Emotionally Connected

Fifth in a series

By Yas Mamemachi
Tokyo, Japan

Strange stage outfit? No problem. Most of the audience will forget it once the performance starts because it is too impressive. (Photo provided by Kotaro Saito)

hinjuku, the heart of downtown Tokyo. The luxury hotel where Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson stayed in the movie “Lost in Translation” is located at the edge of Shinjuku, which includes a large area called Kabuki-cho. The area includes a variety of restaurants and bars, and adult shops line the narrow streets, as if it were the central nervous system of the town. You can see the town in flash of a moment in the movie.

Many Japanese have heard the stories once or twice, about how there is a lawless area where the Japanese police hardly ever enter, and Yakuza, Japanese mobsters, and Asian gangs struggle for dominance, making the area very violent.

But you don’t have to worry about such things this evening. We are going to a club at the edge of Kabuki-cho to listen to a 30-minute show by the fifth wah-wah pedalist, Kotaro Saito, who is an electric cellist.

This electric cellist with a classical music background leads a rock fusion band, Uncle Boy, with a bassist and a drummer. The show will start at 18:30, meaning they are the first band for the night.

Once inside the thick doors of the club, you realize you are on the second floor deck. You can look down at the dance floor and the stage in front.

Behind the stage curtain three people, each of whom wears black and white checkered one-piece tights, are preparing for their show.

Soon you wonder what kind of performing art they will be doing with their musical instruments. Actually, I wondered, too. However, once the curtain goes up and they touch their instruments, you are instantly released from your stereotypes.

Their first song is a hard-core fusion instrumental. Throughout the tune Saito plays his electric cello using the wah-wah pedal in a breathless manner. To me, it would be like an abstract painter drawing lines on a large canvas created by the rhythm section he is playing with.

As soon as the first tune ended, a variety of tunes continued to be played, while their created rhythms and the tones changed from one song to another, as if professional drivers were changing the manual transmissions of their cars in a car race.

They included a hard beat marching tune, a techno pop beat, some fusion jazz, a cello solo, hard core fusion jazz, hard beat dance with programmed music machines, a 70’s progressive rock tune with a beautiful melody, a hard beat dancing, and another 70’s progressive rock tune with a beautiful melody, and winded up with an avant-garde rock tune.

Everything was packed into 30 minutes. There is no long or narcissistic ad lib and no dull talk during the show. They look so confident during such a limited time on stage. Maybe their technical skills and the brevity of their music made that possible.

Unfortunately, there are only around 10 people on the dance floor in front of the stage because the show started at 18:30, which means it may be too early for many businessmen in the big city to stop working and rush to a live house. Yet, what they witnessed is a band which that may be internationally recognized sooner.

Doing something with a cello

After the show the 35-year old cellist is still flushed, like an athlete who has just finished his training with satisfaction and relief.

Saito has a long career of practicing and playing cello after he happened to pick up the instrument at a very early age. His career includes four years of classical music training at a university of music.

He says, “I am a cellist, and I play only classical music with the instrument at home, such as Bach and Etudes,” while the “popular” music played by his band on stage is colorful and out of our imagination.

“I just play any kind of music I want to play,” the cellist explains. “That includes Frank Zappa, King Crimson, techno pop, hard and heavy metal rock, not to mention classical music.”

He adds that classical music should not be separated from so called “popular” music. According to him, popular music, such as jazz and rock, is a natural extension of classical music, such as Bach and Mozart.

“I think Beethoven would play some kind of rock music if he were alive, and I wonder if among Mozart’s pieces there should be eight to the bar,” the cellist continues. “Some giants of classical music, such as Bach and Beethoven, are extraordinary so I play their music every day to try and approach their creative mind.”

Saito started to play electric cello one year after graduating from university. He had been working for a company for one year after school because he thought he would not be able to make a living playing cello. But his passion in playing music with the cello was gradually resurrected during his nine-to-five days.

“Then, I thought, let’s do something bigger and unusual with the cello even if I could hardly make a living with it.”

That led to his performing with an electric cello, an idea he had never heard of and could not find any related footage on YouTube. However, it was not too strange for him to think about playing such an kind instrument because he had played electric guitar in a rock band for fun in high school.

Back then, electric cellos were already on sale with very expensive price tags at major music stores in Tokyo. So Saito rented one from a local music store first. Finally, he bought one at less than half price, which was still around US$5,000, at a clearance sale at a local store a couple years after he got the idea.

Soon thereafter he realized that he could not play the instrument standing up. For a musician who wondered if he could play electric cello while moving around the stage and using in a wah-wah pedal, it was a big problem.

Custom-built electric cellos

But actually, it was not too big a leap for an artist with a progressive mind. Instantly, he decided to make it a reality with a custom-build electric cello.

Saito called a small music factory that was well known for making high quality electric violins based on custom orders. He asked them to make his idea a reality. It took about one and a half hours to convince them to accept his request.

Saito plays a cello with five-strings and a shorter neck. A similar model might have been used in Bach’s era. (Photo provided by Kotaro Saito)

The factory made two electric cellos for Saito. For the first instrument, he requested a passive pickup, not to mention the means to play it while standing up.

In the case of electric music instruments with passive pickup, such as electric guitars, there is a single volume knob on the instrument. If you give the knob a turn to the right, the volume of the instrument increases, meaning the sound is close to what the instrument is designed to play. If you give it a turn to the left, the high range of the sound is gradually lost.

The active pickup is designed to control such changes in tone with one or two additional knobs and batteries installed in the instrument

The simple structure allows Saito to show off his skills and emotion with the sound of electric cello through delicate work with a bow and four strings.

For the second cello, he further requested them to make it with five strings. He needed one more string so that he could play a higher range. It might not sound difficult to make that happen, but it was not easy.

One additional string equipped with a standard-size cello means higher tension on the neck of the instrument. He had no choice but to accept a shorter-necked cello.

The shorter neck caused another problem. The place where the strings on the neck of the instrument are held to create tones was meaningless, since the neck was shorter. Saito had to rearrange the tuning of his instrument and get used to playing it with newly creative tuning.

“The most difficult task was to get used to playing five strings,” Saito says. “I read some articles that a cello with a shorter neck and five strings was used in Bach’s era. So, this is not exactly a new idea but rather an adaptation of old knowledge.”

Ibaniz wah-wah pedal

He needs to play the cello standing up, since he has fallen under the spell of the wah-wah sound and the pedals since high school. You may well wonder if he has many “classic” wah-wah pedals, such as the VOX and the Cry Baby, and used them all on stage.

“Well, I usually use a single wah-wah pedal on stage, which is the Ibaniz brand made by a Japanese company, Hoshino Gakki Group. It is the one that the guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the world famous rock group, uses,” says Saito with a smile.

For Saito, the wah-wah pedal means the Ibaniz model. (Photo provided by Kotaro Saito)

In fact, he has a long story about an Ibaniz wah-wah pedal. He remembers, “I think I was 17 or 18 when I bought the Ibaniz wah-wah pedal for the first time at a second hand store. It probably cost me 3,000 yen or about US$40.”

He says he never even thought about touching the world famous brands, VOX and Cry Baby, at local music stores simply because they were too expensive for high school boys.

After turning pro, Saito used some international brands of pedals, like his fellow musicians. In 2010, the remodeled edition of the Ibaniz, “the wah-wah pedal of his first love,” went on sale. He had no hesitation to purchas it. It has been ten years since he bought the same model for the first time.

“Once I used the pedal, I could feel it instantly, as if my emotion and foot work reacted to the Ibaniz without thinking. I thought this is it,” says Saito. “Then, I used the pedal during my evening show on the day I bought it, and realized that the Ibaniz is a perfect fit for me. Since then, I only use the Ibaniz with Uncle Boy on stage.”

Saito says that the wah-wah pedal is a mirror of his emotion on stage. “I won’t be able to use the wah-wah pedal unless I feel emotionally overwrought. In other words, I feel connected to the wah-wah pedal.”

He also says that he can’t resist using the wah-wah pedal, when considering how freely the sound of cello can be sustained, just like the human voice.

“When you use the wah-wah pedal, though you get a vibrato on the cello, the single tone can be sustained longer; that’s the most exciting moment. My mouse would move to “wah-wah,” harmonizing the sustained tone and/or melody line I play with the wah-wah pedal.”

Five other electric cellists in the world

Now Saito is trying to make his dream a reality, which is to play with international electric cellists overseas.

“When I used MySpace a couple of years ago I realized how few international musicians we used to know or listen to in Japan. They were really the tip of the iceberg. When I had opportunities to listen to the Indie levels of many other countries, I really got a catch in the throat. Then, I thought, ‘I am not alone.’”

Saito plays various kinds of music avariciously, such that designed for acoustic ensembles and rather experimental recordings in the studio as well as solo improvisation, in order to express himself. As for wah-wah pedals, he uses other models in his non-Uncle Boy performances. (Photo by Yas Mamemachi)

He carried out research to find out at least five electric cellists in the world, other than himself. Two are in the United States, and each of the remaining three in Switzerland, Sweden, and Germany.

“They are ‘comrades.’ I would like to tell them, ‘there’s another one in Japan,’ and chat with them, not to mention play with them on stage,” he adds.

This year, Saito is planning to visit California to see one of the American cellists who live in San Francisco.

“One of my friends lives in LA. He now works with a keyboard player/engineer who worked for Frank Zappa’s band. He is asking me to visit him this year, so I am going to LA and use the opportunity to try and meet the electric cellist. Opportunity only knocks once, you know.”

After the interview, I can hear Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child,” one of the most famous rock tunes that uses a wah-wah pedal. It is being played somewhere in Kabuki-cho while I am walking back to the nearest train station.

It is as if Hendrix were saying something positive for Saito’s other challenge.

The story of the wah-wah pedal continues.

*LINK: Kotaro Saito/Uncle Boy