Enriching the Musical Experience for More People

Department of Acoustic Design, Faculty of Design
NISHIDA Hiroko, Associate Professor

  Music is something that is all around us and rooted in many aspects of our lives. The relationship between music and society changes with time and region, so there is a need to research and design ways to further enrich the musical experience for more people.
  At the Nishida Laboratory of Faculty of Design at Kyushu University, we are tackling the following questions and issues: How has music content been affected by changes in media such as streaming services? What role does music play in animation and games? What steps need to be taken to revitalize music culture in Fukuoka?
  For example, master's student Ms. Ota Akari, in collaboration with fellow student Mr. Matsuura Kenta (Sawai Ken-ichi Laboratory), tested the hypothesis that chord progressions in Japanese popular music may have become more complex over the years through analysis. Figure 1 shows an indicator of the variety of chord progression types [1].

  Ms. Nishioka Reina, a doctoral student who also works as a pianist, researched the management and significance of music competitions in Japan in terms of their relationship with the local community, and visualized the relationship between management groups and human resources with the contestants as shown in Figure 2 [2].

  I also co-edited and co-authored a book with Mr. Kodera Michiru (now Associate Professor at Ritsumeikan University), who completed his Master's degree in 2014, entitled The Scientific History of Music and the Mind: When Musicology and Psychology Intersect (Shunjusha Publishing Company). In this book, researchers from various fields take up various examples of how music research has referred to findings in psychology.
  Currently, I am interested in taking a global perspective on music theory. For example, when exchange between Japan and the West became more active after the Meiji period, Westerners began to arrange Japanese melodies, which originally had no harmony, by adding harmony to them. Figure 3 shows a melody transcribed into staff notation by a hired foreigner in Japan from a Japanese song he heard at the time and published in a magazine in the 1870s [3].

What kind of harmony (accompaniment) did Europeans, who came to know Japanese melodies through the magazine, give to these? For more information, see the book [4] to be published in March 2025.
  The Nishida Laboratory aspires to cross-border research in which it actively collaborates with people from various fields.

[1] Ota, Akari, Matsuura, Kenta, Sawai, Ken-ichi, and Hiroko Nishida. 2024. “Complex Chords and Their Usage in Japanese Popular Music: The Transition in 1968–2022,” The 75th Annual Meeting of Musicological Society of Japan.
[2] Nishioka, Reina. 2024. “An Initial Look at the Relationship Between Classical Music Competitions in Japan and Local Culture and Society: Case Studies on Community Development,” American Journal of Arts Management 12/22, 1–23.
[3] Holtz, Viktor. 1873–1876. “Zwei japanische Lieder,” Mittheilungen der deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens 1/3, 13–14.
[4] Nishida, Hiroko, and Maho Nakatsuji (eds.) Modern Japan and Western Music Theory: Towards a Global History of Theory. Tokyo: ONGAKU NO TOMO SHA CORP., forthcoming.

■Contact
Department of Acoustic Design, Faculty of Design
NISHIDA Hiroko, Associate Professor