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Old 2010-09-17, 13:09   Link #11
Ricky Controversy
Frandle & Nightbag
 
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Is the question HOW they sound different, or what makes that happen? It seems like others have answered the first question well enough.

The second question has a simple answer: cultural evolution. There are some tendencies in modern Japanese music that are drawn from the older folk tradition. There are chord progressions that you notice variations of commonly in Japanese music that rarely surface in Western music of any sort, for instance. However, just as much of modern Japanese musical identity is shaped by the fact that traditions that had decades or centuries to evolve in the West were suddenly thrust on them first in the latter part of the 19th century during the Meiji Era, and then again during the post-WWII occupation of Japan by Britain and the USA. Musical forms that had time to be codified into entire distinct genres in the West were all thrown in one big pot when the Japanese experienced them for the first time. As such, much of the independent music in Japan is wide-open in terms of genre. Japanese Hip-Hop incorporates Breakbeat, Jazz, Orchestral and Japanese folk elements, for instance.
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