VOL.99 Player's rhapsody(Hitoshi Okamoto)

From music freak magazine Vol.99

Player's rhapsody: A Musician's Daydream

The Guitarist

GARNET CROW held their first tour last year, and footage from the shows will also be released as the DVD *GARNET CROW first live scope and document movie*. The “Player's rhapsody” feature, which focuses on the musicians' individual sides and has them talk about their personal commitments to their instruments, makes a long-awaited return! Usually laid-back and carefree, Jinshi Okamoto shows a surprisingly energetic expression onstage, captivating the audience. What particular thoughts does he have about recording and guitars? After talking with him, we found that although he has his own principles and preferences, his thinking is surprisingly flexible. That flexibility could also be called part of his charm. This time, we asked Okamoto to introduce the three guitars he currently enjoys playing.

Jinshi Okamoto / GARNET CROW

In junior high, I had a classmate who was very good at playing the piano and also wrote songs. I thought, “Instruments are really great; it would be nice to be able to play something,” and that was what got me started with the guitar. I felt that beginning piano in junior high was a little late, so I wondered if there might be another option. At first I wanted to play drums, but they require a lot of space, and I couldn't exactly play them that loudly at home, so I decided on guitar instead. It was also right around the time the band boom was being fueled by the TV program “イカ天” and street performances on “ホコ天,” so the atmosphere of the era made it easy to get swept up in it.

I started in the second year of junior high, and I no longer have the guitar I bought back then. It was a complete YAMAHA set with a guitar, amplifier, and so on, costing about 40,000 or 50,000 yen at the time. Bookstores had instructional books as well as band scores for popular songs, so I went through them one by one, learning things little by little as I played along.

Among guitarists, I'm a bit unusual in that I don't have a particular guitar hero. When I was starting out, I imitated lots of songs, but I never settled on any one person as my idol. In a sense, all the guitarists from the bands I imitated back then were my guitar heroes. A guitarist in a band can play furiously at the very front of the stage, or play calmly with their body turned to the side, and still look cool. I find that kind of presence very appealing.

When I was making my solo album, I was beginning to discover the fun of working with sound: processing tones with strange effects, recording them, putting them into a computer, and thinking about how to shape those sounds. So at that time, I spent far more time sitting at my desk tinkering with my recordings than actually playing.

These days, I often use the ES335 I'm introducing here, my Telecaster, and Furui's Telecaster when recording. Recently, I've also been borrowing other people's guitars onstage, so I'm not the kind of person who says, “If it's not this guitar, I won't play.” It looks cool to use only one fixed guitar, but I like to switch guitars flexibly according to how I feel at the time. It also gives me a change of mood, and the sound gets recorded and remains in the work. When I listen to it again later and think, “That was the guitar I borrowed that time,” it makes me happy. It feels a little luxurious.

1. ES335 (Gibson)

This is the red guitar I'm holding on the cover of my solo work. I bought it about two years ago. It was a reissue model that was on the market at the time. Generally, the better a guitar is, the more valuable it becomes with age, while a reissue uses current technology to reproduce the best qualities of an old guitar as closely as possible.

Before this, I mainly used a Telecaster, but this one has a much thicker, heavier sound, and I use fairly heavy .011-gauge strings. There is a difference in height between the bridge and the body, which made it feel a little difficult to play at first, but because of that I can feel the vibration very clearly. It's incredibly satisfying to feel it directly in my body and think, “Oh, the sound is coming alive.” This 335 also has sound holes in the body, which create resonance inside, so the instrument itself has a substantial volume.

The sound holes give it a classical, dignified character too. The body is large and bright red, and it looks good enough sitting there to pass for a piece of furniture. After all, appearance is important to a guitarist as well. I often play it when recording, but I'm not very tall, so the proportions look a little awkward with such a large guitar. That's why it hasn't appeared onstage yet (laughs).

Photo caption: Sound hole.

2. US FAT TELE (Fender TELECASTER)

I bought this four or five years ago. It's not an old Fender, but a model that was on the market at the time. It's quite heavy and makes my shoulders ache. A normal Telecaster has two single-coil pickups, the components that pick up the sound. This one originally came with one humbucker and one single-coil pickup. I replaced the bridge pickup with a humbucker in a single-coil-sized housing (photo 1, upper right). The neck-position humbucker can be switched between single-coil and humbucker modes (photo 2, upper right).

Normally, a humbucker is simply a humbucker, but this one also has a single-coil function and can be switched, which is very convenient. Using each on its own and combining them with each other gives five choices in total, or five pickup positions (photo below). It's useful when I want to vary the tone. I can get subtle differences in sound, so one guitar can handle all kinds of needs. It's very convenient.

As you can probably tell from the photo, the body has a brown sunburst finish. I didn't like the original pickguard's shell-like pattern, so I bought a plain black one, cut it to the right shape myself, and installed it. Its sound has a prominent high end, so this guitar handles most of the high-frequency parts in the songs. Nearly all the electric guitar on the solo album was played on this one.

Gibson bodies are heavier toward the tail, so they are difficult to keep stable when playing seated, but a Telecaster has excellent balance. The Telecaster is still the best fit for my body; it feels like it belongs there. This one uses .010-gauge strings.

Photo captions:

• Bridge position: single-coil-sized humbucker pickup.
• Neck position: single-coil and humbucker modes.
• Five-way pickup selector.

3. YD304 (S.Yairi)

This is a Japanese-made acoustic guitar, a vintage model from the latter half of the 1970s, so it's about the same age as I am. The Yairi brothers ran S.Yairi and K.Yairi respectively, each making guitars in their own distinctive style that earned praise around the world. S.Yairi stopped production for a period, and this guitar was made before that happened.

It was built in the style of old Martin guitars, which was also S.Yairi's philosophy at the time, and it uses Brazilian rosewood, making it a fairly valuable instrument. Imports and exports of Brazilian rosewood became subject to restrictions under the Washington Convention in the 1980s, so it is rare now. I happened to try it at a music shop and thought that, although it had a few dings, it sounded great, so I bought it. Its tone has a little character of its own.

Japanese-made guitars from the past often involved very careful study of Martin guitars before being built, so there are many finely crafted, excellent instruments. People often say that the tone of an old guitar “dries out” and becomes more settled. After years of use, moisture leaves the body and the resonance improves, so the older the guitar, the louder its sound becomes. In the past, even relatively inexpensive guitars were finished with thin, careful coats of lacquer, allowing moisture to escape more easily; over the years, their sound would become dry, seasoned, and full of character. In practice, though, when I record this guitar, its distinctive tonal qualities stand out so much that I don't use it very often.

As for a guitar story... I suppose it's that guitars are tougher than you'd expect. I have one that has retired and now rests at home. Once, I had it strapped to the front of my motorcycle, and when I went over a place with a very large drop, it flew up from beside my feet, arced through the air behind me, and smacked onto the ground. I thought, “This is bad!” But when I opened the guitar case, there wasn't a scratch on it. It had only been in a very thin soft case, yet the guitar was completely unharmed. I was genuinely amazed.

At home, I keep my guitars on stands in a room where there is sound. Whether it's music I normally listen to or any other sound, it's enough if it makes the body vibrate and helps the moisture escape. Of course, I also pick them up and touch them or play them from time to time. It must be common for guitarists to be told, “Are you playing guitar again?” For me, a guitar is probably like a “lover in the world of objects.” Some friends give their guitars names, but I haven't gone that far yet (laughs).

The solo album *a first fine day* (GZCA-5012) is now on sale!

GARNET CROW's first concert DVD, *GARNET CROW first live scope and document movie* (ONBD-7022), is confirmed for release! (P56)