Paper short abstract:

A drift away from music practices associated with industry affiliation and contracts in Japan mirrors broader changes in the work/life balance. Sustainable musicianship is instead achieved within collaborative relationships in neighbourhoods, and through the creative use of public spaces.

Paper long abstract:

The production of music in cities across Japan has increasingly become a labour of love, without profit or financial reward (Martin 2016). The "gap society" (kakusa shakai), separating secure from insecure, is replicated across a music industry where unestablished and lesser-known musicians are losing access to even basic support and limited contracts. How are musicians reacting to the limitations placed upon them by changes in society and the disappearance of music "professionalism" as performance for pay?

To address these issues I present fieldwork conducted with street-based amateur musicians in the Koenji neighbourhood of Tokyo. In particular, I focus on the use of urban and micro spaces in the neighbourhood as alternative sites of performance, sociality and belonging. As their hopes of a professional career faded after arriving in the metropolis, many were forced to rethink the process of creating and playing their music. Practical solutions emerged that rescaled their music to fit informal economies of sharing and exchange, with neighbourhood-based connections laying a foundation for longevity and pathways out of isolation.

The panel's concern with revealing the collaborative scaffolding behind the creative individual is particularly pertinent in the case of Koenji street musicians, who appear alone before the passing crowds of the train station they use as a temporary stage. Their negotiations of both people and place demonstrates the importance of not only new creative collaborations, but of new relationships with the urban environment within music practices in the city.