Listening to the Sound: My Father and Me

My father operating audio equipment in a room with shelves of CDs and large speakers. This is his listening room in his later years; the room and equipment differ from those recalled in my childhood memories in this article.

I remember my father building something as large as a wardrobe when I was around kindergarten age. I think it was a cabinet for a homemade speaker.

I vaguely understood that he was making a speaker, but I couldn’t imagine what it would become. I don’t remember how it sounded once it was finished, either. What has stayed with me is that large, unfinished box.

When I was in elementary school, my father would listen to music for about half an hour before leaving for his work as a physical therapist. After coming home, he would make himself coffee and apparently enjoy listening again. He also did DIY projects on his days off, but I think he always made time for music.

His listening room was upstairs in our wooden house. He played music loudly enough that I could hear what he was listening to without being in the room with him. My impression is that mornings were mostly for classical music, while evenings and days off were more often for jazz.

Apparently, when I was even younger, I repeatedly asked him to play “Koibito mo Inai no ni” by Simons. I don’t remember this myself; it is something my parents told me later.

Around the time I began listening to music more attentively myself, “Take Five” by the Dave Brubeck Quartet caught my attention in a TV commercial. I remember being moved by the overwhelming sound of the drums and saxophone when I heard it through my father’s JBL 4345 speakers.

When I said how powerful it sounded, he told me, “It’s the way these cymbals sound that’s good.”

At the time, I didn’t really understand what he appreciated about them. I don’t remember much of the sound of those 4345s now, either. But these days, my ears are drawn to the resonance of cymbals and higher frequencies.

I tend to notice how sounds ring out and how they reach my ears more than the lyrics or melody. That is one way I feel I might be like my father.

When I was in junior high school, he increased the number of speakers from two to four. Alongside the JBL 4345s, he added a pair of TANNOY Westminsters. He seemed to use the JBLs for jazz and the Tannoys for classical music. To a child, those enormous speakers standing on opposite sides of a twelve-tatami listening room were quite a sight.

My sister is four years older than me. Apparently, I asked my father so often to play my seven-inch singles of superhero songs and Japanese pop music that he decided to get an audio system for the two of us.

The first record I bought myself, while I was in elementary school, was a ten-inch album of Kamen Rider songs. It included songs from the successive Riders up through Stronger, and I remember having several favorites. I also bought a seven-inch single featuring the sounds of a Lamborghini Countach. I loved the driving and engine sounds and listened to them over and over.

When I was in junior high school, my sister was given a radio-cassette player, and I began using our shared system on my own. Songs she recommended led me to search for other records at record shops and exchange information with friends. My listening widened. I think I also often bought records of songs I had heard in commercials.

My father and I both owned Herbie Hancock’s album Future Shock, which includes “Rockit.” Finding out that we had the same record gave us something to get excited about: “I’ve got that one too.”

What especially caught my attention was the scratching. Living in rural Niigata at the time, I couldn’t imagine how anyone performed it. “How do they make that sound?” It was only after I entered high school and began listening to hip-hop that I started to understand.

As a teenager, I didn’t talk much with my father about individual songs. Still, when he was away, I would slip into his listening room and quietly check whether any new equipment had appeared. I also enjoyed playing my own records there without him around.

At first, I didn’t know the order in which to switch on the amplifiers. Once, a loud crack came through the speakers and really scared me. When I asked my father to play a song for me, I watched what he did and learned the steps.

I now live in an apartment in Tokyo, so I can’t play music very loudly. Even so, this year I built my own speakers and experienced a different way of listening to music.

Until then, making speakers myself had never occurred to me. The idea came from YouTube. Someone building back-loaded horn speakers looked as though they were having so much fun. As I looked into the structure, I found it fascinating.

While building them, I remembered that large, unfinished box I had seen as a child. I thought, “I suppose I take after my father after all.”

My father sometimes kept bringing home more equipment for that childhood system, even though I hadn’t asked for any. Looking back, I feel as though I was receiving an early education in audio without realizing it.

Listening to music as part of everyday life. Listening closely to the way sounds ring out. I feel my father may have influenced those listening habits.