Vinphonic
03-06-2019, 03:16 PM
Hiroshi Miyagawa & Akira Miyagawa
SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO 2202
Warriors of Love
The Complete Score of the OVA series
Tokyo Studio Orchestra & Osaka Sion Wind Orchestra
Encounter with Teressa (https://picosong.com/wSGE9/) / The last song (https://picosong.com/wSGET/)
Download (https://mega.nz/#!DXYBVQAS!f7IO-BhQIftiwG8E_FyVfiXv4qpQLh5Vao-gwPEcqCk)
The full score to the OVA project "Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love" in lossless quality and in its full scope. It deserves it, pershaps more than any other score this year. Its a special score for sure, not so much in its originality but in preserving, revising and rerecording an important score in anime/music history. Much attention goes to the symphonic arrangements by Kentaro Haneda but the actual score as used in the TV series often falls into obscurity and in an interview below it becomes evident not much of it survived on paper.
100 Tracks, three hours of sublime music from the days of SciFi TV scores like Star Trek to Battlestar Galacticas. A score Akira Miyagawa revised, arranged and expanded in memory of his father and a testament to a scoring approach that fills your mind with "imagination" and truely, you can hear the romantic space voyage unfolding while listening. Even the "reused" cues from the first series are revised and newly recorded (Sorrowful Yamato is quite an upgrade compared to 2199). In general it all sounds much better than the first series. It was a personal obligation and love for his fathers music that you really feel in this score. Of course I acknowledge that no show or score is perfect and there's always something that doesn't appeal to everyone, but fuck me, I LOVE the show and especially the score as you're aware I'm sure. It exceeds the first series by a considerable margin, thanks to updating and expanding on one of the greatest villain themes ever written for any piece of media. It's up there with the Empire/Vader theme from Star Wars and a league above other favorites like the Band of Seven from Inuyasha.
Its prominent throughout the entire score witch gives it much more character and presence than the first where the Gamillas theme never really got the variations or action tracks it deserved.
The White Comet Empire Theme is pure evil, the classic 70s and 80s evil, and performed in best Bach fashion. The approach of given the main villain a pipe organ is so classy it was used in various pieces of media, most notably this: Ganon's Tower (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S4h1gcCMBc). But all pale in comparison to the White Comet. Pretty much the entire show is an homage to classic SciFi television and filled to the brim with references to classic literature and SciFi films and shows. The massive body of music is too vast to go into detail but all the numerous rerecordings and arrangements of Hiroshi Miyagawa's music impress. It has more sinister villain pieces, more emotion and gravitas, more powerful action, more dramatic weight compared to 2199. It's absolutely amazing to hear a score so shamelessly 70s, a major action scene underscored with some kickass disco: A gruesome fight (https://picosong.com/wSGdz/)
It's a style of television scoring that yet survives in Japan and I'm confident that even beyond the upcoming movie and third series of this stellar remake of a classic 70s series and an important milestone of anime history, this style will not disappear. At least as long as Akira Miyagawa wields his pencil/baton in the studio:
2202 Recording Session (from 15:17 to 16:52) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkXg0IvdezA&t=15m17s)
For more detail about the score and its unique quality, here's an (well-known) interview with Miyagawa on the score for Yamato 2202:
Interviewer: On 2202, the director has been replaced by Mr. Nobuyoshi Habara. Do you have different exchanges, or impressions of the work?
Miyagawa: It�s completely different. Mr. Izubuchi entered into it from a philosophical point of view, but Mr. Habara didn�t. I don�t know if I�ve had a chance to talk about that yet. My impression is that Mr. Habara has very good judgment. When it comes down to �Should we go this way or that way?� he seems to be good at choosing the one that is closer to the goal or where the future is brighter.
Since Mr. Izubuchi started with philosophy, he suffered from not reaching an understanding with what he said. (Laughs) I think there are places where Mr. Izubuchi got caught in his own traps. That�s very bold for an artist, but Mr. Habara chooses paths to avoid falling into traps, so I�m very relieved.
Interviewer: Is it your impression that it�s easy to work together?
Miyagawa: I can�t say it�s �easy to do,� but when I look at what�s been done, I have a strong sense of security. The flow of time feels smart and avoids waste, and the feeling is, �This is well made. The results are good. My younger brother is a clever guy, and doesn�t get stuck in the same rut.� I selfishly imagine that Mr. Habara is the second or third son and I�m the oldest, the type that falls into the hole. I�m the type that has all the hardships so you don�t have to. (Laughs)
Interviewer: The story goes that there was no sheet music from the past for 2199, and that you had to start by making ear-copies.
Miyagawa: My father�s library is still there, but I knew there wasn�t much Yamato music in it. Just some tattered leftovers or single-sided pages saying �This is part XX.� It�s nothing like having all of Yamato�s wonderful 73 pieces. And I don�t remember seeing a musical score for Farewell to Yamato. Columbia, who was in charge of the music at the time, told me �There is no sound source,� but there is one. Everyone has the CD. (Laughs)
There might be multiple recordings for those that were multi-recorded, but in any case it still became a story of rewriting everything. The information changes in the video picture and the designs, and the thing that changes most is the texture. The old anime had the tone of a flip-book. That was the taste back in those days. But a lot of it is done in CG now and the pacing is different in both picture and music. Because the music doesn�t fit today�s pacing, it�s understandable that it would need to be re-recorded. And if you re-record it, you need a score.
Mr. Izubuchi was amused to hear that. ��This is what you mean by ear-copy?� And my feeling was just, �Well, these things happen.� (Laughs) At first I thought, �Are you serious!?� But on the other hand, I was very excited. (Laughs) �I get to write out all that music?�
Several things came to mind. Writing the score would make it clear what kind of structure the music has, and I would come know how this score was realized. That was going to be fascinating. Any composer who graduates from music school can do an ear-copy, but I felt like I was getting classes. I got lessons from my father like, �How did he extend this thin 1-minute piece to 2 minutes?�( Laughs) That kind of technique takes skill. (Laughs)
When I began to write it, it was thinking �This song was written in 30 minutes.� And then there were many, many points where I�d realize �Oh! That�s how it is, that�s how he did it�� The details are kind of a trade secret, though. (Laughs)
Interviewer: Is it different from just listening to the music and writing it out as sheet music?
Miyagawa: It�s entirely different. �There were only these elements, but simply modulating a semitone here brings the whole dream to life� and �After that, I can go back down a semitone!� I�m not really an editing man, but it was fun to understand all of it. And there were several pieces where you could say, �God dwells in there� and I thought it was great. That was Hiroshi Miyagawa from those days.
Interviewer: For 2202, you revived the music of Farewell to Yamato.
Miyagawa: We�re calling it �salvage� in the sense that we�re rescuing old music. If you try to ear-copy Farewell, I understood that from the start it clearly differentiates itself from the first Yamato in musical terms.
Interviewer: What is it like?
Miyagawa: The string parts are abnormally large. The first Yamato was mainly based in rock. There are a lot of scenes where the rhythm section is active. However, the score for Farewell is intentionally based on the string ensemble. In other words, there�s a lot of music in this world that doesn�t use a rhythm section. The strings are almost taking the place of the previous rhythm section.
I�m sure there was a meeting when they said, �Since that was how it used to be, let�s do this way this time.� After all, my father wasn�t trying to make exactly the same thing. Change is necessary to maintain your motivation. I think it started from �Let�s not use this instrument for a while� and the instruments were changed.
Interviewer: Is that why it has a classical impression?
Miyagawa: That�s right, it sounds classical as a result. Plus, there�s the Bach pipe organ in there.
Interviewer: There weren�t just ear-copies, but I heard that you also composed a lot of parts yourself. Your musical background is different and you have your own individuality, but what were your thoughts on making your pieces compatible with those you transcribed from the original?
Miyagawa: In order to answer that question, the correct response has to be, �I didn�t think about it at all.� I was uncertain at the beginning, so I talked with the Sound Director Tomohiro Yoshida and finally got around to asking, �It�s good, isn�t it?� But when it was all finally sorted out for the recording, there was no mismatch at all.
It�s a mysterious thing. Even though the style is completely different, I dared to write music that my father didn�t write. I think this is because the seeding of 2199 was quite good. Mr. Izubuchi said, �There�s no melody that says, �ambitious youth,� so I want you to make one.� And we prepared a Garmillas National Anthem. When I surged into 2202, both myself and those around me said, �There�s no mismatch� and �You did well, Akira.� I know it was good, because it was said at separate times.
Interviewer: Yes, no mismatch at all.
Miyagawa: Anybody can be influenced or not by the original author, but with the yearning in regard to the stylishness that we call harmony, the linear beauty that�s like a huge dragon that we call melody, and the yearning for the coolness we call rhythm, whether due to DNA or experience, I can�t say, but our intuition is definitely identical. And perhaps, in the end, it�s born of a desire to �express the age.� Well, perhaps my father was a bit more eager�
No, no, but the ending is Scarlet Scarf, right? (Laughs) That one was lagging behind the times. When I was a junior high student, I couldn�t accept it. �Dad! This is no longer the era of Hiroshi Wada and the Mahinastars!� (Laughs) It�s certainly a good song, and I could understand it after I became an adult. That�s one bit of evidence that he wasn�t thinking about being fashionable. The other is that he didn�t use a computer, and I don�t use a computer for music at all. That�s how we�re alike. Because it cannot be used.
Interviewer: You don�t even record things separately.
Miyagawa: I think music needs to be done in one shot. That�s why it seems like �Miyagawa music� is conjoined by its own nature. Some writers have a lot of trouble if you tell them �I want you to write pieces that don�t match� but I don�t think my father had any problem with that.
There were a lot of things that were really well done in the battle scenes, where you can say, �This piece feels different because the enemy is different this time, too.� Does it accumulate to more than 900 pieces? He went through incredible hell, didn�t he? And here I am thinking, �can I just use the same piece as before?� (Laughs)
But knowing that my father boldly said, �I�m still fighting even though I�ve run out of bullets,� I think he was really great. There�s a lot of music in Farewell to Yamato.
Interviewer: From there, some would say, �Bring out something inside of me beyond even that.�
Miyagawa: This time I noticed that Yamato is itself the act of struggling. Yamato is a struggle. Why is it the Battleship Yamato from World War II? Why not the Battleship Nagato? Anyway, it would be no good if it wasn�t Yamato. (Laughs)
Anyway, if you have �it must be Yamato,� then you also have, �It wouldn�t be Yamato without this.� The first thing I wanted to do was find a basis for replacing the Pacific War with space. So this work carries a lot of things on its back. It�s sociology and philosophy. It wouldn�t be Yamato if there was no struggle.
This time I even wrote music that wasn�t requested. I can�t say the title because it was temporary, but I recorded it in August. I went in and played the melody on piano for the staff and said, �I heard something like this,� and they said �We�ll keep it until we find a place to use it,� and because of that I went through the struggle of making it.
That�s a different method, to make a song that doesn�t have any purpose other than �There may be something in this,� then you go through the assembly line to record it and then, �It�s done.� �Thank you very much.� �Best regards.�
Since this is Yamato, you can approach it from several directions, asking yourself �Is this not cool? Is it not new? Is it not sufficiently Yamato-like?� Even I think of musical compositions in this way. It�s a piece that might not actually be used, but I enjoyed making it.(Laughs)
Interviewer: The story goes that the information density in a picture is completely different now than it was back in those days. Do you have the feeling that music will sound dull if you make it with the same density as back then?
Miyagawa: �Dullness,� or rather, the feeling that it just doesn�t fit. I don�t know the right terminology, but it seems somewhat irrelevant. If you made music with the same density, my feeling would be, �Why not just leave the picture as it was long ago?�Now we can freely pile up musical instruments using a synthesizer and the sound is similar, like we�ve �mixed all the colors.� I think it has the aspect of making the melody difficult to understand. But I think when a bold melody is actually applied, they just say, �I don�t need that.�
In film music, much of it is mainly chiseled out with rhythm only, �dun! dun! dun!�, bass-heavy growls of �zoon,� with the occasional different instrument thrown in. One of the reasons is that the visual information is clear, and I think that to a large extent visual information provides all the information in the movie.
Interviewer: Does it become noisy if you insist on sounds?
Miyagawa: Yes, you don�t need a melody, you just need a feeling of music in the air.
Interviewer: Is it supposed to be �abstract�?
Miyagawa: You could say that it becomes abstract, but perhaps it�s the extreme abstractness of the melody that embodies the atmosphere that makes it abstract. That�s an extremely difficult question, but I think there are plenty of examples where you�re buried in information and you�re told �We don�t need a melody, just give us atmosphere, please. But, since I�ve not worked with many directors like that, I can only imagine that. (Laughs)
So, as a result, it may be that you get the balance of information from a melody that can�t be sung. The main theme of Francis Ford Copolla�s Godfather is very famous, isn�t it? It�s used in many places, and the person who hears it can freely make a leap with that image. When that happens, the image darkens and blurs, and there�s something about the details of the subject of the shot that you lose.
In older films, I guess the audience had to flip a switch on their imagination. Although records had a crackling noise at first, you can flip a switch on your imagination with that. �The sound you hear is the diamond needle scratching the polyvinyl chloride, but it sounds genuine.� (Laughs)
The sound on a CD is really clear, and the �thing itself� comes out to be transmitted. The structure and receiving system of the brain are different, and I think making full use of your imagination was a way to enjoy old movies and analog records. My argument is that it�s normal for half of imagination to be made by the producer and the other half by the recipient. I can�t prove it, but when I work on Yamato I respect the music a lot and the staff all listens to it, and we try to make the music talk. In that sense, I think Yamato may be one of the last strongholds.
- November 2, 2017.[/QUOTE]
Onward to the movie and the next entry, of course I also really want a spinoff for Ginga.
A truely spectacular show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd27DCqZUrI)
Yamato is also not the only "Retro" series getting a revival, there's numerous other "classics" in the making.
SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO 2202
Warriors of Love
The Complete Score of the OVA series
Tokyo Studio Orchestra & Osaka Sion Wind Orchestra
Encounter with Teressa (https://picosong.com/wSGE9/) / The last song (https://picosong.com/wSGET/)
Download (https://mega.nz/#!DXYBVQAS!f7IO-BhQIftiwG8E_FyVfiXv4qpQLh5Vao-gwPEcqCk)
The full score to the OVA project "Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love" in lossless quality and in its full scope. It deserves it, pershaps more than any other score this year. Its a special score for sure, not so much in its originality but in preserving, revising and rerecording an important score in anime/music history. Much attention goes to the symphonic arrangements by Kentaro Haneda but the actual score as used in the TV series often falls into obscurity and in an interview below it becomes evident not much of it survived on paper.
100 Tracks, three hours of sublime music from the days of SciFi TV scores like Star Trek to Battlestar Galacticas. A score Akira Miyagawa revised, arranged and expanded in memory of his father and a testament to a scoring approach that fills your mind with "imagination" and truely, you can hear the romantic space voyage unfolding while listening. Even the "reused" cues from the first series are revised and newly recorded (Sorrowful Yamato is quite an upgrade compared to 2199). In general it all sounds much better than the first series. It was a personal obligation and love for his fathers music that you really feel in this score. Of course I acknowledge that no show or score is perfect and there's always something that doesn't appeal to everyone, but fuck me, I LOVE the show and especially the score as you're aware I'm sure. It exceeds the first series by a considerable margin, thanks to updating and expanding on one of the greatest villain themes ever written for any piece of media. It's up there with the Empire/Vader theme from Star Wars and a league above other favorites like the Band of Seven from Inuyasha.
Its prominent throughout the entire score witch gives it much more character and presence than the first where the Gamillas theme never really got the variations or action tracks it deserved.
The White Comet Empire Theme is pure evil, the classic 70s and 80s evil, and performed in best Bach fashion. The approach of given the main villain a pipe organ is so classy it was used in various pieces of media, most notably this: Ganon's Tower (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S4h1gcCMBc). But all pale in comparison to the White Comet. Pretty much the entire show is an homage to classic SciFi television and filled to the brim with references to classic literature and SciFi films and shows. The massive body of music is too vast to go into detail but all the numerous rerecordings and arrangements of Hiroshi Miyagawa's music impress. It has more sinister villain pieces, more emotion and gravitas, more powerful action, more dramatic weight compared to 2199. It's absolutely amazing to hear a score so shamelessly 70s, a major action scene underscored with some kickass disco: A gruesome fight (https://picosong.com/wSGdz/)
It's a style of television scoring that yet survives in Japan and I'm confident that even beyond the upcoming movie and third series of this stellar remake of a classic 70s series and an important milestone of anime history, this style will not disappear. At least as long as Akira Miyagawa wields his pencil/baton in the studio:
2202 Recording Session (from 15:17 to 16:52) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkXg0IvdezA&t=15m17s)
For more detail about the score and its unique quality, here's an (well-known) interview with Miyagawa on the score for Yamato 2202:
Interviewer: On 2202, the director has been replaced by Mr. Nobuyoshi Habara. Do you have different exchanges, or impressions of the work?
Miyagawa: It�s completely different. Mr. Izubuchi entered into it from a philosophical point of view, but Mr. Habara didn�t. I don�t know if I�ve had a chance to talk about that yet. My impression is that Mr. Habara has very good judgment. When it comes down to �Should we go this way or that way?� he seems to be good at choosing the one that is closer to the goal or where the future is brighter.
Since Mr. Izubuchi started with philosophy, he suffered from not reaching an understanding with what he said. (Laughs) I think there are places where Mr. Izubuchi got caught in his own traps. That�s very bold for an artist, but Mr. Habara chooses paths to avoid falling into traps, so I�m very relieved.
Interviewer: Is it your impression that it�s easy to work together?
Miyagawa: I can�t say it�s �easy to do,� but when I look at what�s been done, I have a strong sense of security. The flow of time feels smart and avoids waste, and the feeling is, �This is well made. The results are good. My younger brother is a clever guy, and doesn�t get stuck in the same rut.� I selfishly imagine that Mr. Habara is the second or third son and I�m the oldest, the type that falls into the hole. I�m the type that has all the hardships so you don�t have to. (Laughs)
Interviewer: The story goes that there was no sheet music from the past for 2199, and that you had to start by making ear-copies.
Miyagawa: My father�s library is still there, but I knew there wasn�t much Yamato music in it. Just some tattered leftovers or single-sided pages saying �This is part XX.� It�s nothing like having all of Yamato�s wonderful 73 pieces. And I don�t remember seeing a musical score for Farewell to Yamato. Columbia, who was in charge of the music at the time, told me �There is no sound source,� but there is one. Everyone has the CD. (Laughs)
There might be multiple recordings for those that were multi-recorded, but in any case it still became a story of rewriting everything. The information changes in the video picture and the designs, and the thing that changes most is the texture. The old anime had the tone of a flip-book. That was the taste back in those days. But a lot of it is done in CG now and the pacing is different in both picture and music. Because the music doesn�t fit today�s pacing, it�s understandable that it would need to be re-recorded. And if you re-record it, you need a score.
Mr. Izubuchi was amused to hear that. ��This is what you mean by ear-copy?� And my feeling was just, �Well, these things happen.� (Laughs) At first I thought, �Are you serious!?� But on the other hand, I was very excited. (Laughs) �I get to write out all that music?�
Several things came to mind. Writing the score would make it clear what kind of structure the music has, and I would come know how this score was realized. That was going to be fascinating. Any composer who graduates from music school can do an ear-copy, but I felt like I was getting classes. I got lessons from my father like, �How did he extend this thin 1-minute piece to 2 minutes?�( Laughs) That kind of technique takes skill. (Laughs)
When I began to write it, it was thinking �This song was written in 30 minutes.� And then there were many, many points where I�d realize �Oh! That�s how it is, that�s how he did it�� The details are kind of a trade secret, though. (Laughs)
Interviewer: Is it different from just listening to the music and writing it out as sheet music?
Miyagawa: It�s entirely different. �There were only these elements, but simply modulating a semitone here brings the whole dream to life� and �After that, I can go back down a semitone!� I�m not really an editing man, but it was fun to understand all of it. And there were several pieces where you could say, �God dwells in there� and I thought it was great. That was Hiroshi Miyagawa from those days.
Interviewer: For 2202, you revived the music of Farewell to Yamato.
Miyagawa: We�re calling it �salvage� in the sense that we�re rescuing old music. If you try to ear-copy Farewell, I understood that from the start it clearly differentiates itself from the first Yamato in musical terms.
Interviewer: What is it like?
Miyagawa: The string parts are abnormally large. The first Yamato was mainly based in rock. There are a lot of scenes where the rhythm section is active. However, the score for Farewell is intentionally based on the string ensemble. In other words, there�s a lot of music in this world that doesn�t use a rhythm section. The strings are almost taking the place of the previous rhythm section.
I�m sure there was a meeting when they said, �Since that was how it used to be, let�s do this way this time.� After all, my father wasn�t trying to make exactly the same thing. Change is necessary to maintain your motivation. I think it started from �Let�s not use this instrument for a while� and the instruments were changed.
Interviewer: Is that why it has a classical impression?
Miyagawa: That�s right, it sounds classical as a result. Plus, there�s the Bach pipe organ in there.
Interviewer: There weren�t just ear-copies, but I heard that you also composed a lot of parts yourself. Your musical background is different and you have your own individuality, but what were your thoughts on making your pieces compatible with those you transcribed from the original?
Miyagawa: In order to answer that question, the correct response has to be, �I didn�t think about it at all.� I was uncertain at the beginning, so I talked with the Sound Director Tomohiro Yoshida and finally got around to asking, �It�s good, isn�t it?� But when it was all finally sorted out for the recording, there was no mismatch at all.
It�s a mysterious thing. Even though the style is completely different, I dared to write music that my father didn�t write. I think this is because the seeding of 2199 was quite good. Mr. Izubuchi said, �There�s no melody that says, �ambitious youth,� so I want you to make one.� And we prepared a Garmillas National Anthem. When I surged into 2202, both myself and those around me said, �There�s no mismatch� and �You did well, Akira.� I know it was good, because it was said at separate times.
Interviewer: Yes, no mismatch at all.
Miyagawa: Anybody can be influenced or not by the original author, but with the yearning in regard to the stylishness that we call harmony, the linear beauty that�s like a huge dragon that we call melody, and the yearning for the coolness we call rhythm, whether due to DNA or experience, I can�t say, but our intuition is definitely identical. And perhaps, in the end, it�s born of a desire to �express the age.� Well, perhaps my father was a bit more eager�
No, no, but the ending is Scarlet Scarf, right? (Laughs) That one was lagging behind the times. When I was a junior high student, I couldn�t accept it. �Dad! This is no longer the era of Hiroshi Wada and the Mahinastars!� (Laughs) It�s certainly a good song, and I could understand it after I became an adult. That�s one bit of evidence that he wasn�t thinking about being fashionable. The other is that he didn�t use a computer, and I don�t use a computer for music at all. That�s how we�re alike. Because it cannot be used.
Interviewer: You don�t even record things separately.
Miyagawa: I think music needs to be done in one shot. That�s why it seems like �Miyagawa music� is conjoined by its own nature. Some writers have a lot of trouble if you tell them �I want you to write pieces that don�t match� but I don�t think my father had any problem with that.
There were a lot of things that were really well done in the battle scenes, where you can say, �This piece feels different because the enemy is different this time, too.� Does it accumulate to more than 900 pieces? He went through incredible hell, didn�t he? And here I am thinking, �can I just use the same piece as before?� (Laughs)
But knowing that my father boldly said, �I�m still fighting even though I�ve run out of bullets,� I think he was really great. There�s a lot of music in Farewell to Yamato.
Interviewer: From there, some would say, �Bring out something inside of me beyond even that.�
Miyagawa: This time I noticed that Yamato is itself the act of struggling. Yamato is a struggle. Why is it the Battleship Yamato from World War II? Why not the Battleship Nagato? Anyway, it would be no good if it wasn�t Yamato. (Laughs)
Anyway, if you have �it must be Yamato,� then you also have, �It wouldn�t be Yamato without this.� The first thing I wanted to do was find a basis for replacing the Pacific War with space. So this work carries a lot of things on its back. It�s sociology and philosophy. It wouldn�t be Yamato if there was no struggle.
This time I even wrote music that wasn�t requested. I can�t say the title because it was temporary, but I recorded it in August. I went in and played the melody on piano for the staff and said, �I heard something like this,� and they said �We�ll keep it until we find a place to use it,� and because of that I went through the struggle of making it.
That�s a different method, to make a song that doesn�t have any purpose other than �There may be something in this,� then you go through the assembly line to record it and then, �It�s done.� �Thank you very much.� �Best regards.�
Since this is Yamato, you can approach it from several directions, asking yourself �Is this not cool? Is it not new? Is it not sufficiently Yamato-like?� Even I think of musical compositions in this way. It�s a piece that might not actually be used, but I enjoyed making it.(Laughs)
Interviewer: The story goes that the information density in a picture is completely different now than it was back in those days. Do you have the feeling that music will sound dull if you make it with the same density as back then?
Miyagawa: �Dullness,� or rather, the feeling that it just doesn�t fit. I don�t know the right terminology, but it seems somewhat irrelevant. If you made music with the same density, my feeling would be, �Why not just leave the picture as it was long ago?�Now we can freely pile up musical instruments using a synthesizer and the sound is similar, like we�ve �mixed all the colors.� I think it has the aspect of making the melody difficult to understand. But I think when a bold melody is actually applied, they just say, �I don�t need that.�
In film music, much of it is mainly chiseled out with rhythm only, �dun! dun! dun!�, bass-heavy growls of �zoon,� with the occasional different instrument thrown in. One of the reasons is that the visual information is clear, and I think that to a large extent visual information provides all the information in the movie.
Interviewer: Does it become noisy if you insist on sounds?
Miyagawa: Yes, you don�t need a melody, you just need a feeling of music in the air.
Interviewer: Is it supposed to be �abstract�?
Miyagawa: You could say that it becomes abstract, but perhaps it�s the extreme abstractness of the melody that embodies the atmosphere that makes it abstract. That�s an extremely difficult question, but I think there are plenty of examples where you�re buried in information and you�re told �We don�t need a melody, just give us atmosphere, please. But, since I�ve not worked with many directors like that, I can only imagine that. (Laughs)
So, as a result, it may be that you get the balance of information from a melody that can�t be sung. The main theme of Francis Ford Copolla�s Godfather is very famous, isn�t it? It�s used in many places, and the person who hears it can freely make a leap with that image. When that happens, the image darkens and blurs, and there�s something about the details of the subject of the shot that you lose.
In older films, I guess the audience had to flip a switch on their imagination. Although records had a crackling noise at first, you can flip a switch on your imagination with that. �The sound you hear is the diamond needle scratching the polyvinyl chloride, but it sounds genuine.� (Laughs)
The sound on a CD is really clear, and the �thing itself� comes out to be transmitted. The structure and receiving system of the brain are different, and I think making full use of your imagination was a way to enjoy old movies and analog records. My argument is that it�s normal for half of imagination to be made by the producer and the other half by the recipient. I can�t prove it, but when I work on Yamato I respect the music a lot and the staff all listens to it, and we try to make the music talk. In that sense, I think Yamato may be one of the last strongholds.
- November 2, 2017.[/QUOTE]
Onward to the movie and the next entry, of course I also really want a spinoff for Ginga.
A truely spectacular show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd27DCqZUrI)
Yamato is also not the only "Retro" series getting a revival, there's numerous other "classics" in the making.