Cultural Translations

thetic principles or formal systems without iconic references to Asian sounds,” b) “Evoke Asiansensibilities without explicit musical borrowing,” c) “Quote culture through literary or extra-musicalmeans,” and d) “Quote preexistent musical materials through the form of a collage.” In thesecond category (syncretism), Asian composers: a) “Transplant East Asian attributes of timbre,articulation, or scale system onto Western instruments” and b) “Combine musical instrumentsand/or tuning systems of East Asian and Western musical ensembles.” In the final category (synthesis),which is presumably least commonly encountered, composers fully “transform” elementsfrom at least two traditions into “a distinctive synthesis.” Yayoi Uno Everett’s model seems particularlyeffective for analysis of the work of composers in the field of art music, for which it wasoriginally designed, and it may also offer some valid applications to other forms of music.Fence, Flavor, and Phantasm. Another interesting metaphorical model is proposed by GordonMathews, who suggests that attitudes toward “Japaneseness” in music be considered in terms oftheir resemblance to the notions of fence, flavor, and phantasm. By “fence,” Mathews means anattitude that promotes “walling off Japanese from change and foreignness,” which he contrastswith both seeing Japaneseness as “a flavor to be enjoyed by anyone in the world,” and as a “phantasm,”by which he means “Japaneseness obliterated, to be created anew if enough people canbe convinced of the validity of such a recreation.” The Fence/Flavor/Phantasm model offers anattractive approach that may be helpful in framing discussions regarding cultural identity in anarray of musics.Despite the apparent utility of these two models, I sense that some Japanese musicians nowadaysmay actually maintain a relatively cosmopolitan and culturally “omnivorous” identity 25 forwhich the very notion of “Japaneseness” and awareness of the Asian origins of musical materialhave little relevance. Shuhei Hosokawa has identified a phenomenon he describes as “the temporarybracketing of ‘identity’ that constitutes the Japanese self” 26 among Japanese musicians,who he recognizes as often capable of maintaining transitory and multi-faceted, or even multiple,musical identities. Both of the aforementioned models may serve as useful tools for grapplingwith how musical sound or cultural identity may be conceived in specific contexts. However,these models may also be sufficiently malleable so as to be considered in combination with othermodels, such as in the Aesthetic Notions domain (zone C) of the Pentagonal Analysis of CulturalTranslation (PACT) approach developed and applied in this essay for the precise purpose of understandingmusical “translation.”JAPAN IN MUSIC TRANSLATIONI will now proceed to discussion of four examples of contemporary musicians who make varioususes of influences from Japanese traditional culture within their work. For the purpose ofthis essay, I have selected two bands comprised of Japanese musicians who perform in a kind offusion genre – the Yoshida Brothers and Tokyo Brass Style – and two bands comprised of non-Japanese musicians who perform in hybrid styles inspired by Japanese culture: the Helsinki Koto3025 For recent sociological discussion of cultural “omnivorousness” see Koen van Eijck and John Lievens,“Cultural omnivorousness as a combination of highbrow, pop, and folk elements: The relation betweentaste patterns and attitudes concerning social integration,” Poetics, 36 (2008), 217-242.26 Hosokawa, 1999, p.526.David G. Hebert