[2002 article] About Ayu's Singing Style

[tehxiinae]

I was doing some research in a scholarly journal and found an article about Japanese music. Technically it's not a new article (it was published in 2002 by Cambridge University Press), but I don't think anyone has seen it before so I thought I would post its brief part about Ayu here.

"One of the most persistent qualities of singing in both traditional and popular music since the time of the first recordings of Japanese performances is that of a thin, somewhat rasping yet strong tone produced by forcing a narrow, dense air stream through constricted vocal cords. This effect, and the techinque of producing it, is described in general musical discourse as jigoe (literally, 'ground' or 'basic voice'). It is particularly clear in high-pitched passages, where there is often a conspicuous avoidance of uragoe, a kind of falsetto - in effect a weaker, purer sound produced with loosened vocal cords. Jigoe technique is evident, for example, in the Edo period shamisen song genre of kouta, as well as some styles of minyou singing.
...
More recently, the extremely popular singer-composer of dance-style pop, Hamasaki Ayumi, almost invariably sings in jigoe when she moves into higher registers, as can be clearly heard in the choruses of 'Monochrome', the opening song of her 1999 album, A.* The distinctiveness of this vocal tone-quality in the contemporary musical context can be appreciated by comparing Hamasaki's style to that of Utada Hikaru, whose vocal technique in representative songs since her 1999 debut is devoid of jigoe, and is distinguished by skilful use of falsetto in much the same manner as American R&B singers whom she cites as influences."

by Hugh de Ferranti

*A technically wasn't an album, but was a single with 13 tracks, very much like an album. It was her first quadruple a-side.