Hello, I’m Taro Ishida, a composer based in Japan.
In this blog, I’d like to share something unique about Gagaku — the ancient court music of Japan — and how it expresses the flow of time in a very different way from most Western music.
What Makes Gagaku Unique?
In many Gagaku pieces, the tempo gradually increases as the performance goes on.
A piece might begin very slowly, with a meditative pace, but then accelerate — subtly and gracefully — until the end.
This kind of built-in tempo acceleration is quite rare on a global scale. In most musical traditions, the tempo is either fixed or changes in clearly structured sections. But in Gagaku, the feeling of time itself seems to flow and change naturally.
I’m 45 years old now, and I’ve noticed something about how I experience time.
When I was a child, one year felt incredibly long. These days, a whole year passes in the blink of an eye.
The same thing happens with shorter spans of time — one hour of fun feels so short, while one hour of boredom feels eternal. This shows that our experience of time is subjective.
To me, Gagaku is music that beautifully embodies this subjective flow of time.
It doesn’t treat time as a fixed measurement, but as something that shifts and transforms — just like our personal experiences do.
The gradual speeding up in Gagaku isn’t just a musical trick. It’s a philosophical expression of how time feels to us humans.
In Japanese culture, there’s a famous phrase from The Tale of the Heike:
"The sound of the Gion Shōja bells echoes the impermanence of all things."
This idea — known as "mujō" (impermanence) — is central to Japanese aesthetics.
It suggests that everything is always changing, and nothing lasts forever — not even mountains or stones.
In that light, the accelerating structure of Gagaku reflects a kind of beauty that’s found not in permanence, but in the graceful approach toward an ending.
I see Gagaku as a musical form that integrates philosophy directly into its structure.
It teaches us that time is not a constant, and that beauty often lies in transition — in movement, in change, in ending.
For me as a composer, this is not just an interesting fact. It’s something deeply inspiring that shapes how I think about creating music.
Thank you for reading.
Through this blog and my radio, I hope to continue sharing insights into Japanese music, philosophy, and the art of listening.
See you next time.
Taro Ishida
