I’m so happy to be announcing the publication of this eBook! While I have made a few other ebooks and journals for guitarists and Japanese, this is the one I’m most passionate about and have spent years digging into.
If you’re interested in the eBook, you can purchase it here. But if this is your first time coming across my site, feel free to read on and learn more about my background and how it led me to creating this book 🙂
And if you’d like to learn more about Japanese music with monthly breakdowns of songs, consider subscribing to my J-Music Progression Membership club!
My J-Music Background
I have been a student of music since childhood. Band was my favourite class and I chose to take music every year. I have experience playing keyboard, clarinet, viola, and bass drum in my school’s drum line. While we did learn theory, it was focused on reading sheet music, as opposed to understanding scales or creating songs.
I’ve also been a fan of anime forever, but I was unaware of it as I watched Pokemon, Sailormoon, Beyblade and other shows dubbed on TV. In middle school, around 2005/6, I gave Digimon a second chance on Youtube. I fell in love with the series! And through that, I discovered the Japanese openings, and that’s how I found out all my favourite shows were animes.
Since then, I fell more and more in love with Japanese music. I covered songs on various instruments, often learning by ear as sheets weren’t always available. I would learn Japanese dances and play DDR whenever I had the chance. I just really loved Japanese music.
Below is a compilation of some clips over the years. More details are on my Blogger Intro page.
Picking Up Guitar
When I gradated from high school, I didn’t think I had a career in music. Sure, I could play some songs and get good grades, but I wasn’t nearly as talented as the students who could play complex pieces or improvise….but I did have a band dream. And after playing Guitar Hero for a while, I felt inspired to try guitar in 2017.
It’s been quite an eye opening journey. I didn’t have internet at home at the time, so I all I could do was print a few pictures, and learn on my own. Thanks to the guitar’s layout, it was so easy to see patterns and make sense of scales and chords. I was able to improvise within a couple months of picking it up. I was focused on lead initially, but I felt stumped.
I did dive into the blues for improvising, along with other genres like neo soul and bossa nova, but I preferred rock. And while there were a lot of rock resources, they didn’t sound like the Japanese rock music I’ve been listening to a decade. They were simple, old fashioned, and didn’t leave much space for creativity outside of the minor pentatonic scale.
I did spend a lot of time trying to figure out what Japanese artists and songs were doing, but it was near impossible. I wasn’t as motivated to play if I couldn’t play what I wanted. I would get caught up doing research hoping to find answers, but there really wasn’t much bout there…
Attempting An Anime Cover Band (Again)
Chromatic Dreamers, this website, is actually my third attempt at making a cover band. The first time, shown in the video about my history above, I played keyboard and we only had one rehearsal. The second, I managed to gather people, but we never got to discuss songs or meet up.
Unlike my other goals and dreams, this required other people, and it can be hard finding dedicated musicians who like the same music and won’t cause any drama. However, as much as I tried to just let go of the dream, I couldn’t.
In 2019, I had the opportunity to perform with the Toronto Harajuku Style dance team. The rush of practicing and performing on stage was still something I wanted to do with a band.
A few days after that, I also got to see my all-time favourite band, ONE OK ROCK live. It was my first concert ever, but it really awoke that drive in me. I started listening to more Japanese music, and I just knew that I had to make the dream happen.
Having connections like Yumiko Kurosawa (who was in my first band) and Dolly Momoiro (creator of THS) who both created something Japanese and was able to perform multiple times made me realize that…the dream is possible. I can achieve it, it just may take some time.
Thus, as my 2020 resolution, I picked up guitar again. I knew I had some holes in my playing foundation, and Youtube just led me so many different directions, so I tried out Guitar Tricks. You can check out my experience with that here.
Through it, I realized, rhythm can actually be quite fun! It wasn’t as boring or repetitive as I thought. I also loved how full it sounded and that my hands didn’t get as clammy due to precision. Not to mention, it’s the progressions in Japanese music that makes me feel the way I do, nostalgic, melancholic, energized…I wanted to learn more about chords and how to make a beautiful song.
After that, I started putting a band together again. I had two friends who agreed to join me. It took a while to find the others due to the pandemic, but I was successful.
Diving Into Chord Progressions
I started to dig more into progressions, but when I would try using western theory, it never sounded right. Just starting on I and moving to IV or V already sounded off. It was also hard finding more than say, 8 common western progressions. There’s so much information for lead and soloing in comparison.
I would look through lots of Reddit threads of people asking the same question, but there was very little help. Most I found was the anime progression (IV-V-iii-vi), and a varient or two.
I did reach out to more advanced guitarists on Instagram but I got one of 3 responses: 1) they didn’t know theory at all, 2) they thought all music was the same and that I was biased when I thought J-music was different or 3) they’d tell me to just play around and have fun. Playing around isn’t easy when you’re a beginner and logical learner.
Thankfully, I stumbled across one of Gavin Leeper’s videos, which proved to me that the ‘I’ doesn’t always have to be present, along with the concept of borrowed chords and diminished/half diminished chords.
These were all new concepts that took some time to wrap my head around, but it helped me to see that there’s a lot more possibilities than the 7 (more like 6 in the west) diatonic chords available in a key.
I did study Japanese 3 years seriously between high school and university, so while I was rusty, it was enough for me to start digging through the Japanese side of the internet, and only then were my eyes truly opened.
Creating This eBook
While I could have kept all the secrets to myself, I know how much I would have appreciated having access to something like this 2 years ago. I know there are people digging and searching but coming up empty handed, thus I have put all my research into this one book.
This book not only contains 10 common progressions with multiple examples from real popular Japanese songs, but I also go into depth about harmonic functions and various tricks you could use to give your music that Japanese flare.
If this is your first time on my blog, you’re going to love it! Definitely check out some tips on my earlier article “Why Does Japanese Music Sound So Different?” You can also check out all my other Japanese music articles on my J-Music Learning Resources page. And please join my Facebook group “Let’s Study Japanese Music!” if this is something you’re really interested in.
But if you’re a songwriter or producer who wants to dive right in and understand the how and why of Japanese progressions, you can purchase my Japanese Music Progressions ebook on my Ko-Fi page!
(Don’t worry, it’s only $15, which I personally think is a steal :P)
Thanks for your support <3
Sincerely,
Nostalgia~