Hello. I’ve just heard the t’rung for the first time, but it produces a very lovely sound, doesn’t it? Could you give a brief explanation of what kind of musical instrument it is?

Oguri: The t’rung is a musical instrument originally from one of the minority tribes in Vietnam’s Tay Nguyen region. Simply put, it’s a sort of xylophone made of bamboo instead of wood.

I find it very interesting to see a young Japanese woman heading a band where an unusual instrument from another country is being played at such an advanced level. How did you wind up getting involved with the t’rung?

Oguri：Most of the Vietnamese musical instruments that people hear about are ones from the culture of the Kinh people, who make up 90% of Vietnam’s population. But the t’rung is a musical instrument that comes from one of the minority people who live in the Tay Nguyen region. One day I learned about this and it just stuck with me. There are over fifty different minority peoples in Vietnam, and there are so many different musical instruments in each region of the country, so why did the t’rung become as well-known nationally as the dominant Kinh culture? In order to find the answer, I began to look into the history of research on the development of the t’rung.

You’ve got a wonderful thirst for knowledge. But I find it really unusual that your original academic curiosity has evolved into your becoming a passionate performer of that music yourself.

Oguri:Actually there’s a reason for that. When I was a child, I learned to play the marimbas. Marimbas are a kind of xylophone, so for me it was very natural to shift my interests to the t’rung, which is another type of xylophone. I first encountered the t’rung when I was in university, majoring in Vietnamese. In my professor’s research lab was a miniature souvenir t’rung, and I was drawn to it from the first time I saw it. When I saw my first real one in Vietnam, I was strongly impressed by the shape and sound, and it completely charmed me off my feet.

It sounds like fate had a hand in things. Now, you’ve taught yourself the t’rung based on your knowledge of marimba techniques, then?

Oguri: No. Actually I went to Vietnam to study for a year, and I learned from a teacher at the Hanoi Conservatory of Music (now named the Vietnam National Academy of Music) and from the original person who began research into the development of the t’rung, who lives in Ho Chi Minh City.

Hanoi Conservatory of Music’s Professor Mai Lai.

You had the guts to go and study in Vietnam just to learn the t’rung. I’m blown away. Vietnam doesn’t have the greatest sanitation, and in a sense it requires a certain degree of fortitude to get by, but you managed to get over that and devote your life to Vietnam. That’s quite unique.

Oguri:Thank you very much. I love the country of Vietnam. If I were to describe Vietnam in one word, it would be that it’s a very human country. I feel that people are very close to one another there. Compared to Japan, where people have a tendency to percieve others as “strangers,” in Vietnam if someone is next to you then you strike up a conversation, and people naturally help one another. I feel that people don’t worry much about “people I don’t know” and I think it’s very good and natural.

But, no matter how much you like it, to devote your passion to a certain musical instrument from that country is not something a lot of people do. Now, your current endeavor, the T’rung Trio, could you tell me how and why you started this group?

Oguri:he trio was formed for a concert at the Vietnam Festival in September of 2008. It’s important to do traditional Vietnamese music, but I also want to use the t’rung to express my own sense of rhythm and sound, my own sensibility. I wonder what kind of new worlds could open up to Vietnamese people watching me, a foreigner, playing the t’rung from my unique position, in a new style? If my new style of t’rung playing can be heard by the people of the world and give just a little strength to people, I’d be very happy.

I hope that your pursuit of that unique musical world can reach the ears of more and more people. Finally, if you have some sort of vision, please tell me about that.

Oguri:I think that the t’rung has a lot of possibilities as a “bamboo xylophone” once the view of it is widened. That’s why I want to use the trio to break new ground with it as a traditional instrument. Also, I respect my mother, who was a musician, very much. People always gathered around her and got energy from listening to her songs. She got sick and passed away, and so I think I’d like to try and continue what she started with her musical activities.

Kikuda:My personal belief about performing is to keep a theme of “living” whether it comes out as cool or not. I think the sounds that a musician produces affects that person’s way of life. So I want the sounds I produce, the melodies I weave, to be honest to myself. As a result, I think I can make sincere music. I think that the music I’m doing with T’rung Trio is close to my personal goals. I want to do things that will make more and more music fans go “Oh!”

Okayama:At any rate, we’ve got no choice but to play in a way that is sincere to ourselves. If you think something’s “good,” you’ve got to have confidence and take responsibility and actively pursue it. That attitude, and the ability to be flexible about opinions other than your own, if you can take those two things in a good balance and connect them to your music, you can naturally produce your own sound. That’s what I believe. I want to both do that and have the strength to keep it up.

Oguri: We’re putting on a big concert in October, so I hope we can make our own unique atmosphere and bring everyone into our new world of music.

Thank you very much! It gives me strength just watching you young people pursuing a new world. I’m looking forward to experiencing your new world of music.

Information!!

T’rung and Marimba Trio Concert

@ Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse #1 3F Hall
October 4, (Sun) 2009
Doors at 17:30
Show at 18:00
Performers: Kumiko Oguri (T’rung, Marimba), Shigenobu Kikuda (Double Bass), Akihisa Okayama (Percussion)
All seats \3000 (p code: 324-126)
Ticket Dealer: Electronic Ticket Pia: 0570-02-9999

Sponsor: Oguri Kumiko Trio
Co-Sponsor: Japan T’rung Association
Backing: Vietnam Air, the Vietnamese Embassy, Asahi Shimbun Yokohama Bureau, Marimba North Star Association, Neoria Korogi, Asia Wave

Hello. First of all, could you tell me about the concept behind this place, and give a simple explanation of what you do with the space?

Toshio:We sell Jomon-style clay flutes, hold festivals, events, and workshops, and operate the space as a place for people to get together.

Shizuko:We call the kind of festivals we hold, “punk kagura” where we make strange noises and bang on drums. It’s the kind of place where the neighbors look at us funny and tell us, “please stop your religious activities” and stuff. We even had the police called on us once. (laughs) Really it’s not all that, though.

I see. What do the two of you consider yourselves to be doing?

Shizuko:We’re just having fun. Some people think we’re improvisational musicians, some people think we’re festival-holders, and some think we’re colossal morons. (laughs)
Toshio:We hold fun festivals, blessing the earth, enlivening the land and the town. We’re just holding events to go with each encounter that comes along. That’s all.

So put in simple terms, you’re improvisational musicians who put on festivals, I guess? What have you been doing, and where have you been doing it?

Toshio:We’ve been to most places in the Kanto region. Sano, Kogawa, Ashikaga, Maebashi, Takasaki, Shimonita, Tochigi, Mashiko, Kasama, and Izu. Places that you can get to easily from Tokyo but aren’t really visible. We called it the Autonomous Republic of Kanto and took our Kagura Entertainer’s Troupe and did a performance tour.

Shizuko:We go around to each place and put on a festival, and we’re really good at taking the energy level through the roof. (laughs) At first, we didn’t know how to bring that high energy level back down and it was really tough. Everyone would get into a festival mood and we’d wind up in a psychological state that made it hard to return to everyday life. (laughs)

No matter what scale you are working in, going to a place where you don’t know anyone and organizing a festival, going in as a non-local and getting the locals involved must be a huge task. There are issues of leadership, money problems, and I imagine a lot more as well. How do you pull off such a monumental feat? How have you managed to make this your livelihood?

Shizuko:I think in some ways it’s easier to be accepted by people because we’re not locals. Also, if we enjoy each moment, like, “As long as we’re having fun now, what’s the problem?” then I think things just come together naturally. With money too, someone always comes along in the nick of time to help us scrape through. Someone will bring vegetables, or rice, or dishes, and thanks to these miracles we’ve managed to keep on living, enjoying our lifestyle of peace and freedom.

Toshio:If we get everyone together and put on a meal, we use rice and vegetables that the local farmers have grown, we use locally crafted dishes to serve the food, local writers and artists come, people who are really good at cooking, people who roast coffee, we get everyone to participate and that’s how we hold our events. There are so many amazing intellectuals and craftspeople in the countryside, but despite living in the same area, they aren’t connected to each other. We go to places with people like that, and we go slowly at first, listening politely to what people say. Then, when it’s time to do it, we suddenly pull everyone into our world and get them all to play the parts we’ve assigned. (laughs) Then, just as everything is starting to get exciting, the festival ends. We’ve been doing that over and over.

Shizuko:Toshi-chan has given lectures in front of those intellectuals, and I’ve performed music in front of those hidden genius musicians. From their perspective, we’re huge idiots. (laughs) But that’s alright. I think they must feel as though we outsiders have come in and done what they can’t do themselves. But, by putting them up on center stage, everyone’s blood starts flowing and they get a lot of their energy back. We want to help this happen and take great care in each event we put on.

Toshio:The two of us want to help people become aware of the un-heard, the un-seen, the air and the atmosphere. We want to try to be a catalyst for that.

I see. Now that I’ve heard your story, I see how deep your work is. Now, what kind of dream or vision do you have for the future?

Shizuko:My job is to connect the past to the future by enjoying the now and living in the now through festivals and music.

Toshio:I want to do things that we can do as Japanese people. We could bring our style of festivals from Japan over to Asia, and on to the land of Africa.

Hello. I’ve always enjoyed your work. I’ve already read all about your group on webDICE so I know all about you. Mr. Inui, you were originally at the Bungaku Company and you formed this group with the people you met there, isn’t that right?

Inui ： Oh, is that how it happened? You know actually, it started when Misao Ushijima and I were students at Tamagawa Gakuen. You know those guys in university who are always talking big with nothing to show for it? That was us. (laughs) And one day I was saying, “I’m going to write a screenplay and get famous someday.” And Misao said, “Well then let’s do it. Let’s do it together.” And we tried it once while we were still in university. But it was just the one time.

Misao: And I kept doing it after that.

Inui: After I graduated I joined the Bungaku Company. I had wanted to learn how to direct, but I wasn’t able to do what I wanted and quit the company. Then I asked Misao if he wanted to do something together. That’s how we started Tetsuwari. We started absorbing more and more people and swelled up to our current size.

Murakami: I was in a band called the Backdrops, and I wound up doing some stuff with Tetsuwari. At first I thought, “These guys are kind of freaky. How unsettling.” I approached them with real caution at first, but now we’re working together.

Misao: Now Murakami is of one of our freakier members. (laughs)

I just can’t wrap my head around how a performance group like Tetsuwari forms its works. How do you do it? Is there some kind of blueprint?

Inui: We’ve all come from a theater background, so we came from a desire to tear down the theater form. But we hadn’t actually watched all that many plays, so I don’t think we truly understood. What else? Oh yeah, we wanted to be like Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

It’s really hard to explain what kind of group Tetsuwari is, isn’t it?

Inui: Once, in English conversation class, I had to do a presentation about what I was doing. When I explained it all to the teacher, he said it was called “Marginal Performance.” What we’re doing is influenced by folklore, by the old legends and entertainment that used to be done in rural areas. For example, African tribal music, American blues, Japanese dragon dance, sumo, kabuki, bunraku, and so on. I feel like what we do is an imitation of that kind of popular travelling entertainment.

Masao: The name Tetsuwari also comes from that history. Long ago there was a man named Kumazo Tetsuwari who led a group of performers who did tricks with their feet, called the Tetsuwari Family. They’d spin tubs on their feet and stuff.

Inui: I think it was something like an Edo-era circus. They went over to America and made a living by performing their foot tricks. I read about them in a book by Shoichi Ozawa (Chairman of the Shabondama Theater Company, essayist, and entertainment scholar) and I liked the sound of it, so I named us Tetsuwari. Albatross is a kind of bird, but it’s also the name of songs I like, both one by Fleetwood Mac and one by PiL, so we added it to our name.

Oh, I see. So that was the reason.

Inui: Actually, you’ll never believe it, but our website is tetsuwari.com, and we were contacted by a Japanese guy living in America, saying, “Why are you using the name Tetsuwari?” And so we explained, “This is this and that is that, and that’s why we’re Tetsuwari.” And the reply came, “Kumazo Tetsuwari was my great-grandfather.” Apparently he’d even appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show once.

What a remarkable story. Now, I’d like to know what your wacky group of misfits is planning to do next.

Inui: We’ve just been continuing on like this without any particular goals, so I don’t know what we’ll do. Don’t you think it’s amazing that we’ve come this far despite all that?

Misao: I don’t really feel like continuing, and I never made any passionate promises or anything. (laughs) Inui, your goal is to be popular with the ladies, isn’t it?

Inui: Yeah. I mean, I’d like to meet one. (laughs) Ah well, simply put, we’re like a bunch of middle school kids who put a band together. I mean, we’re all friends. So I don’t know what to say when someone comes up to me all serious about acting and asks to join the group.

Murakami: We climb the mountain because it’s there type of thing, you know?

Inui: I think the existence of Tetsuwari has been very vital for me. It’s like my hobby is Tetsuwari. Take away Tetsuwari and what have I got? Nothing but boring hobbies like reading and watching movies. I’m the leader and I write the scripts and stuff, but it’s like I’m the one who replaces the battery in the clock, and after I change the battery, it’s “Everyone gather together under the clock!” and then all my friends comes and pass time under the clock. It’s like that.

Misao: What the hell kind of literary expression is that? (laughs) It sounds like we’re prisoners of time or something. Are you okay with that?

Inui: Okay then, everyone gather together under the mad clock!?

Speaking of friends or group members, everyone in Tetsuwari seems to be quite individualistic. It’s remarkable that everyone’s managed to stick together so well.

Misao: We didn’t go out of our way to find people like that, they just came together somehow. But I think we do get along because we all bring something different to the group. It’s like, we’re not friends because we’ve all watched the same movies, we’re friends because we’ve all watched different ones.

Murakami: I entered the group after it had already been going for a while, and one thing that really strikes me is how at first I thought, “These people are freaky.” but over time, we became friends and I realised, “Oh, they’re just normal.” When I first started, people told me things like, “one of them is a pyromaniac” and “one of them is a murderer” so I thought they were really dangerous people, people I wouldn’t even be able to have a normal conversation with. But once we started rehearsing together everyone was really normal, and I was so relieved.

Inui: What! When I first saw you, I was scared! I was like, who is this guy!? (laughs)

But, I can see where you’re coming from, feeling that the Tetsuwari people are “normal.” I’m getting that feeling myself. In that sense, the popular image that Tetsuwari is a motley crew of cranks and oddballs is slightly off the mark.

Murakami: Also, people think we don’t try very hard, but that’s not true. We can’t say we’re able to entertain everyone, and we can’t say that “people who don’t understand us are stupid.” I mean, we don’t have a core, so it’s very scary to do what we do. That’s why I think we’re putting in a lot of effort.

Inui: It’s true. We are trying hard. When I’m directing, I just say stuff like, “Murakami, do some pee pee paa paa there,” but when I work at writing the script, I’m very serious about what I do. There’s no sense of being laid back or easygoing.

Misao: Personally, I don’t feel like I’m trying that hard. But I do want to see things other than what I already know to be entertaining, so I do try hard to produce that. I guess you could call it spite. (laughs) I think about stuff like, “what can Murakami do to bring out his charm?” It’s fun to try and produce something where it’s hard to tell whether it’s acting or not. I do make an effort to do that.

Inui: Aaah, I hate doing stuff where the actors can confidently say, “It’s pretty neat, isn’t it!” It’s like, I’m the one writing the script, but I can never tell whether it’s funny or not, so how can they be so confident! (laughs)

I see. But Tetsuwari is pretty neat. I wonder why that is?

Murakami: I’ve thought seriously about how people enter the sleep state when they go to bed, and I think it’s something like that. When you’re falling asleep, words that aren’t words, “te-ni-o-ha” with no grammar or logic get connected together and we fall asleep. I think that state when the mind is just floating is similar to what Tetsuwari does on stage. While watching the short programmes, your mind gets more and more floaty. In other words, I think Tetsuwari is a theater group that does performances that are like daydreams.

Tetsuwari Schedule 2009

11th September-13th September
Azumabashi Dance Crossing

26th September
Event at Nasu

12th November – 17th November
Performance at the Suzunari theatre

Firstly, could you tell me what is special about Sakurajima-yaki pottery?

It depends on the item, but there is a silver sheen in it called “ginsai” which is unique. The clay has a lot of iron and minerals in it, and when it’s fired at 1300 degrees, it develops a silver luster.

It gives a certain sense of the magic of nature, doesn’t it?

We believe that there is a certain natural energy dwelling in the material that produces the uniquely rugged yet refined look in the works.

What kind of history does Sakurajima-yaki have?

Actually, Sakurajima-yaki isn’t a style of pottery with a long history or tradition. Sakurajima itself has been around for many tens of thousands of years, so the clay itself surely has a very long history, but Sakurajima-yaki pottery was started by my father.

So, your father was a potter then, I suppose?

No. Originally, he was a local civil servant who worked in the Sakurajima town office in the tourism department. A bureaucrat. I don’t know what he was thinking, but suddenly he established a kiln. I imagine he’d gone to someplace like Ijuin, which is a place famous for Satsuma-yaki ceramics, and had some kind of revelation.

In rural areas, working as a civil servant is one of the best, most stable jobs you can get! Why did he quit?

That’s true. He never talked about it with his family, he just said, “I’ve submitted my resignation papers,” and started doing pottery. I was still just a high schooler then and I didn’t really understand. I just thought, “What on earth has he done?” He was in his late-forties and he made a big life decision. The family was too busy to object; he had us all helping out at the kiln! (laughs) Kagoshima men are all stubborn, so once he made up his mind he wouldn’t have listened to what we said anyway.

That’s an amazing story. If he was willing to make such a decision, he must have been very attracted to pottery, or a very good sense about it.

Of course my father had a certain amount of interest in Satsuma-yaki. But he was so badly coordinated, and he’d never done pottery before. He started the workshop in 1972, and it was just a constant run of errors. He’d study a bit then make something, study and make again. Over and over.

If he started the kiln up without any preparation in advance, then you must have had no income at all for quite a while.

Yes, that’s right. He just spent every day working at it, and he kept at that for two years. In other words, we went two years without an income. He had no sense of how to run a business. He did set up a store at the workshop, but he had never done that kind of business before, and the shop looked just like a house, with a gate and everything.

You operated the business as a family, isn’t that right?

Yes. My father did the firing, my sister turned the wheel, and I did the glazing. There were two other staff as well. My mother was running a fruit shop. I think that’s how we were able to stay alive . Even so, we were up to our ears in debt. The fear of the bills at the end of every month is something I can’t forget even now. But other than that, we were quite laid back. We had the attitude, “As long as we make it, it’ll sell someday.” We’d talk about how, “Pottery doesn’t have an expiry date.” So we just kept building up our stock. (laughs)

When did things finally start selling?

That was when the tourist boom happened. It was around 1976. Back then it wasn’t easy to take trips overseas. Everyone took their holidays within Japan. Miyazaki and Kagoshima were particularly popular. For honeymoons, people didn’t go to places like Hawaii, Guam, and Saipan like they do now. A lot of people came to Kyushu. So people would come to Kagoshima and visit Sakurajima, come to our shop and buy some things to take home. We started getting more and more customers like that.

In one sense, it’s quite amazing that the kiln got on track in just one generation.

We had our low points – we were taken by a wholesaler for a few million yen once, but during the bubble years in the 1980s, our stuff just flew off the shelves. Our huge parking lot was packed with cars. We sometimes ran out of things to sell. Even then, the customers wanted to buy something to take home, so they waited outside for the pieces to be fired.

They were buying fresh-baked dishes straight out of the oven!

Yes they were. They’d look inside the kiln at the pots and say, “I’ll take one of these and one of those.” When I think about it now I can hardly believe it myself.

What are your thoughts on how to proceed now?

Actually, the founder, my father, passed away last year. The economy isn’t very good now, so I can’t say we’re doing well, but the Kyushu Shinkansen bullet train service is starting in 2011. I’m hoping that will bring some more visitors to Kagoshima’s Sakurajima. Well, we already know what it’s like to hit rock bottom, so in that sense we have nothing to fear. (laughs) I hope we can continue to manage the business debt-free, and keep providing good products for our customers.

I’m sure your father would be very happy to know that the family is still carrying on his life’s work.

I think so too. But I wish I had asked him, “Why did you become a potter?” That’s one thing I still don’t know, even now. (laughs)

This workshop really is deep in the mountains, isn’t it?

Goto: We moved here fifteen years ago. This place was built about seventy years ago. It’s old but it’s home and a good place for making guitars, too. When you’re making musical instruments, you can’t help making a bit of noise, and here we don’t have to worry about the neighbors.

It’s just the two of you making guitars, and I heard you even sell them overseas…

Goto: Yes. I do the woodworking and put them together, and Oda does the finishing. Electric guitars were originally a mass-produced, American product. They can’t easily be produced in a small workshop like acoustic guitars are. So in that way, it’s very unusual that we are able to do what we do. (laughs)

It must be hard to make a living as a guitar maker?

Goto: Oh, I don’t know if we’re really making a living, even now. Recently I’ve gotten used to living without any cash. (laughs) We originally started out on one hand doing guitar repairs, while making guitars the rest of the time. But when I was thirty (in 2000), I decided, “I’ll quit doing repairs, and make a living from making guitars as my works of art!” Since then, I’ve been focusing mainly on manufacturing guitars.

What do you mean by “Making guitars as your works of art?”

Goto: Just as an artist paints pictures, and a musician writes songs, I make and sell guitars as my art. We put creation first, and we make our guitars so that they can be used and loved for a hundred years. We make “hundred year guitars.” That was a conscious decision of mine.

So, you could say you’re headed in the exact opposite direction of mass produced products.

Goto: Yes. Regular electric guitars are made with one model and a bunch of variations, and musicians chose which one they’ll use. Then, fans of that musician want that same model, and the guitars sell. That’s the basic sales pattern. We decided to avoid that style, and just make what we like, in the best way possible.

Just because you’ve decided that, can you really make a living creating these works of art?

Goto: At first, we borrowed a corner of a musical instrument shop and sold our guitars there. But, we had to make flyers and promotional goods, and our work outside actually making guitars grew so much that we got tired. It was then that a friend suggested we make a website. And I thought, “If it will help our business, then let’s try it out.” And we made a site. But we just made it in English only.

Why only an English site?

Goto: The reason I started making guitars was because of western music. My dream was to have my guitars accepted in the United States. I figured this was a good first step to achieving that. And then, I was contacted by a dealer in the States who said, “We want to sell your products.” And right away, I deleted the part on the website that said “contact.” (laughs) It’s just too much trouble.

What, really? If it was me, I’d get excited and start grabbing any chance I got…

Goto: Yeah. I got one business contact in America and I thought, well, that’s enough. That one dealer who contacted me is the same age as I am. We really get along, and he’s still my only contact over there. He handles worldwide distribution for us. We only really want to do business with people we know, people we can trust.

That way of working, it’s really wonderful.

Goto: That’s why, right now, we’re happy just making guitars. Having someone in the middle like this, so our works of art can be bought up by Americans that we never see, it’s very nice. On top of that, he set up a booth for our products at NAMM, the world’s biggest musical instrument show. All our guitars got bought up, and a certain rock guitarist that I admire bought one of our products. I really feel that we were lucky to have met someone who helped bring our products to such a level.

How about you, Ms. Oda, what are your feelings about working with Goto on this?

Oda: Originally, I started on this path because of my love for music. When I graduated from high school, I entered a guitar-making school, and Goto was my teacher. Goto was impressed with my color sense, so he asked if I wanted to work together with him.

Eighteen years ago. Goto, you would have been twenty one at that time?

Goto: Yes. Just then, I had completed a job for 150,000 yen, and I had that much in cash on me. So, I said to Oda. “I’ve got 150,000 yen here. With that much money, we can go independent. Let’s open an electric guitar studio.” (laughs)

And Oda, you went along with it.

Oda: I’m even more easygoing than Goto is. He told me his idea, and I just thought, “Oh, OK. If he says it’ll be alright, then I guess it’ll work out.” And we started a little live-in studio, and now eighteen years have gone by. Even now, the three of us, myself, Goto, and his wife are still living together here.

I see. You’ve lived a life I can’t even imagine. Now, finally, this is a magazine about “monozukuri” (the art of making things), so could you leave us with a word about monozukuri?

Goto: I’m making things by hand, but I don’t think that putting love into every step of my manufacturing process is the way to make sure something good is made. I love U2’s Joshua Tree album, but it’s just a plastic disk. That plastic disk is mass manufactured by a machine, and you know there hasn’t been any love put into making it. But that album is full of love. That’s why I think that what is inside is what counts. Take Apple Computer, for example. They put so much care into their designs, and I feel love from that. But the computer itself is just a thing. Our guitars are the same in that they’re just things. But we can design a form that makes the person holding it look cool, we can make it produce a good sound, and make it smooth to the touch. I put love into that stuff. That’s what I think is important.

At Jersey Girl Homemade Guitars