Efforts to Promote Yamaha Synthesizers in Japan
Yamaha synthesizers are widely recognized and played by many for plenty of reasons, not only because they are such great products. Over the years, people have had many opportunities to play them and try them out before purchasing them, and of course advertising has also played a role. Let’s take a look back at the many events and activities that Yamaha has organized to promote its synthesizers in Japan.
Western rock and pop music first made its way to Japan in the late 1960s. At the time, Yamaha produced a lineup of combo keyboards—keyed instruments that functioned as a combination of a stage piano and an organ—and many bands used them along with guitars and drums.
We entered the guitar market in 1966 with the SG-5 and other solid-body guitars, bass guitars, and drum amplifiers. The following year, we made a foray into the drum market with the D-22/26. In 1969, we released the YC-10, the first combo organ in the YC Series. Finally, in 1974, we released the SY-1 synthesizer. It was also during this time that folks in the Japanese music industry coined the phrase “light music,” or “LM,” which is now a standard term in music stores and the rest of the music industry in Japan, even appearing in the names of stores, floors, and departments.
Held from 1969 to 1986, the Popular Song Contest sponsored by the Yamaha Music Foundation—also known as “Popcon”—was a competition for amateurs to showcase their original songs. While its purpose was to promote and educate the public about music, it became wildly popular among young people (in fact, yours truly was once a Popcon staff member). During that same period, Nippon Gakki (now Yamaha Corporation) launched band contests at Yamaha stores throughout Japan. These events were designed to encourage amateur bands to improve and advance their performing skills, while also promoting LM instruments.
One of them, the Yamaha Light Music Contest, was held in two stints: the first from 1967 to 1971, and the second from 1981 to 1986. The first phase—which, incidentally, predated Popcon by two years—saw the debuts of artists like Takuro Yoshida, Akai Tori, and Off Course. For the second installment, the name of the contest was changed to Light Music Contest (LMC). Local qualifiers were held with the aim of expanding the LM instrument business at Yamaha stores nationwide and ensuring that distinct amateur bands from each region would advance to the national finals. These memorable events, which included 8.8 Rock Day held by the Osaka store starting in 1973 and East West by the Tokyo store in 1976, introduced the public to Southern All Stars, Casiopea, and many other groups that would go on to become stellar professionals. Other local qualifiers were held by stores in as many as nine districts, including Nagoya (Mid Land), Hokkaido, Sendai, Hamamatsu, Hokuriku, Hiroshima, and Kyushu.
Record companies did not hold open auditions at the time, so the LMC was the gateway to going pro from 1981 to 1986, and legends like The Checkers and SHOW-YA took their turns in the competitions.
One purpose of these contests was to encourage amateur bands to improve their performance skills, and it was around this time that performers steadily moved away from solo folk singing with an acoustic guitar toward incorporating stage pianos, organs, and eventually synthesizers to create their bands’ signature sounds.
In the late 1970s, we began holding classes to promote sales and teach people how to create their own sound on CS Series analog synthesizers in addition to activities to promote and sell analog synthesizers at Yamaha stores and instrument dealers throughout Japan. Our import division also started importing Moog synthesizers.
The release of the CS01 in 1982 enabled keyboardists to lead combo bands, and our advertising showed the new synthesizers in use on stage at concerts and contests. We established a similar style for the KX Series of MIDI remote keyboards for controlling external tone generators.
With the May 1983 release of the DX7 fully digital synthesizer, our domestic branch offices began recruiting keyboardists and other veteran artists and training them to market and promote Yamaha synthesizers. At the peak in the 1990s, around 20 of these digital instructors worked at our domestic branch offices. Many digital instructors from that time are still top artists today, including Yasuhiko Fukuda and Katsunori Ujiie.
Playing off the success of the DX7, Yamaha planned X-Day digital fairs to give people opportunities to try the X Series for themselves. From 1984 to 1987, we held a total of six of these major events in Tokyo, Osaka, and other cities. The most popular digital fair, X-Day 4 in 1986 at Sunshine City in Ikebukuro (Tokyo), drew 35,000 visitors. Later, dealers throughout Japan also hosted events, and it was during this period that Yamaha staked out the leading position in the digital synthesizer market. We aired a TV commercial for X'ART 100, a digital musical instrument system centered on the X series, featuring singer Ken Kobayashi. In 1985, Pulse digital music centers opened in Yokohama, Hamamatsu, and Fukuoka. The stores featured LM and digital instruments and equipment on display, and their “Synth Play-In” interactive lesson system supported by Yamaha-certified digital instructors provided excellent venues to both share information with and learn from users.
We also established the DX Club for users—an unusual move at the time—and proved that providing support for users purchasing musical instruments was an important factor in the context of our marketing. This club is the cornerstone of the customer support system we employ today.
Artist relations—the act of coordinating the right instruments for musicians—also picked up during this time, and in 1985, we established R&D Tokyo in Shibuya, where we interacted with many musicians, devised product promotions, and designed and developed products. The center also had a recording studio where many classic songs were pre-produced and recorded, including “Get Wild” by TM Network.
The entire Yamaha Group got behind efforts to popularize and promote digital synthesizers, for example providing the DX7 to play the bass parts at Junior Original Concerts organized by the Yamaha Music Foundation and at the Electone Festival.
Although the late 1980s saw a shift to PCM-based tone generator systems for digital synthesizers, Yamaha continued using FM tone generators. Aiming to further expand the synthesizer user base, we released the Entertainment Operating System (EOS) Series of synthesizers that made music making and production easy for everyone, regardless of experience level.
Because the EOS Series was targeted at the Japanese market, we put together a promotion featuring famous artists to make a splash on the release. At the Tokyo and Osaka launches of the YS100/YS200 in July 1988, the main artist was Chisato Moritaka, supported by Daisuke Asakura. The main personality for promotion was Tetsuya Komuro of TM Network, who later participated in the design, development, and advertising of the EOS Series under the “TK Produce” banner. From then until the moment he passed the baton to Asakura upon the release of the EOS BX in 2001, there is no doubt that Komuro did more than anyone else to popularize synthesizers in the Japanese market.
Komuro promoted the hardware as well as taking part in many activities, from contests and events for discovering newcomers to after-sales support. Notably, Yasutaka Nakata and other artists got their start in EOS Sound Contests. The EOS Series also enjoyed great success in the content business, combining synthesizer voice programming, books, and other products. At their peak, EOS Day and EOS Circuit promotional events linked to Komuro’s music production were held more than 300 times each year throughout Japan, contributing significantly to sales growth.
Following the X-Day digital fairs starting in 1984, EOS Day events that began in 1988, and the subsequent EOS Circuit promotions, events based on new concepts emerged in 1994 and into the 2000s, including Yamaha Digital World and XG Sound World. The rise of workstation-type synthesizers, the establishment of GM, XG, and other standards for tone generators, and the popularization and increasing sophistication of computers expedited the formation of a market for music production in the late 1990s. To accommodate diversifying music genres and user needs during that time, Yamaha showcased an extensive lineup of synthesizers, computer music equipment, digital pianos, portable keyboards, digital drums, and digital mixers at Yamaha Digital World and XG Sound World events. They spared no expense on the performers, either, inviting preeminent artists such as Komuro, Isao Tomita, Hideki Matsutake, Minoru Mukaiya, and Akira Jimbo to show visitors what the instruments and equipment could do. This was no doubt the result of the artist relations work by R&D Tokyo mentioned previously.
In May 1997, we held a three-day Yamaha Digital World event at The Garden Hall, a dazzling, brand-new venue in the Ebisu district of Tokyo. The event included a presentation for the media and dealers and attracted 10,000 visitors.
One of the most memorable advertisements from this period featured top synthesizer artists Tomita, Komuro, and Ryuichi Sakamoto to promote the XG format. The full-page newspaper ad won the grand prize from the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association.
The Internet MIDI Live System, a collaboration with Sakamoto in 1997, was a simultaneous performance of MIDI player pianos at 30 locations throughout Japan, and marked the first attempt the world had ever seen to combine audio signals with guitar synthesizers, digital drums, and XG tone generator modules via a satellite system. This challenging experiment has been attempted many times since then under the moniker “MidLive Internet MIDI Live System.”
In the late 1990s, DJs started using synthesizers more often, and Yamaha leveraged its abilities for real-time sound control to gain entry to the club sound market. This push was intended to expand business by promoting artist collaborations based on the “sound edge” concept. The dramatic improvement of computer performance and other developments in the 2000s was when we began advocating “PC integration” using synthesizers as physical controllers.
Yamaha Digital World, XG Sound World, and other events we held from the mid-1990s to the 2000s provided great opportunities for us to introduce synthesizers for performers as well as products for people who make music on computers.
With the release of many piano-based products such as the P-250, S90, and CP300 in the mid-2000s, we hosted Yamaha Synthesizer & Stage Piano Special Day, or “YSS Day,” an event to which we invited many of the most popular keyboardists to amaze the crowds with their skills.
In 2009—our fourth year offering Steinberg brand products in Japan—we began holding events like the Yamaha & Steinberg Expo, or “YSE,” to demonstrate synthesizers in computer-based music production environments. YSE 2011 at Aoyama Spiral in Tokyo marked Komuro’s first public performance in over a decade. More than 400 people came to watch Komuro perform at the hall’s simple stage, along with 60,000-plus real-time viewers, setting a record at the dawn of live streaming.
Now let’s take a look into the circumstances surrounding synthesizer programmers. When synthesizers came onto the scene, synthesizer programmers were not recognized as artists because the music was played on a computer; thus, they were not paid royalties or otherwise compensated for the ongoing use of their music. The Japan Synthesizer Programmers Association (JSPA) was established in 1988 to improve the skills and status of musicians who work with electronic instruments. Thanks to the efforts of Tomita and Matsutake, JSPA gained membership in the Japan Council of Performers’ Rights and Performing Arts Organizations, allowing synthesizer programmers to have their personal rights as artists recognized, and, in 1994, JSPA acquired neighboring rights. The roles of synthesizer programmers grew in importance thereafter, and in 2016, the association adopted its current name, “Japan Synthesizer Professional Arts.”
Given that synthesizers and other digital instruments are relatively new and are associated with music, many other organizations have been established to advocate for artists and lead the industry, including the National Association of Electronic Musical Instruments (1976), the MIDI Standards Liaison Council (1983), and the Japan Electronic Music Software Association (1988). In 1996, these groups merged to form the Association of Musical Electronics Industry (AMEI), further strengthening the foundations of the industry.
Yamaha has supported JSPA from the beginning in terms of protecting programmers’ rights, and JSPA continues to cooperate with us in product design and development as well as promotions and advertising. Additionally, Yamaha was deeply involved in establishing organizations such as AMEI, and was instrumental in developing MIDI certification. We are also actively working to popularize MIDI 2.0, which was released this year, to contribute to advancing electronic music.
Amid the recent wave of emerging synthesizer manufacturers, Yamaha has teamed with the other two major brands, Roland and Korg, to host events to energize the industry and revitalize the market, including playing a leadership role in Synth Festa industry events. Now that users are combining digital instruments from a wide range of brands, manufacturers have entered a new phase in the business: satisfying that kind of demand.
After more than 50 years in existence, synthesizers now have firmly established markets for live performances and music production. It took many efforts to achieve this status for synthesizers, in manufacturing as well as memorable marketing and promotion activities through the years.
We cannot wait to see how the world of synthesizers will change and evolve in the future.
Takanori Kojima
