Discovering the Intangible

Session Chord: "P"

Taichiro Nishi・Junya Hirata・Yuto Ueda・Sena Anjiki

The word "waza-hahi (waza-wayi)" means that the "works" of gods and yo-kai* spread/”crawl” throughout the world. It is believed that yo-kai exist at the bottom of social turmoil, and the sounds of raging rivers and the rumbling of the earth have been their "voices”.

On the other hand, there is no sound associated with the Covid-19 disaster, but instead, the "numbers" such as the statistics of infected people reported every day.

In this work, the black keys of the piano are numbered, and the changes in the number of infected people are converted into a melody to create music. On top of that, we will overlap the reading of official statement by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare on measures against the Covid-19 pandemic, and the reading of texts describing past disasters such as "Hojo-ki," to bring up the "voices" of a society that has faced disasters from the past to the present. *yo-kai are creatures and spirits in Japanese folk tales that were believed to cause supernatural phenomena and natural disasters.

What does "Pentatonic scale" mean?

Pentatonic scale is a general term for a musical scale made by extracting the five main notes from an octave. By choosing notes from the pentatonic scale, we can easily create a harmonious sound.

In the "Session Chord P", we focused on the coincidence that the five black keys on the keyboard are exactly the five notes of the A♭ minor pentatonic scale. And by assigning a number to each of the nine black keys from C# to G#(one octave higher), we transformed the transition in the number of people infected with the COVID-19 into a melody."

Overlapping the texts on disasters

Chomei Kamono, «Hojo-ki» (1212). Translated by Ikuko Sakata's (PHP Institute) .
〇Antonin Artaud, «Le Théâtre et son double» (1938). Translated by Soushi Suzuki (Kawade Shobo Sinsha).
〇Michiko Ishimure, «Hanikami no kuni» (1974). Quoted from «Ishimure Michiko Zenshishu» (Sekifusha).
〇Teiji Furuhashi. «Furuhashi Teiji no atarashi jinsei - LIFE WITH VIRUS» (1992). Quoted from «memorandum Teiji Furuhashi» (Littlemore)
〇Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare,«Open data on the Covid-19 : number of positive cases» (2021).
〇Ministry of Hearth, Labour and Welfare,«Basic Policies for COVID-19 Disease Control» (2021).

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