Beyond 12: At a Moment of Ryuichi's Lifelong Journey

When I was in elementary school, I once took a math quiz about the reason why clock dials were divided into the number 12. The answer was that the number allows for more flexible time increments to be divided. With 12 markings, time can be divided into 2, 3, 4, or 6 increments, whereas only 2 or 5 increments are possible with 10 markings. As a child, this explanation made perfect sense to me. Using 12 markings to evenly distribute numbers around a circular object seemed natural. However, as an adult, I sometimes find myself bothered by this reasoning, even though it is logical. It feels as though my day is being sliced up like a cake and distributed without my input. This thought makes me feel as though an invisible, dominant force is always watching over me in a one-way manner. If you have ever learned to play a piano keyboard, you may have wondered the same thing: why is one octave divided into 12 equal parts? Is there any aesthetic reason besides the fact that it is more mathematically rational? The answer is no. This is because there are many other scales in the world that are not divided that way. Whether it is time or sound, treating them systematically by dividing them equally is one of the norms unique to Westerners. This realization then made Ryuichi, who grew up in the non-Western country of Japan, a uniquely global musician in the world. Having started piano lessons at the age of three and growing up listening to the music of Bach and Beethoven, he eventually grew to disdain the strict world of classical music that had become a part of him, and instead aimed for a wider form of expression.

His music has been praised as an "emotion that crosses borders," but in my opinion, the true theme of his music is to surpass all human-made boundaries. While studying at the art university, he became obsessed with creating unknown sounds in a synthesizer room by himself. He believed that to overcome the norm of Western music, which divides one octave into 12 equal parts, he needed the synthesizer, which could liquefy the equal temperament with just multiple knobs. At the same time, he listened to various types of music from around the world. This effort later blossomed through interactions with outstanding pop musicians, and he eventually had a chance to break into the American music market. When Virgin Records, a British-based music company, entered the US market in the late 1980s, they planned to pioneer an unprecedented market. They welcomed Ryuichi from Japan as their first step. However, contrary to their initial ambition, Virgin ended up focusing on the trends of the American domestic music market.

Ryuichi moved his base to New York with enthusiasm in 1990 but eventually realized that there were many divisions in the American domestic music market. He was awarded a Grammy in 1988 for the soundtrack of the movie "The Last Emperor," but I'm wondering if he really understood the significance of the fact that there were already about 100 categories in the Grammy at that time. Even though the number has decreased somewhat now, there are still over 80 categories. This means that in the US, there are these very artificially and finely sliced divisions in music as a whole. Kitaro, a Japanese musician whom he allegedly detested throughout his life, achieved the American dream in a few years, which could be attributed to the "New Age Music" category established at the Grammys in 1986. Kitaro has continued his music career without leaving this genre to this day. In contrast, Ryuichi has continued to create various types of music ignoring such divisions. I won't question the superiority or inferiority of his music creations here. The important thing is that although surpassing these divisions may lead to creativity, it can be very disadvantageous from a business point of view. Actually, he lost confidence in himself as a pop musician at some point. Even his home market, the Japanese market, seldom accepted him, at least in terms of big commercial success.

Here are the hit chart rankings and unit sales figures for Ryuichi's music in Japan. He did have one collaboration with a punk rock singer that reached number one on the weekly sales chart and then a song he composed, which was sung by his daughter Miu as the theme song for a Japanese TV drama, reached a high of 6th place in weekly sales. As a member of YMO, he achieved musical sales records. These, however, are not considered his solo works. Despite his immense celebrity, his solo works have had few hit tunes. His music style values transcending boundaries above all else. This approach, as a result, made it difficult for him to achieve a commercial breakthrough, even in the Japanese market. The general public is almost always drawn towards music that can be easily categorized within a specific genre, regardless of the cultural region, be it the US or any other market around the world.

There was, however, one exception. He had once produced a massive hit with a solo piano piece, which remained in the top 10 for 10 consecutive weeks. This became Japan's first instrumental piece to reach the top spot on the weekly charts and eventually ranked fourth on the 1999 annual singles chart. Even his most famous piece, "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence," did not achieve the same level of commercial success. Originally composed for a popular beverage commercial, the composer claims to have written it on the piano in just five minutes one morning. In the commercial's thirty-second runtime, he played the piano in the middle of a busy Tokyo intersection, where people in suits were crossing emotionlessly but his piano rendition was having a calming effect on their tired faces, resulting in a funny yet heartwarming commercial.

Due to an overwhelming number of inquiries from viewers, he was asked to create a finished piece, which he completed quickly and released as a single CD. He made a bitter smile regarding this success, saying, "I struggled and worried about creating something that would chart for a long time, but it's ironic that something I never intended to be a hit became one."

As people are hurriedly moving around the airport lobby, a chime sound rings out, and the announcement "Attention please, attention please" echoes through the space, causing the people to momentarily pause and listen. Although it was an unintended consequence, the same thing accidentally happened in this commercial. Once coming across his rendition, people paused and found themselves listening to the charming 30-second piece, both in the commercial and the reality. His music always crosses boundaries such as the twelve-tone row, twenty-four keys, the artificial dichotomy between East and West, gender differences, borders, or differences in ideology. However, in this commercial, it was the masses who were crossing boundaries while he just played the piano alone at the same spot. Paradoxically, this highlighted the essence of his music and made the masses stop and take notice. The commercial shone a light on how we move within various norms and restrictions, including equally-divided tones, equally-divided time, and the invisible shackles we bear. In short, he ultimately belonged to a unique norm called "Ryuichi".

His posthumous album was coincidentally titled "12".