Iām hesitant to share this because Iāve been planning on sampling it for so long but now that youāve made the thread I guess the jig is upā¦ 
I mean, he didnāt sample this song, but jpegmafia did beat you to escaflowne
I adore Yoko Kanno and I adore Escaflowne. This thread rocks.
For lack of a better place to mention it, Iāve noticed a lot of what I believe to be chromatic modulation happening in anitunes and japanese popular music and Iām wondering if that can be attributed to the influence of eastern scales on what is basically western music?
Specifically what Iām talking about is if the main song progression is in F, it will change keys and suddenly modulate to F# transposing the same progression to the new key/scale. I hear it happening a lot, this specific chromatic modulation moving from a key to itās sharp. Anyone have an opinion or observation that might make sense of it or is it just a stylistic trend that is localized to Japan?
If Iām undersanding you right, youāre talking about Truck Driverās Gear Shift (warning: tvtropes), a trope that used to be common in western pop until about two decades ago.
I canāt find any data to suggest that semitone key changes (as opposed to whole tone or more) are more common in Japan than in western pop, but it shows up a lot, across genres.
Do You Know the Way to San Jose? by Dionne Warwick:
Surrender by Cheap Trick (technically two key changes, but only one that acts like anime OPs and japanese pop):
San Sebastian by Sonata Arctica
Thong Song by Sisqo (no, really)
This feels more like a Danny Brown thing
Yoko Kano was my gateway to Jazz with the Cowboy Bebop OST1. Amazing stuff and style. So grateful for this !!!
I think itās more Jazz influence, informed by western culture (I know jazz is western, but I feel that it transcends now as a universal concept.)
It wouldnāt surprise me, but I gave it to Peggy since he made the beats
Im still learning music, so my takes might be wrong, but I feel like Blues, Funk and Gospel all pool from the same technical prowess that is quantified and qualified by Jazz.
Oh yeahā¦ Danny gave the idea, JPeg RAN with it. Not that he isnt a culture head too, but anything esoteric or anime, or Sonichuā¦ Thats Danny to me. I can hear the laugh everytime I write his name!
I love that on a podcast, he criticized someones styleā¦ but had blond hair, painted fingernails, and a wrestling shirt or some shitā¦ I never know if he is being ironic or unself aware. But i love it!
ven his rap affect sounds like B Real to me sometimes!
ON topic though, I can accredit for Yoko Kanno for starting me on my musical journey.
I first bought an Upright Bass as my first instrument. I took lessons, and that started me learning theoryā¦ especially since I wanted to play melodic content on the Uprightā¦ Now you CANā¦ but thats not what its meant for and it doesnāt sound good in a mixā¦ I know so much from the context of trying and failing to really play the Bass rightā¦
I knew this when i tried to recreate the slap bass from Justice on itā¦ but the Bass line from the Cowboy Bebop was my gotoā¦
Then someone told me that the bass was probably a synthā¦ and well here we are.
Wanted to reply that Iām not ignoring you, but this might be above my skill level.
The Miku example is interesting in how itās kind of like a truck driver change, but only lasts half a chorus before returning to the original key. A truck driver change (usually?) stays in the same key. If thereās a specific name/cultural association with this, I donāt know it.
The closest non-Japanese example I can think of is āDo You Realize??ā by the Flaming Lips, where the refrain jumps up a minor third with no preparation before returning to the original key:
ā¦but given that it comes from an album called Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, itās not exactly a uninfluenced example
PS: Really like the turnaround from Em->E->A (and later B->Em) in sakamoto desu ga. That may be the jazz and classical influence BLKrbbt and you were talking about
Also to go back to the interview, I like the story about Akutagawa trying to convince young Kanno to quit the Yamaha school. It makes me think of Michael Lutzās post about five paragraph essays
having a student write a story that has a clearly delineated beginning, conflict, and resolution (or an intro, three points of evidence, and a conclusion) is much better for their confidence both as writers in the moment of the test environment, as well as in terms of evaluatorsā ability to recognize how they enact those specific ideas.
IN OTHER WORDS: three-act structure and the five graf essay are, in some sense, the training wheels of written discourse.
Sounds like Akutagawa thought she didnāt need the training wheels.
that was an interesting link. my take on five paragraph essays was always that it forces the author to define what they intend to talk about, make their points clearly within the allotted space, and then be forced to verify that they had done what they set out to do. Essentially challenging the writer to meet their own statements on both ends. I definitely see what heās saying as well now that Iāve seen it articulated.
The point youāre making about akutagawa is interesting also as itās sometimes others who are better able to objectively measure our progress than our own selves.
her stand alone complex soundtracks are god tier
Light in the Attic is putting out an 11-LP Cowboy Bebop vinyl issue just before Christmas this year
I canāt afford the door charge but for something limited edition like that, $28 per record is probably about average, so they arenāt really gouging. Would love to hear that on someoneās awesome hifi system though!