INDEX
The Pursuit of Sound and Responsibility as Soloists
Even though your instruments are different — guitar and piano — it seems like you both share a strong commitment to being “soloists.”
Ichika: There’s a part of me that can only really feel satisfaction from music where I take full responsibility for everything from start to finish. Of course, there’s joy in playing in a band or creating something with other people, too, but that kind of beauty often comes from chance. What I’m talking about is different — writing the blueprint myself, building it piece by piece, and achieving the result I envisioned. If that’s the goal, then expressing music alone is the best way to do it.
Sumino: I think there are many different types of musicians. Some shine within an orchestra, some shine as part of a band, and some shine by standing at the center.
In my case, being a soloist just happens to suit me. To be honest, walking onto a stage with nothing but a single piano in a 2,000-seat concert hall is incredibly nerve-wracking. But at the same time, I feel that’s where I can truly shine. It’s not so much about wanting to carry all the responsibility myself — it’s more that I enjoy being completely free. Of course there’s responsibility, but within that responsibility, I can do anything I want. That freedom is probably the biggest thing.
Performing a concert alone must come with an immense amount of tension and pressure, but the sense of fulfillment when you pull it off by yourself must be even greater.
Sumino: Exactly. It’s a cycle. After a concert ends and you see the audience smiling and enjoying it, you feel that sense of being alive. But then, right before the next concert… you’re like, “Ah…” [laughs].
For soloists performing alone, attention to sound itself must be incredibly important. How did each of you go about finding “your own sound”?
Ichika: I’m very particular about tone. With a typical clean electric guitar sound, once it goes through an amp, the low frequencies tend to get boosted and the highs get compressed, which makes them harder to hear. To me, that makes chords sound less beautiful. I figured the cabinet might be part of the problem, so I tried bypassing it altogether.
When I did that, the opposite happened — the highs became too strong. But that actually felt closer to the sound I had in mind, so I decided to build my tone without using a cabinet at all.
Then I use EQ to cut out any unnecessary high frequencies. That way, all six strings come through with roughly the same sense of volume, and each note remains clearly separated, creating a neutral clean tone. Starting from that foundation, I then think about how to shape it for each piece — what kind of “seasoning” to add in order to express the emotions I want the music to convey. That’s basically how I approach it.
Sumino: The tone of the piano is kind of mysterious. In the end, all that’s happening is a hammer striking a string, yet the sound can change so dramatically. It really comes down to how the motion accelerates and how the hammer meets the string — those subtle physical differences are created by the speed curve of the touch.
I think my sound has a very fast attack. Especially in the higher register, it tends to have a strong, focused attack. Playing that kind of sound with shorter note values is probably one of my defining characteristics.
Another difference between piano and guitar is that on the piano you can press up to ten keys at once, so there’s a huge amount of harmonic information in the chords. The balance within those chords can really shape what we perceive as tone color. I personally love classical harmony, so I’m very sensitive to those harmonic shifts. In that sense, I think that’s also part of my tone — or my style.
Ichika: It’s true that chords might be a stronger element on the piano, but on the other hand, I think the expressive potential at the level of a phrase is something unique to the guitar. That’s why I place a lot of importance on phrasing. Rather than thinking in terms of bar lines, I try to think of music in phrases — each one having its own narrative arc, like a beginning, development, turn, and resolution.
For example, if you just play a phrase with simple tapping, it can end up sounding a bit cheap. So while my left-hand pinky is sustaining a note on the first string, I might double a note on the second string with my right-hand index finger. That way the first string keeps ringing, while I add a slight vibrato nuance only with the right-hand finger.
Really thinking through how a phrase can feel alive — how it can resonate with a listener emotionally — and pushing that as far as possible might be one aspect of sound-making that’s uniquely mine.
Sumino: Earlier you mentioned building a clean base sound and then adding color on top of it. Hearing that made me realize that might be one reason I like Ichika’s sound so much. I think about something very similar when I play the piano.
When you play a chord and it sounds beautiful, it’s usually because each note that makes up the chord is clear and well balanced.
And by “balanced,” I usually mean that the top note has just a little more presence than the others — just enough to give it a core without overwhelming the rest. So in that sense, I’m also the kind of person who believes the foundation of a piece has to start from a clean base before anything else is added on top.
Ichika: There’s also a way of shaping sound that I feel inspired by the piano. With the piano, I imagine the sound not as a straight line but as something that traces an arc. That feels very different from the more linear quality of a guitar tone.
I find that arc-like shape incredibly musical and beautiful, so when I produce a note, I try to be conscious of whether the sound is actually forming that kind of arc.
