Title: "Japanese Music" Can Be Popular

Submitted by: Hugh de Ferranti, University of Michigan, USA

Japanese music's historical and traditional nature have been of foremost interest for academic research. 'Non-traditional' popular music and music-making in Japan have been relatively little studied by scholars trained in musicology and ethnomusicology, yet Japanese modern popular music and traditional music are not intrinsically distinguishable as research spheres. Currently there are signs of a splintering of Japanese music research along lines of the traditionality or non-traditionality of its subject matter. The inappropriateness of such disciplinary demarcation can be argued in terms of methodology, the legitimacy now accorded research on modern popular cultural phenomena within much of Japanese academia, and the opportunity inherent in the subject of Japanese popular music for research that speaks strongly both to themes well-established in studies of the traditional music genres, and to issues in history, anthropology, literary and cultural studies which have been at most peripheral in research on Japanese music to date.

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Carol Burnett
Asialink
The University of Melbourne
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