Sunday, 3 November 2019

Inspiration


Tomita influenced a lot of artists with his classical emulations, including Sakamoto and even Michael Jackson, who with Tomita experimented with synthesizers, Jackson even considered working with Tomita on an album that never materialised. It can be said that Tomita turned a lot of people onto classical music and maybe classical lovers onto electronic music.

The second wave of influence was on a vast array of U.S. musicians, ranging from funk and soul artists like Stevie Wonder, who credited Tomita for turning him on to several classical composers, to hip hop producers like J Dilla, Black Milk and Flying Lotus who discovered Tomita’s music through exhaustively “digging “. They all utilised Tomita’s music in their productions, recognising a compatibility between their progressive beats and Tomita’s melodic works. As a result, Tomita can be heard behind rappers as diverse Slum Village, Guilty Simpson, Busta Rhymes and Earl Sweatshirt.”[1]

"But the final, and perhaps most pure of Tomita’s influences is on the individuals of the self-contained noise scene in Tampa, Florida.[….], tells the tale of how a group of school kids discovered Tomita’s music on a unmarked tape they found discarded near their school yard, and how they spent years attempting to emulate the music and identify its creator. It’s interesting to see how they interpreted Tomita’s music, knowing nothing of its origins and having no way to contextualise it, as well as how it led to them to creating a music which is brazen and esoteric, rather than melodic and accessible. This is a true indication of how widespread Tomita’s influence really is, and how significant his music has been on music that has followed."[2]



[1] 2016, The Immeasurable Influence of Isao Tomita/Band on the Wall.org,
[2] 2016, The Immeasurable Influence of Isao Tomita/Band on the Wall.org, accessed on 25/10/2019

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Introduction

Isao Tomita (with his Moog), in his studio, Tokyo 1976. (Associated Press). Introduction Here we will look...