A Life Without Music! When did Music Disappear from My Everyday Life?

Just the other day, an acquaintance asked me at a banquet, "By the way, what kind of music are you listening to these days, Rick?” I couldn't muster up an answer. I have been so immersed in my work for so long that I have stopped listening to music. Perhaps the superficial answer is that I have so much to do every day that I don't have time to listen to music. I even tried listening to an iPod for a short time, but it became too much of a hassle to think about selecting songs every time I wanted to listen to it, so I stopped using it.

First and foremost, I am a guitarist, and long ago I used to compose music on the piano. Despite this, these days I almost don't even play an instrument anymore. This is a problem. It seems that playing the guitar for a few minutes once in a while is the limit of what I can do now. When I think about it, it has been half a century, or nearly 50 years, since I really practiced the guitar. Therefore, it is not surprising that my way of thinking and lifestyle have changed.

It's not that I don't like music anymore. I will always love it as much as ever. But, there is a problem. That is, when I start listening to music, for some reason, the melody of the music starts running through my head and influences my thoughts. When I was in high school, I listened to so much music that my head became full of it, and as a result of those melodies ran through my head so much that I couldn’t sleep at night, in other words, I became an insomniac. It was hard then, but I liked music and I was young, so I could handle it. Now that is not the case. I don't have much time to sleep to begin with, so if I can't get a good night's sleep, it is obvious that my health is affected.

In other words, I have gradually moved away from listening to music because it can sometimes interfere with my work and has caused a bad taste in my mouth. Music is a demon, especially when you are doing work that requires deep thinking. Even humming my favorite melody causes important written content to quickly disappear from my brain and I can't recall it. In other words, listening to music was known to have negative effects. Therefore, as a result of experiencing such things many times, music has faded from my life and I’m not particularly bothered by it.

Has such a life been going on for another 20-30 years? So when I was asked, "What kind of music do you listen to?" I had no way to answer it. Instead, I quickly changed the subject and replied that I used to listen to this kind of music in the past. As a result, I looked back on my musical life from childhood for the first time in a long while. I'll try to recap a little bit of it.

In my early elementary school years, we had Elvis Presley and Beatles records at home. So, I was accustomed to listening to this kind of oldies. But what I liked the most was actually classical music, especially the waltzes of Johann Strauss II. My first exposure to classical music was a live performance by a symphony orchestra at the Ueno Public Hall. At that time, Beethoven's Fate Symphony was played, and I was hooked by the introductory melody of "Dundundun dunnnnn!” I kept humming that melody even after I got home. My mother bought me an album of the Fate Symphony and after listening to it dozens of times, I memorized the melody from beginning to end. That was my first encounter with classical music.

Right around that time in the Showa era, there were several movie theaters in the Shibuya district where I was born and raised. One day, a movie called Tales from the Vienna Woods was being shown, and I was able to go see it. It was a movie about the life of the Waltz King, Johann Strauss II. After watching that movie, I started humming waltz melodies whenever I heard something. I even came to memorize a number of waltzes by heart.

Later, in the upper grades of elementary school, the heyday of group-sounds music was in full swing. Impressed by the parade of hit songs, starting with "Seaside Bound" by the Tigers led by Kenji Sawada, my classmates and I went together to listen to band music. The group-sounds trend was succeeded by a boom in folk music. Thus, my early teens were, simply put, the heyday of songs, folk songs, and group sounds. It is amazing just to look back on that time when I was able to enjoy all of these different types of genres to the fullest. Anyway, all the songs of the time were full of originality, and some of those memorable masterpieces still remain in my heart.

Then, when I entered junior high school, I was inspired by folk songs and began to play the guitar. At that time, it was considered cool for anyone to play the guitar. I have fond memories of just having so much fun covering folk songs and playing them at school festivals. As an extension of this, the world of rock music came into view. Before I knew it, my classmates had shifted from folk songs to rock music, and they had started playing cool licks on the guitar. I too was soon inspired by this trend and began to gravitate toward rock music myself.

What followed, in a word, was the pursuit of my dream of becoming a rock guitarist. During my high school years in the suburbs of Los Angeles, I found time on weekends to go to concerts of famous rock bands. I remember that the only band I didn’t have the chance to see was the Rolling Stones. In other words, I was able to see and enjoy almost all the other rock bands that were active in the 1970s. What a happy life I had!

Let's come to a conclusion. What did you used to like to listen to the most? To answer this question, I let my acquaintance talk about rock albums represented by two bands. These two albums are unquestionably historical gems even from the level of today's music, and they contain some of the greatest songs and performances of all time. Let me introduce them to you.

First, there's Deep Purple's Made in Japan. This album is so well-known in the rock world, but the song "Highway Star" from this album just gives me goosebumps! I must have actually listened to this song dozens, if not hundreds of times while blasting it while driving on American highways in my car. In California, you can drive a car from the age of 15 and a half, so I drove myself to high school early on. Not only does this album contain moving and masterful performances by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, but vocalist Ian Gillan's voice is also wonderful. There is one more album that will always stay with me and that is Johnny Winter Live. Johnny, who was famous in the blues world even though he was white, collaborated with Rick Dellinger, a well-known rock and roll guitarist, and the best part of this album is that the two of them play a number of classic songs while exchanging guitars. The performance of the classic Johnny B Goode, in particular, is a high-level twin-guitar duel that would impress any guitarist, and the gluey rock 'n' roll makes my heart skip a beat. I miss the days when I was so excited about such things.

It is because I have so many of these memories that I seem to be able to get by without listening to any music now. Now that I’m heading towards the end of my life without listening to music, I realized that I actually have accumulated quite a rich history in listening to music.