Thursday, November 17, 2011

Kodama







Some nice surprises at the library book sale the other day. They must have been pruning their music section -- I came away with a nice stack of music education and electronic music books from the 70s. I also found this mysterious Japanese children's book with blue flexi-discs. The only characters I can make out are 'Kodama,' which I think is the name of the press. I love the little tabs attaching the flexi-disc to the book. Good system.

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10 comments:

  1. dispoNovember 17, 2011 at 2:46 PM

    I didn't expect a song as sad as that.
    Attaching-wise, this must be the holy grail of flexidiscism.

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  2. mío-míoNovember 17, 2011 at 4:13 PM

    Amazing! You are lucky!

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  3. WillNovember 17, 2011 at 6:05 PM

    Oh man what a find! The person responsible for the illustrations is Rokuro Taniuchi (often shortened to Roku): http://50watts.com/filter/rokuro

    I love this guy. I'm going to have to feature these scans on 50 Watts too.

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  4. BenNovember 17, 2011 at 6:19 PM

    Hello dispo and mio-mio!

    Will, thanks for the info. I was wondering who "roku" is. Those scans on your blog are amazing. Are they all from one book? You're totally welcome to repost.

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  5. - Jb.November 18, 2011 at 5:18 AM

    A beautiful song, Ben - just the kind of thing I wanted whilst finishing off my coffee this morning, thank you.

    Interesting though, isn't it - it's clearly Japanese, but the melody phrasing has a touch of the Eastern European about it; to my ears anyway.

    - Jb.

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  6. BenNovember 18, 2011 at 9:58 AM

    Yeah, it sounds a little like Malá Morská Víla. The kids chorus reminds me of this
    http://toysandtechniques.blogspot.com/2010/04/inferno-of-first-love.html

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  7. WillNovember 18, 2011 at 2:26 PM

    they mostly come from a nice collection of his work edited by Tadanori Yokoo - that's out of print but turns up occasionally - a few collections were published in Japan in the last couple years but they seem to go oop quickly - definitely worth looking for any or all

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  8. NickNovember 19, 2011 at 7:29 PM

    I have heard this melody somewhere before. It is the theme for the character Piston Honda in the video game Punch Out for the NES. http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Mike_Tyson%27s_Punch-Out!!_(NES) I agree with Jon, it does not sound authentically Asian, more like Asian flavor for westerners, sort of like "Oriental Riff" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_riff

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  9. BenNovember 19, 2011 at 7:43 PM

    Ha, that's awesome. It does seem like the same song!

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  10. øשlqædaNovember 20, 2011 at 9:19 PM

    this is so beautiful. domo arigato

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