Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-4n89n Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-26T01:07:22.994Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ma and Traditional Japanese Aesthetics in Spatial Music and Sonic Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2025

Austin Oting Har Open the ORCID record for Austin Oting Har [Opens in a new window]
Austin Oting Har*
Affiliation:
University of the Virgin Islands, USA
*
Corresponding author: Austin Oting Har; Email: austinotinghar@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article surveys spatial music and sonic art influenced by the traditional Japanese concept of ma – translated as space, interval, or pause – against the cultural backdrop of Shintoism and Zen Buddhism. Works by Jōji Yuasa, Midori Takada, Michael Fowler, Akiko Hatakeyama, Kaija Saariaho and Jim Franklin created in conscious engagement with ma are analysed with respect to diverse manifestations of ma in Japanese arts and social sciences, including theatre, poetry, painting, rock garden, shakuhachi and psychotherapy. Jean-Baptiste Barrière provided the Max patch for Saariaho’s Only the Sound Remains (2015) for this survey. I propose a framework of six interlinking dimensions of ma – temporal, physical, musical, semantic, therapeutic and spiritual – for discussing creative approaches to ma, alongside their resonance with Hisamatsu Shin’ichi’s seven interconnected characteristics of Zen art: Asymmetry, Simplicity, Austere Sublimity/Lofty Dryness, Naturalness, Subtle Profundity/Deep Reserve, Freedom from Attachment and Tranquility. The aim is first to examine how each composer uses different techniques, technologies and systems to engage with specific dimensions of ma. Second, to illuminate possible futures of exploring these dimensions in spatial music and sonic art through three methods: Inspiration, Transmediation and Expansion.

Type
Article
Information
Organised Sound , First View , pp. 1 - 12
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aitken, R. 1984. The Mind of Clover: Essays in Zen Buddhist Ethics. New York: North Point Press.Google Scholar
Asai, S. 2005. Cultural Politics: The African American Connection in AsianAmerican Jazz-Based Music. Asian Music 36(1): 87–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beta, A. 2018. How a Digital Rabbit Hole Gave Midori Takada’s 1983 Album a Second Life. New York Times, 21 May. www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/arts/music/midori-takada-through-the-looking-glass.html (accessed 21 February 2025).Google Scholar
Bethe, M. and Emmert, R. 1997. Aoinoue, Noh Performance Guide 7. Tokyo: National Noh Theatre.Google Scholar
Brümmer, L. 2017. Composition and Perception in Spatial Audio. Computer Music Journal 41(1): 46–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burk, D. 2023. The Two Aspects or Sides of Reality from a Chan/Zen Perspective. The Zen Studies Podcast. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ykRL-ZOqya_96YipRShLcpzPZVQ5kAZc/ (accessed 21 February 2025).Google Scholar
Chadabe, J. 1997. Electric Sound: The Past and Promise of Electronic Music. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Emmert, R. 1980. Hiranori – A Unique Rhythm Form in Japanese Nō Music. In Musical Voices of Asia: Report of Asian Traditional Performing Arts. Tokyo: The Japan Foundation, 100–7.Google Scholar
Fowler, M. 2008. Sesshutei as a Spatial Model. Academia. www.academia.edu/video/kOm7r1 (accessed 21 February 2025).Google Scholar
Fowler, M. 2011. Transmediating a Japanese Garden through Spatial Design. Leonardo Music Journal 21(1): 41–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franklin, J. 2024. Densokugaku: Shakuhachi, Composition, Electronics. London: Vision Edition, CE Books.Google Scholar
Galliano, L. 2012. The Music of Jōji Yuasa. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Grisey, G. and Fineberg, J. 2000. Did You Say Spectral? Contemporary Music Review 19(3): 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1080/07494460000640311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, S. C. and Miller, M. 2013. Japanese Aesthetics. American Society for Aesthetics. https://aesthetics-online.org/page/GouldMiller (accessed 21 February 2025).Google Scholar
guillame. 2018. Midori Takada: Through the Looking Glass. Spellbinding Music, 15 January. https://spellbindingmusic.com/category/modern-classical/page/6/ (accessed 21 February 2025).Google Scholar
Har, A. O. 2019. ‘Music as a discourse’/‘Music as a state of sound’: An Interpretation of Gerard Grisey’s Conceptual Framework for Spectral Musical Composition. Context: A Journal of Music Research 44: 37–50.Google Scholar
Har, A. O. 2021. The Ghost – Opera: An Intersection of Greek Tragedy, Electroacoustic, and Spectral Music. DMA thesis, University of Sydney. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25087.Google Scholar
Har, A. O. 2023. Integrating Live Computer Tools into the Creation, Adaptation, and Performance of Japanese Noh Theatre. Proceedings of the 2023 Audio Engineering Society Convention. New York City.Google Scholar
Hatakeyama, A. 2014. Multimedia Suite: Blind | The World Where I Can’t Be But You Live. Journal of the Japanese Society for Sonic Arts 5(1): 26–9.Google Scholar
Hatakeyama, A. 2024. みちに虹 〜 ひぐ れ ー Michi ni niji ∼ Higure. http://akikohatakeyama.com/v_michi_higure.html (accessed 21 February 2025).Google Scholar
Hinton, D. 2020. The Selected Poems of Tu Fu. New York: New Directions Publishing.Google Scholar
Hisamatsu, S. 1971. Zen and the Fine Arts, trans. Tokiwa, G.. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Hood, W. and Gendrich, C. 2003. Memories of the Future: Technology and the Body in Dumb Type’s Memorandum. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 25(1): 8.Google Scholar
Kawamura, M. 2022. Ma as a Universal Language, and Ma as Applied to my Musical Practice. DMA thesis, DUC San Diego. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4vd7448s.Google Scholar
Koyama-Daniels, R. 2023. Midori Takada’s Through the Looking Glass on its 40th Anniversary. Tōkyō Weekender, 22 May. www.tokyoweekender.com/entertainment/music/midori-takadas-through-the-looking-glass-on-its-40th-anniversary/ (accessed 21 February 2025).Google Scholar
Marin, E. 2022. The Topological Model in the Works of Yuasa Jōji. Organised Sound 27(1): 80–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mikolajczyk, K., Har, A. O., Wachsmann, L., Bown, O. and Ferguson, S. 2024. Mimetic Possibilities: Collaboration through Movement in Multimedia Opera. Leonardo 58(2): 149–56. https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_02602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miner, E. 1979. Japanese Linked Poetry: An Account with Translations of Renga and Haikai Sequences. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Morioka, M. 2015. How to Create Ma – The Living Pause – In the Landscape of the Mind: The Wisdom of Noh Theater. International Journal for Dialogical Science 9(1): 81–95.Google Scholar
Nishida, K. 1990. An Inquiry into the Good. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Prusinski, L. 2012. Wabi-Sabi, Mono No Aware, and Ma: Tracing Traditional Japanese Aesthetics through Japanese History. Studies on Asia 4(2): 25–49.Google Scholar
Saariaho, K. 2021. Only the Sound Remains: Notes. Estate of Kaija Saariaho. https://saariaho.org/works/only-the-sound-remains (accessed 21 February 2025).Google Scholar
Shibata, M. 1971. Music and Technology in Japan. La Revue Musicale (Special issue sponsored by UNESCO), 173–9.Google Scholar
Suzuki, S. 1970. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. New York: Weatherhill.Google Scholar
Tanizaki, J. 1997. In Praise of Shadows, trans. Harper, T. J. and Seidensticker, E.. Sedgwick, ME: Leete’s Island Books.Google Scholar
Yuasa, J. 1987. The Shadow of Tape Music on Instrumental Music. Contemporary Music Review 1(2): 53–74.Google Scholar
Yuasa, J. 1993a. Mind in Art. Perspectives of New Music 31(2): 178–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yuasa, J. 1993b. Temporality and I: From the Composer’s Workshop. Perspectives of New Music 31(2): 216–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yuasa, J. 1993c. The World of Noh As I Perceive It, Concerning Some Problems in Music. Perspectives of New Music 31(2): 186–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yuasa, J. 1993d. Theater as an Environmental Medium. Perspectives of New Music 31(2): 192–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar