This article analyzes how early twentieth-century Japanese intellectuals, policymakers, and bureaucrats understood the nexus of sound, music, and labor in industrial management. Japanese authors considered how to contend with sō-on (noise) in factories, which, for managers, threatened productivity. We trace the development of kōjō ongaku (factory music) in response to sō-on in the context of Scientific Management and paternalism. Such management strategies are aesthetic, in contrast with anaesthetic ones like soundproofing. Through this an/aesthetic framework, we identify the paternalistic ideology behind kōjō ongaku’s practical implementation in industrial Japan and analyze the global historical dynamics of noise abatement, occupational health, and industrial music.
The Emergence of Sō-on: Factory Music, Noise, and An/aesthetic Strategies for Industrial Management
Keisuke Yamada received his PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020. His publications include “Mobilizing Citizens’ Ears: Aural Training as Civil Defense, 1941–1945,” Technology and Culture (2023), and Supercell Featuring Hatsune Miku (Bloomsbury, 2017). He is working on a book manuscript entitled “Ecologies of Sound.”
Andrew Niess received his PhD in music theory from the University of Pennsylvania in 2022. He is coauthor of “Composing with Infrastructures: Parapersonal Pedagogies for Environmental Humanities Classrooms,” in Bayer and Finley, ed., Ecopedagogies: Practical Approaches to Experiential Learning (Routledge, 2023), and author of “Troubling Vocality: The Human Microphone and Parahuman Attunement,” in Manabe and Drott, eds., Oxford Handbook of Protest Music (Oxford, forthcoming).
Keisuke Yamada, Andrew Niess; The Emergence of Sō-on: Factory Music, Noise, and An/aesthetic Strategies for Industrial Management. The Journal of Japanese Studies 1 June 2024; 50 (2): 287–321. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jjs.2024.50.2.287
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