Kawaii aesthetics and the exchange between anime and music

Paul Smith

Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapter

Abstract

While many composers find inspiration in the musical works of others, a recent perio of my compositional work has been interested not in the musical but in rendering the visual as musical. Going against the dominant musical pedagogy of studying composers and musical techniques, I have looked to Japanese anime, animated cartoons, as my source of artistic influence and found in the shapes, colours, tones and contours of animation everything I need to compose music. Ad added benefit of this is that it forces a correlation and consideration between the boundaries of artistic languages and sensory media. For a period in 2010 I was specifically interested in the way anime portrayed the Japanese aesthetic known as kawaii, which translates approximately as cuteness or cute.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMusic's Immanent Future : the Deleuzian Turn in Music Studies
EditorsSally Macarthur, Judy Lochhead, Jennifer Shaw
Place of PublicationU.K.
PublisherRoutledge
Pages139-148
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9781315597027
ISBN (Print)9781472460219
Publication statusPublished - 2016

Keywords

  • aesthetics
  • anime
  • composition (music)

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