The Current State of Digital Musical Materials in Japan

Abstract

In Japan, there is an abundance of materials related to the various genres of traditional music that were established in each of the historical periods, from ancient times to the present day, that have been handed down and preserved. After the Meiji Period (1868–1912), in which Western musical practice took root within Japan, materials related to Western music began to accumulate concurrently with those related to traditional music. The fact that up until the present day, both of these types of materials have been preserved and passed down together, is a significant and unique feature of Japan’s musical materials heritage. In this way, on account of their precious value alone, the emphasis on the preservation of these musical materials rather than their exhibition or utilization, has been strong. As a result, the complexities of the procedures for perusing and duplicating library materials up until the twentieth century have at times been a barrier to research. This situation changed dramatically at the beginning of the twenty-first century, as the National Diet Library embarked upon an ambitious programme of digitalization of and granting of access to materials in its possession. In this essay, I consider the digital materials related to the research of nineteenth century music found in the National Diet Library Digital Collections and other libraries and archives. The materials fall into four categories: (A) books (including printed scores), (B) audio materials (among which digitized 78rpm records are prevalent), (C) searchable databases and (D) other materials. I hope that the exhaustive use of these digital materials will open up new fields of research into Japanese music.