BEGINNING

Studio recording had started on August 28, 1999.
"Horizon", "Konjaku-Monogatari", and one another were the songs to be recorded.

Not all songs were composed at this point.
On 28th and 29th of August,
I fed data, which I input at home,　into 3348

Click and piano guiding are certainly necessary in order to get chorus part out.
Along with that, back orchestra will be input by using synthesizer.

After all the work is done, then chorus part will be recorded.

CONCEPT

The concept was, of course, "Asian healing".

However, there was a big point on producing this album.

That was "It will be sold in Japan and all over the world".

Opportunity to make "Mai" came around after I joined to produce "Takeda no Komori-Uta" and "Song of Birth" in "Tsuki - various artist 3" album. It was very well received in both Japan and USA, and that gave me the opportunity to make a solo album.

According to questionnaire survey, "Takeda no Komori-Uta" was more popular overseas, where as "Song of Birth" was popular in Japan.

There was a clear difference in opinion between inside and outside of Japan.

I had been feeling that difference myself from before.

A while back, when I went to Nashville, Tennessee, USA, for recording, American musicians showed great positive response to traditional Japanese songs, however, they didn't show any interest to rock.

On the other hand, Japanese shows no interest to traditional Japanese music because they have been listening to it since their childhood.

It is OK to sing in Japanese. That was my decision.

Yet, ethnic music has been very popular in Japan, and, so, "Song of Birth" was receiving pretty well attention in Japan.

So, what came to my mind is to produce "Mai" by putting a taste of Japan along with whole Asia...
When Japan is expressed in foreign movie, for some reason, there is a traditional Japanese living room lighted up by a Chinese lamp stand.

And, of course, Geisha and Karate.

Image of Japan in overseas includes Chinese continent.

I decided to draw an image of Mai like the image of Japan Hollywood draws.

I wrote and composed "Konjaku-Monogatari" because I hoped for Japanese people not to forget the good part of Japan.

I have composed songs which vast continent of Asia can be felt.

A few songs are expressed by using coined words.
Words that sound to the melody the most...

I would be pleased if it sounds to your heart too.

I will never forget the impression that I got when I heard the sound of Asian instruments over my singing voice.

Multiplex chorus

Solo album artists would record in an intensive period of time, however, studio musicians like myself cannot do that, schedule wise.

I reserved studio for recording of Mai on all Saturdays and Sundays, days that I usually don’t have work scheduled.

But, things don't go quite it was planned. I simply extended days as I receive other studio work.

It was already November when I finished the very last song.

There is a lot of ways in one-man multiplex chorus.
☆One way is to sing first part, and then sing perfectly along to the first sing by listening to it.
☆Sing same thing without listening to the first sing. This is another way.

Usually, when you record a back chorus of an artist, you sing same part twice, called "double".

For "Mai" and "Air", it was not double, mostly I sang the same part three to four times. ("First love" was absolute single solo)

This work of putting one over another.
Although, I was used to it, most of the songs were just chorus, and that meant each song had a lot of parts in it.
It was enormous work just to write a score.

Usually, score for chorus is a line long, two at the most.

For "Mai", there was a song with 4 parts with 3 vocal lines in each.

It is massive amount of chorus.

If you calculate a five minutes long song, three voices times four parts times recording the same thing four times...that comes out to be 48 voices times five minutes = 240 minutes.

It would simply take four hours if I continuingly sing without stopping.
Of course, you have to do playback, so it would take more time.

Nevertheless, songs that I made like weaving silk are very pleasant.