![]() When paired with the story and art of the films for which these pieces are composed for, the mood is amplified.Īnother commonality between the music of Hisaishi and Debussy is a lack of resolution. This emphasis on emotion is part of what makes Ghibli music so remarkably poignant. Joe Hisaishi’s film scores certainly fit the bill to be considered impressionistic works, with their enveloping atmospheric sounds. Impressionism, which shares its name with the art movement of the same era in the 19th and 20th century, focused on conveying a mood or atmosphere through music. Pieces like Clair de Lune and Reverie are popular for their evocative impressionist threads. Even if you’re not a fancy music scholar, you’ve probably heard Debussy before. Rather than conforming his melodies to fit into a set form, Hisaishi favors wispy impressions of emotions-much like the impressionist composer Claude Debussy. “One Summer’s Day” has a simple, haunting melody which never seems to end, but is instead elaborated upon in grand orchestral variations. From the Kiki’s Delivery Service soundtrack, “A Town with an Ocean View” features swirling strings and blurred section endings-each section winding into and on top of each other as a perpetuation of themes. Joe Hisaishi’s career as a composer has clearly been long and prosperous, but what is it exactly that makes his music sound so good? To start, Hisaishi’s Ghibli scores typically exhibit a feeling of unfinished wandering. Besides his numerous accomplishments in film, Hisaishi also has several albums as a solo pianist. As of January 2021, it has over 7 million streams on Spotify. In 2001, he composed the music for the Ghibli film Spirited Away, with the opening theme “One Summer’s Day,” going on to become one of his most iconic and recognizable compositions. Later, in the 90s, his reputation as a top composer in the anime industry grew. This was two years after his first collaboration with Miyazaki for the film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which is considered to be a Ghibli film, though it was made before the studio was founded. In the 80s, he found overwhelming success composing film scores, with the 1986 film Laputa: Castle in the Sky as his first work under the Studio Ghibli name. ![]() Hisaishi’s early compositions in the 1970s were influenced by Japanese popular music, electronic music, and new-age music. ![]() He’s been called the John Williams of Japan-with Miyazaki as his Steven Spielberg. Hisaishi has composed the score for all of Miyazaki’s films except for one. With more than 100 film scores and solo albums, he is a well-known and prolific composer who has been associated with Studio Ghibli and animator Hayao Miyazaki since 1984. Starting at age four, Hisaishi began learning violin and watching 300 movies a year with his father his life seems to have been guided towards movies and music since the very beginning. (If one of my professors happens to read this essay, please consider it as proof that I did actually pay attention in class).īut before we get to the complicated theory and history behind the sweet melodies of Studio Ghibli, we should probably talk about the man who wrote them: Mamoru Fujisawa, better known by his professional name, Joe Hisaishi. After scraping by through several semesters of music theory and music history, I think I’m properly (read: barely) qualified to speak on this subject. ![]() I’m a music writer, and the topic of rambling you’re here to read about is music-specifically, the music of Studio Ghibli, and how it works so well. The world building, the storytelling, the art-that’s at least 20 pages of rambling right there. I could probably go on and on about Studio Ghibli movies and their unique and endearing nostalgia for eons. As a self-proclaimed Studio Ghibli superfan, I consider it my personal responsibility to convert as many people as I can to the Ghibli lifestyle. If you don’t know that yet, then I will find you, sit you down, and force you to watch Spirited Away while I explain to you with my expert commentary, precisely why it’s so amazing. Everyone knows that Studio Ghibli films are amazing.
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