The Film Music Of Toru Takemitsu

This study attempts to analyze film music of Toru Takemitsu,especially the Musique Concrète for the film Kwaidan,which is considered as an experimental work.Reviewing practices that Takemitsu had put into the decade from his first Musique Concrète composition Relief Static(1955)to Kwaidan(1965),and matching the film to analyze techniques that he had used to produce Musique Concrète are the most important parts of this study.On the other hand,nowadays we can easily materialize almost every single effect that were used in Musique Concrète through digital ways,and further more complicated electronic sound can also be produced easily.But several standard modulations which came from the “classical” Musique Concrète are still being used widely in current electronic music.It could not be ignored that electronic music still gets deep influences just from Musique Concrète,and we could find lots of similarities and connections between these two.Chapter 1 begins from the upbringing of Takemitsu,and examines rules and problems which composers encounter when producing film music or sound effects.In chapter 2,mainly the background of Musique Concrète will be discussed,including the definition and connections between Musique Concrète and sound design.Chapter 3 is the main part of this study,which analyzes the techniques which Takemitsu used,and the unique constitution which he created for the film Kwaidan by using a software called “Sonic Visualizer”.And in the last Chapter 4,some other academic music genres such as contemporary music and electronic music will be given as examples that due to explore the connections with Musique Concrète.Film music that produced only with Musique Concrète could not be found quite often,even through the whole film history.Hence we could find out the creativity and values in the composition by Takemitsu.Also,the results confirm that Musique Concrète had influenced other music genres,and composers nowadays will still get tips from the techniques which were used in Musique Concrète several decades ago.