re: #156 wheat-dogghazi-mailgate

Words in Japanese, but it sounds like a Russian tune.

A great number of popular orchestrations are retreading the grounds of the post-Tchiakovsky Russian composers.

Put simply, the sound we expect from television and movie music have their roots in the post-Romantic orchestras, and maybe Italian opera.

Japanese music post WWII, but even before WWII, embraced western serious music quite a bit. Even when I was in Japan, walking the streets of my neighborhoods, I’d hear children here and there practicing piano. Before the Meiji period, western music would have been very rarely heard in Japan, so when it finally came in it went over really big, and never really lost it’s luster.

The only time I ever heard traditional Japanese music was during the festival days, when the local shrine would have traditional dancers or some such throwback to the past.