Tokyo Listening an interview with author Lorraine Plourde

Tokyo is a sound-saturated city: bustling traffic, train station announcements, people everywhere, the barrage of loud adverts, drunk salarymen singing in the Ginza streets at night, and even the loud caws of the Tokyos infamous large crows. Then theres the seemingly ubiquitous background music in shopping centers, department stores, offices, and super markets.

Tokyo Listening Sound and Sense in a Contemporary City, by anthropologist and ethnomusicologist Lorraine Plourde is a compelling examination of listening cultures via four main ethnographic sites in Tokyo which includes an experimental music venue, classical music cafes, office workspaces, and department stores. The book provides fascinating insights on two different types of sonic spaces: places where people go specifically for the music (experimental music venue, classical music caf), places where the music comes to them (offices, department stores).

Tokyo Listening looks at how sound and music impacts life, leisure, work and productivity in modern day Tokyo. Plourdes analysis is academic but her prose, narratives, and supporting historical background explanations are fascinating, clear and accessible for non-academics like myself. There is a precision and clarity in the descriptions of listening spaces whether in a classical music listening caf or sterile modern office often written as a first-person account that places the reader into the setting. Overall, its this attention to detail combined with Plourdes ground-breaking field research and respect for the subject that makes Tokyo Listening an illuminating work.

I caught up with Plourde to get more insights on her research and field work presented in Tokyo Listening. Read the rest