Music, Modernity and Locality in Prewar Japan: Osaka and Beyond

This anthology addresses the modern musical culture of interwar Osaka and its surrounding Hanshin region. It is the first to draw together research on the interwar musical culture of the Osaka region and addresses comprehensively both Western and non-Western musical practices and genres, questions the common perception of their being wholly separate domains in interwar Japan, and gives due weight to their overlap in the creation of new hybrid genres. This empirically grounded investigation explores Osaka's modern musical culture to better understand the effects of regional geography, demography, history and tradition on processes of modernization.