music education in general. I want students to consider ongakudukuri, not only for acquiring specific skills or knowledge, but I want them to understand ongakudukuri to create their own music for their own expression. For example, in ongakudukuri, we would not ask them to master music theory or knowledge of harmony and such, but I want them to create music even though the work is very simple and a construct of their own musical world. To do so, creativity becomes the most important key, I think. Therefore, when we are asked what to teach in and through ongakudukuri, the underlying answer is to nurture creativity.

Q: What was the root and when did an original thought come to your mind to develop the idea of ongakudukuri? How did you feel the necessity of creative music-making in Japanese music education?

A: Well, if I should think about the roots in my experience, that would go back to my university years. In my years at Geidai, one of the most historical conservatories in Japan, I pursued improvisational music-making with my fellows. For me, my life at the university was not that exciting. I wanted to try much more exciting things. At the art festival at the university, I wanted to try something like the avant-garde. It was back in the year of 1968.

Q: Wow. What kinds of experimentation did you try back then?

A: Well, we performed John Cage, Steve Reich, Moroi’s Shakuhachi and Viwa, Toru Takemitsu, Shuko Mizuno of Chiba University, Takehisa Kosugi, Yuji Takahashi, and Toshi Ichiyanagi. Mizuno and Kosugi were my fellow learners, and their music was in the direction of avant-garde. Kosugi even used an electric fan and several microphones hanging from the ceiling, made the sound of howling and considered this music. The program of the concert included Five Pieces for Shakuhachi Chikurai and Five Dialogues, Makoto Moroi; Music for Amplified Toy Piano, John Cage; Piano Phase for Two Pianos, Steve Reich; Cross-Talk for Two Bandneons & Tape Music, Toru Takemitsu; Chromamorphe II, Yuji Takahashi; Autonomy for voice, Shuko Mizuno; Mano-Daruma, electronic (first performance in Japan), Takehisa Kosugi; and the opera Singing about Tadanori Yokoo, Toshi Ichiyanagi.

Q: This sounds very exciting. Were there any professors who supported the avant- garde direction or who taught contemporary music as a regular curriculum of the conservatory?

A: Not at all. I was one of the producers to create such a movement and sensation. I also performed by singing.

Q: Was there written music with notation?

A: It was mostly not like regular notation. It was popular in the music world. Do you know Steve Reich? The second premiere of his piano concerto, entitled Piano Phase, was in my concert in Japan!

Q: Are there other beginnings of your involvement with composition or contemporary music?

A: I composed in my childhood in my elementary years. I was age 10 in . . . fourth grade back in 1958. Back then, my parents built a new house in the suburbs, and I transferred to an elementary school from the fourth grade. The new house had the piano. In fact, I had been learning the piano, but my old house just had an organ, and I didn’t practice much. My new environment at home pushed me to practice piano and to compose. I made a piece for solo piano at this time. I remembered that I borrowed the chords from the pieces I had learned in my piano lessons, and I composed by using the chords.

Q: Did anyone teach you how to compose?

A: No. It was a very natural process. I remember in my childhood I told my mother “I made a piece,” when I was a student at a local music school for children. The name of the school was Kodomo-no Ongakukyoshitsu, meaning Kyoto Music School for Children, which belonged to Kyoto Geidai. Kyoto Geidai was back then called Kyoto Tankidaigaku. I played my own composition for my mother. My mother told me to bring the piece to the music school for the teachers to hear. My teacher brought the piece to a professor of composition at Kyoto Geidai. Then, the processor decided to create a composition class at the Kyoto Kodomono Ongakukyoshitsu. Ever since, I composed many pieces. In my middle school years, I wrote a piece for the class and the class sang the song in a concert. I recently found a picture of everyone singing this piece and I was playing the piano accompaniment. The lyrics were written by the teacher. I also made a school song for this junior high school because the school didn’t have any songs. Some of the piano music I wrote when I was in and around junior high school years were performed at the Yasaka Kaikan in Kyoto, the only concert hall in Kyoto at that time.

Q: When did you decide to pursue a musical career professionally?

A: I decided to go to a music high school called Horikawa High School. I was already influenced by contemporary music. There were very few fellows who were into contemporary music. Although my intention was becoming a composer, I decided to go to Gakuri-ka at Tokyo Geidai as my mother suggested. Back then there were almost no female composers in Japan. I think that is related to the situation surrounding Japanese women at that time. When a woman got married, she became a full-time housewife, and the only people who had a job were school teachers. Under such circumstances, the piano teacher was a possible job for women who got married and could still work by staying at home. Therefore, instead of pursuing the composers’ career, I entered the school as a piano major, even though I disliked practicing the piano. I went to the music science department at Tokyo University of the Arts, Geidai, where I held a contemporary music festival, and I fell in love with a composer and got married. I was not able to stifle my creativity to deal with contemporary music and being creative unlike regular conservatory students. As my mother predicted, I was forced to live in poverty with my husband for few years after I graduated.

Q: As for creativity, do you think that every child could become creative? I think it is rare that Japan implemented ongakudukuri as a course and all children in all areas of Japan create music in school.

A: The Japanese Course of Study requires all the elementary schools to teach ongakudukuri; however, I think it still depends on the teacher. Some teachers I know put less emphasis on music-making or creative directions, but I rarely see elementary children who dislike music because of the creative music-making in school. But in middle schools, it is somewhat difficult to implement the ongakudukuri at this moment. I was thinking about the reasons. I think that in middle schools in Japan, all schools have a specialist in teaching a general music curriculum. They are mostly trained in a music performance area professionally from the early stages. When they hear music-making, they immediately think how to put the pitch and rhythm together by following basic music theory, typically what they learned in their teacher training or conservatory training. Their training was mostly based on classical music, so they never experienced using different musical genres, materials, or improvisation to create music. They simply never improvised and composed music. When I learn about their music learning experiences, I find that many of their pure intentions in early stages were to win higher prizes in the chorus or brass band in high school, or to compete in solo performance.

Q: I know in Japan, although all music classes are considered as general music, in many elementary schools, especially upper grades, they have a music specialist, and in lower grades, the classroom teachers teach music. Are there similar situations with elementary school music specialists?

A: Yes. Some specialist teachers teach excellent classes, but there are many obstacles to implement ongakudukuri for music specialists. I saw a class just lining up do-mi- so, do-fa-la, and such in written musical notation to create melodies and to combine with dissonant notation following traditional musical theory. It looked very boring to use primary triads. I am still trying to implement a creative direction better suited to middle and high school students.

Q: Are there any practices that you recommend?

A: In my journal, the International Journal of Creativity in Music Education, there are various practices, for example, to use chords, but blue notes in the chords. There are practice examples in my journal. I also use koto or gagaku to create music. There is also a lesson that uses Japanese Haiku. Professor Suga recently pursued an innovative practice called prepared koto, by adapting John Cage’s idea [of] prepared piano to Japanese traditional instruments.

Q: Do you also have an experience to observe and/or participate in creative activities of younger children in early childhood education settings?

A: When I visited a local public kindergarten class, one of the children started talking to me. Actually, she asked me to create music together. The student had a lyric already prepared and the child and I composed a melody together. Although I mostly sang the tune and composed it with her, the child said, “I made a song," and told everyone in the room. Some even played the tune on the piano and instruments in the room even though they could not play the exact notes. This is a very impressive moment. Unfortunately, this is rare because many teachers do not notice children’s spontaneous musical expressions.

Many kindergartens and nurseries handle instruments too carefully and children are not able to access the musical instruments, including pianos, freely even in the free play period. Many Japanese public kindergartens and nurseries pursue a lot of free play and free play-based childcare; however, the realm of creative music-making and free musical play are restricted. Instead of teaching music, their music-making must be embedded in their daily lives and free play.

I also tried implementing creative music-making with my former doctoral students by using the African drum. In other occasions, we asked children to create the loudest hand clap in the room. Some children stood on the chair or tried his clapping very fast to achieve creating the sound as loud as possible. It was fun and amazing! I also thought scaffolding was also important . . . [I had] principals get into the children’s circle and try something unique and creative so that many children laugh at the principal but still they really enjoyed the sound. On the next day, many children would imitate the principal and then expand the ideas, and many children would start following them. In contrast, when we tried a very soft sound by clapping, one of the boys was touching his hair. Although he did not follow the instruction of teacher, for him, touching his hair was creating a very soft sound. I thought this was very creative. My doctoral student, as a facilitator, first asked the boy, “What happened?” as she did not notice that he was creating the soft sound. Soon after, she discovered that the act of touching his hair was his musical expression. Again, in creative music-making, leaders’ scaffolding, facilitating, and creative stance are the most important factors to encourage children to create music. Later that boy became an education major. I was very happy to know!

Q: Are there any challenges implementing such a creative practice in the kindergarten?

A: Very important point. First, the principal told us that children would not understand the terminology of loud and soft sounds. She thought children could not understand the concept concretely. The principal suggested that we use examples such as the sound of elephants or the sound of small insects. I totally rejected the suggestion. Unfortunately, even some Japanese music textbooks for elementary children still introduce the concept of loud and soft in words, instead of letting children experience the difference.

Q: How do you view music textbooks for schools?

A: Well, when I taught a course for elementary teachers, one of the teachers simply used music textbooks to mock teach ongakudukuri; the musical product was 100% sound effect and not creative music-making. I was disappointed that creative music-making was not taught clearly to them.

Q: Do you think textbooks could still contribute to spread of the idea of ongakudukuri nationwide?

A: Ever since the Japanese Course of Study in Music first mentioned expression through music-making, a great many lessons on music-making have become available; however, most of the lessons focus on adding sound effect to stories. I regret that the meaning of music-making was not understood clearly. I began thinking about how to change the direction from the sound effect to actual music-making. Japanese textbooks influence each other. For example, when I make a textbook, and write a section of ongakudukuri, another publisher can imitate the idea or elements. It is more important for me and my colleagues to visit all areas of Japan and demonstrate the practice and construct the practice with the local teachers. In Japan, the lesson study called jugyo kenkyu³ is popular and many teachers participate in the learning opportunities to gather new information and construct the innovative practice. Textbooks are not everything and are somewhat limited as a way to share the practice. For my understanding, the jugyo kenkyu was much more effective than writing textbooks to share the practice and learning from each other.

Q: Did you visit many locations to share the direction of creativity in Japanese music education?

A: Yes. Since 1984, I traveled all around Japan to share the idea and direction of ongakudukuri. Some years, I traveled 30 or more times a year offering workshops, demonstrations, and lectures. I covered most of the areas of Japan.