FINAL ESSAY music 2: Folk Song Club

Blake Foster

Winter Quarter Japan Exchange 2010-2011

Final Report: Folk Song Club

In order to gain the trust and mutual friendship of Japanese people, the most important factor is often time. While there are many open-minded Japanese who befriend people quickly and are able to be open with their emotions, many Japanese tend to be more reserved around new acquaintances. This cultural trait can be perplexing and frustrating to non-Japanese, even if they are familiar with Japanese culture. Becoming more close to the Folk Song Club proved to be a long process, but by the end of the exchange I had been overall accepted into the Folk Song circle. Not until the end of the exchange did I feel like an actual member rather than a tourist. Through my experiences with the Folk Song Club I learned about Japanese college culture and about Japanese music. Each quarter spent with the club brought a greater understanding as to what the club means and how it relates to Japanese society as a whole. Now that a year has passed since learning about the club and enjoying it, I can reflect on what these experiences and better comprehend what I have learned about Japan through my year-long exchange in Kobe.

Toward the beginning of joining the club, I was aware of the differences in seniority for club members, but the weight of the relationships between junior and senior members was not apparent due to the lack of rigid organization and structure to the club and the openness of its members. Members of any year level in the club would fraternize with one another, blurring the lines that are clearly visible in stricter clubs such as baseball (which has an almost military-like conduct, particularly for high school baseball clubs) and other sports clubs in Japan. When the Folk Song Club played a show in the clubroom on campus to attract students who were entering as first year students at the university, a group of members played a cover set of the UK band Arctic Monkeys. Since I was a huge fan of that band I was eager to hear the covers. A third-year club member, known for his stern and somewhat irritable temperament, was doing vocals while on guitar, and as I sang along to his muffled singing another third-year member grabbed a microphone and handed it to me so that I could actually sing, which I did, prompting the singer on guitar to apathetically give up the role. At the time I thought little of this, as Japanese, in a music setting, will commonly call out a foreigner in an entirely Japanese group of people. Toward the end of the exchange, I found out that many club members were left with a huge impression of that one event, and it shaped their impression of me in the club from thereon. Many were shocked in amusement, likely because a senior member's performance was suddenly interrupted by a new member (not to mention a foreign new member). The fact that I did not consider how seemingly small actions could be viewed through the eyes of the club members showed how ignorant I was about the importance of club cultures in Japan.

Understanding how school clubs guide Japanese youth came through several important events in the Folk Song Club. Before this quarter, events like the club's summer trip to Nagano prefecture, where the second year students are chosen to be the next club management into their third year of membership, and the school festival in early November where third year members retire the positions to the new management, the passing of membership creates important relationships that last well beyond members actually graduating from the university.

In a society that still strongly adheres to Confucian roots, freshmen students entering a club that has its own ranks and culture becomes an important right of passage. Younger members are able to make friends with members four or five years older than them, and the system of respect (such as using honorific language to speak to senior members) facilitates this bond. Though the membership to the club creates an instantaneous bond between members, the forging of relationships between first, second and third year members takes about half a year. That is why events like the summer trip are important; their purpose is to thin the lines between class levels and create stronger friendships. Although members of all year levels tend to create close relationships individually, the first and second year levels often form the closest bonds overall. Since third year members are the management at the beginning of first year students' membership, the level of respect they receive can sometimes create distance, and forth year members are often absent from club meetings overall, which limits the amount of time they spend with first year members.

In order to bring lower-year members closer to forth year members, there are two important events to the club in March. Because March is when forth year students graduate from school (which is some of them, compared to the members who are on their fifth or sixth year at the university), it is assumed that they will become too busy to play with the club anymore (even though many members withhold from seeking full employment, work part time, and still sometimes play shows with the Folk Song Club), and thus an event is held where club members congregate at “Round 1”, a popular chain amusement center with bowling, karaoke and other activities, and have bowling tournaments in teams, each team including a forth year member and one member from each year below that (making teams of four people). While many first year members have interacted with many of the forth year members, this event encourages forging a stronger bond before they graduate from school. The night of bowling is followed by two after-parties until 5am the next morning. Often times members forth year and above know little of the first year members, even so much as their names, so the event at least familiarizes members on some level.

The second event that celebrates the forth-year graduating members is the Graduation Concert (卒コン, sotsukon), a concert that has bands formed of at least one forth-year member as their final official concert in the club (some members still come back to play with the club after this). The event is held in high regard by all younger members, and their effort to cheer and support the forth-year members is evident. The effort in supporting the club became even more clear in the face of the March 11 earthquake and tsunamis that devastated Japan, with the concert being held the next day. Second-year members in charge of management made sure to use social networking sites like Mixi to encourage members not to forget about the importance of the concert even at a time of national crisis. While the club's activities may seem frivolous and inappropriate in a time of great mourning, the obligations and dedication to the club and its members withstood the darkened atmosphere. While there was some sense of gloom during the day of the concert, members did their best to focus on carrying the event on and enjoying it.

All the bands that performed were at their highest level, with a much more organized and focused effort than other club events. Most bands were standard four to five piece bands, but there were some acoustic sets and one video presentation by a fifth-year member paired with Katsura, who made a rare appearance and played guitar to accompany the video that the member created. The video was met with puzzlement, but the guitar-playing was well-regarded by younger members who had never seen effect-pedals utilized creatively by members of the club. Elaborate performances had other visual presentations and rotating players, commemorating all the forth-year members as a part of the set. Many members openly weeped while playing, showing the level of emotion vested into the event, and that crying at a final occasion is almost an obligation for Japanese people. The after-parties extended into the early hours of the morning as well, with members drinking with reckless abandon for their farewell.

The day of graduation ceremonies itself also includes a club drinking event, which I was unable to attend as I had already returned to the states. The entire month of March is almost dedicated to the graduating class, with three major events, two that I attended. The following month of April, which I originally wrote about at the beginning of the exchange, will be marked by next generation of club members. With the culture of the club, a sense of nostalgia and worth comes with each new generation of members, a culture that is uniquely Japanese. The way in which many members uphold the respect for senior members proves just how important the club is, as many of these relationships carry on long after members graduate.

Something unique in the first and second year members of the Folk Song Club of this last year was their willingness to cooperate and hold events with members of the Keiongaku club, a much more serious-minded club in terms of its events and activities, which was the reason for members breaking off and forming the Folk Song Club long ago at the University of Hyogo. The Keiongaku club stresses members to be skilled in their instruments and parts in order to become better musicians, and a lack of skill in some players can lead them to feel alienated and useless in the club setting. The Folk Song Club, however, attempts to value all members regardless of their skill level and provides a more inclusive atmosphere. Older club members tend to have less ties between the clubs, but the first and second year members performed in four or five joint-live concerts with the clubs and other music clubs from neighboring schools. Personally, these events were more interesting that Folk Song-exclusive events due to the variety of people and personalities. The atmosphere of certain clubs tends to reflect the personalities of its members, and the mixture of different clubs in concerts and their inevitable drunker after-parties provide a look at the diversified but strongly prevalent music club culture in Japanese universities.

In mid-February, a large joint-live event took place in Sannomiya with several different university clubs in attendance. As I mention in the essay “Original Music in the Kobe/Osaka Area”, one band played original music, the low-point of the show. Other than that, however, there were several talented bands doing a variety of covers, including an Iron Maiden cover that included a half-Japanese guitarist (whose father was Japanese and mother American, a welcome change to the stereotypical but common ex-pat/war-bride scenario) and a bassist playing a 5-string that pulled off one of the tougher bass-solos with spot-on precision, and a Japanese singer taking the English vocals with surprisingly clear pronunciation (this band came from the University of Hyogo's neighboring University of Foreign Languages, which I mentioned in the fall quarter when writing about school festivals). The Folk Song Club performed with over ten members, being comprised of a large brass section including one member from the Keiongaku club in the brass section, and three vocalists covering a Japanese hip-hop group. In the middle of the performances there was also a Japanese haiku contest with a Valentine's Day theme (the theme was receiving a gift from a girlfriend on Valentine's Day and returning the favor on the Japanese holiday White Day, a holiday in which males return the favor of Valentine's Day on March 14th), in which I entered an innuendo-laden haiku that was worded with the help of Katsura, which inevitably lost due to the audience's mixture of embarrassed laughs and silent puzzlement. The after-party, only lasting till 10pm, was especially raucous and loud, mainly from the Folk Song and Keiongaku clubs and their interaction involving the ever-popular male-on-male kissing dares that preludes binge drinking (a cultural aspect that is commonplace in Japan but nearly unthinkable in the more homophobic United States).

With all of these interactions between older Folk Song members and the joint-live shows with the Keion Club, I was able to become well-known with many of the club members. Through music and alcohol, I, a foreign exchange student was able to be accepted into the club cultures. While not the only foreign member of the Folk Song Club (I introduced a Chinese student into the club, and she performed at the Folk Song's Winter Concert event), I certainly stood out in the sense of being American and inevitably connected to the Western culture of music that many Japanese are fans of. When my American friend, a guitarist who performs original music with me, came to visit in late January, he too struck a chord with the Folk Song Club through his guitar skills and general knowledge of music. Present at the Winter Concert (even coming on stage to perform one of our original songs at the end of the set that I took part in, my final performance for The Folk Song Club), he impressed club members with his knowledge of music (he pointed out by ear that one girl who was tuning her guitar into a drop-D tuning was still tuned incorrectly) and sound, and joined the club for the after-party with a warm welcome by many of the older Folk Song members, who deemed him a member of the club even in his brief presence (his name was even called once when taking attendance at a club meeting afterward). He interacted well with other guitarists, many of whom in turn came to our performance at the Jam Jam Cafe when we did our original work (as mentioned in the essay about original music). These interactions showed how well members of the club can interact inter-culturally through music.

In terms of my membership, the feeling of being an actual member of the club was solidified by a surprise farewell celebration in early March. The members created a DVD video with goodbye messages from many of the members, thanking me for being a member and bidding farewell. The farewell party itself was very Japanese in nature, in that there was a final speech time given to me following all the attending members singing a traditional sentimental Japanese song (sang at farewell occasions such as high school graduations) in a chorus, with the club leader egging on everyone to “make Blake cry!”

Even with the amount of time it took to gain a real sense of place in the Folk Song Club, and the cultural miscommunications and disagreements that occurred along the way, even members who initially reacted coldly or in offense to my presence (one girl told me directly that she did not like me at all at first, but that now she did) began to warm up to me (the cynical side of me says it was because I was about to leave). Because the culture of the club is both open and loose but at the same time sensitive and quite serious about the club, I misread the nature of the club at first, and my understanding took time and patience. In the end, however, the experience was both rewarding on a personal and educational level. I was able to fulfill my objective of learning about music culture for younger Japanese, particularly college students, and how club activities build an important part of their lives. Just as I was lucky enough to experience Japanese high school, experiencing a club like Folk Song provided a similar insight into a culture that really requires direct experience to appreciate and understand. More than simply playing music, the Folk Song Club creates a social group atmosphere that facilitates long-lasting bonds through music.