Consumed Sounds, Sounds That Sink into the Heart

1. The First-Person as a Mask
In Japanese, there are countless first-person pronouns such as "boku," "ore," "watashi," and "atashi." These are not mere pronouns; they are like "masks" that, the moment they are chosen, define the speaker's gender, social standing, and even the nuances of their heart. By changing these masks, Japanese singers can easily transcend even their own gender and allow the lives of others to possess them. If the English "I" is a symbol pointing to an immutable self, then Japanese first-person pronouns can be called vivid costumes used to color a story.
2. The Disappearance of the Subject and the "Monologue of the Landscape"
However, the true essence of Japanese lies beyond that. It is the erasure of the subject.
Think of the classic Showa-era song "Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyugeshiki" (Tsugaru Strait, Winter Scenery). At the beginning, it goes: "From the moment I got off the night train from Ueno / Aomori Station was in the snow / The crowd of people returning north were all silent / Listening only to the sound of the sea." Up to this point, the subject "I" does not appear. It simply, quietly, reflects the harshness of winter and the scene of Aomori Station in the tense air.
If one were to translate this into English and sing it, what would happen?
"I stepped off the night train..."
Grammatically, the sentence cannot be formed without establishing a subject—"who" (I) did it. In English, the story cannot begin unless the existence of "I" is placed before the landscape.
However, Japanese can intentionally hide the subject and let the landscape itself speak. The "I" who is the singer dissolves into the landscape and disappears. That is precisely why the listener can overlay their own loneliness onto that blank space, and the biting cold of winter permeates their heart directly. By omitting the explanation, an emotion so intense it makes one "want to cry" overflows.
Though it is not a song, the beginning of Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country also lacks a subject in the same way.

This "sense of the boundary between self and world disappearing" is the spirit of harmony that the Japanese have cherished since ancient times, and perhaps it is an expression of a view of life and death that sees oneself as a part of nature.
3. Sounds Beyond Meaning: "Kaze-azami"
It is not just about erasing the subject. Japanese sometimes even lets go of meaning.
The word "kaze-azami" (wind thistle) appears in Yosui Inoue's "Shonen Jidai" (Boyhood). Even if you open a botanical encyclopedia, no such flower exists. It is a neologism coined by Yosui. However, the moment we hear this word, a scene of the slightly lonely wind at the end of summer and swaying wildflowers vividly emerges in our minds.
If one were to try to explain this in English, it would likely have to be a concrete explanation such as "A thistle swaying in the summer breeze."
In English, one must explain it concretely as "a thistle swaying in the summer breeze," but in Japanese, the four characters "kaze-azami" alone instantly evoke not only that scene but also the nuances of the heart. The emotion held by the sound of "kaze-azami" itself spills out the moment it is translated. It is a kotodama (spirit of words) that shakes not the "brain" that understands through logic and meaning, but a deeper, more fundamental part of the soul. That is the power that the Japanese language possesses.
Because there is no explanation, it leaves things to the sensibility.
There is nothing more delightful than this.
4. How many songs from last year's hits can you sing?
Here, I would like you to ask yourself a question.
"How many of the hit songs that were overflowing in the streets last year can you sing all the way through?"
Information is overflowing, and music flows in infinitely with a single tap of a finger. However, "industrial products for consumption" designed solely to stimulate the brain's reward system pass through our souls like a passing breeze. How much "body heat" truly resides in music that mimics English hit charts and cuts out only a few seconds of the chorus?
The abundance of information does not mean richness. A sound that does not remain in the heart is the same as one that does not exist.
5. What was in the gaps of the soul
Originally, music was meant to fill the "gaps of human emotions."
The serenity of Gagaku, which entrusted the awe of the divine to sound. The melodies of classical music that play the fundamental loneliness of humanity across hundreds of years. Or the cries of jazz and blues, squeezed out to survive at the bottom of harsh labor and discrimination.
These "authentic" pieces of music are densely packed with the background from which they were born—blood, sweat, prayer, and the atmosphere of that land. They refuse to be "consumed" and settle into the listener's cells as if clinging to them.

6. No education needed, just the "real thing"
That is why I want to assert that music does not need "education" or "tests."
During a sensitive period, just expose yourself to real sound. That is enough.
There is no need to sit in a hard school chair and follow musical notes for the sake of evaluation. If it's boring, it's fine to fall asleep. Whether that sound is pleasant or whether there is an unbearable sense of discomfort—that is the "correct judgment" made by that child's soul.
What is needed is not to force "subjects" with correct answers onto students sitting at desks. It is simply time for "leisure" to rest the study-weary brain and liberate the five senses. If even one person there sheds tears at the vibration of a sound that transcends logic, the light of music will not go out for the next hundred years.
7. The Fourteen-Year-Old Switch
Music is an invisible vibration of air. It is too abstract and elusive.
However, humans know that it definitely reaches the "soul" and settles there.
When we hear that music we listened to during our sensitive teenage years for the first time in decades, we instantly remember the faint scents of that time, the pain of love, and scenes of trembling youth. There is nothing else in this world besides music that can perform such a feat.
There is a song called "14-sai" (Fourteen Years Old) by The High-Lows, created by Hiroto Komoto.
My record player from that day
Acted a little arrogant and said this
Whenever, at any time, turn on the switch
At that moment, I will definitely make you fourteen again

It is such a waste to talk about music using the yardstick of "whether it sells or not."
If you turn on the switch, it can always pull you back to "the you of that day." Shouldn't we cherish such miraculous vibrations more?
Stop thinking with your brain and sharpen your five senses.
The sound that resonates beyond that is the true "voice" for us to live as a part of nature.

Discussions about music get heated.
I still have so much more to talk about.