Okuda Hiroko

Okuda Hiroko is the Japanese inventor and musicologist who, at the start of her career in 1980, composed the rhythm and bass preset backing tracks included in Casio's electronic keyboards. These included the "rock" rhythm, which became the ubiquitous Sleng Teng Riddim, heralded the Ragga movement, and has since underpinned hundreds of hit reggae songs. Okuda and Casio have allowed her backing-rhythm work to proliferate under a free attribution-only license, which have contributed to their popularity and widespread use. She holds more than a dozen patents in the fields of electronic musical instruments and presently works at the intersection of electronic music and visual art.

Okuda Hiroko
Born
Okuda Hiroko

c. 1957
Nagasaki, Japan
NationalityJapanese
Alma materKunitachi College of Music, 1980
OccupationInventor and musicologist
Known for

Childhood and education

Okuda, a pianist from childhood, became a fan of British rock music in middle school, and this developed into a deep interest in Jamaican reggae in the 1970s. Okuda attended a musical high school, and then Kunitachi College of Music, where she studied musicology with an emphasis on Reggae, the topic upon which she wrote her graduation thesis. While a college student in 1979, Okuda attended several of Bob Marley's concerts, on his only visit to Japan.[1]

"Reggae is generally agreed to lie at the roots of hip-hop and rap and other styles of DJ music. The music also had a huge influence on British rock. The lyrics had a strong social and political message, but they were performed in this light, breezy style. I think that contrast was what attracted me to the music."

Career
Casio's 1981 Casiotone MT-40,[2] the first electronic keyboard to include Okuda's backing tracks.

Okuda joined Casio in April 1980, immediately upon graduation from music college. She was immediately assigned to develop six two-bar long rhythm and bass preset backing tracks which would be used on the Casiotone Casio MT-40 and Casio's other contemporaneous keyboards. The first six styles were "rock," "samba," "disco," "waltz," "swing," and "pop," and it was the "rock" style which would be made famous in Jamaican dancehalls.

The process Okuda used was very much a technical one, far removed from traditional musical composition. "It was necessary to convert a musical score into code, record the code onto an ROM, and then inset the memory into a specialized machine. Only then could you listen to the rhythm pattern you had written."[1][3]

Main article: Sleng Teng

The MT-40's "rock" preset, along with the keyboard's suggested 1/16 note fill for that preset, formed the basis of Wayne Smith and King Jammy's 1985 reggae hit "Under Me Sleng Teng", which has subsequently been covered nearly 500 times.[4] This song's success is widely credited with single-handedly transitioning reggae from analog to computerized production.[5]

"In those days, my head was full of reggae. Even when I was trying to come up with a rock beat, I think it just naturally came out as something that would work in reggae as well."

Okuda says that she had in mind to create a drum-and-bass line which would be easy to "toast" over, and attributes much of the success of the backing track to its simplicity, which allowed musicians to flexibly layer many types of compositions over it.[1]

Indeed, her influence soon became widespread, with her samples appearing in hip-hop and rap music, like 2 Live Crew's Reggae Joint and then rave music, like Moby's remix of Everybody in the Place.[6]

Although the original MT-40 was only produced for about a year, and its "rock" rhythm was retired with it, its ongoing popularity led Casio to bring it back in 2010 in their SA-46 and SA-76 keyboards, this time under the name "MT40 Riddim".[6]

Speculation about inspiration of the "Rock" rhythm

Many people have speculated on the origins of the rhythm used by so many artists, some misattributing it to various works of British popular music of the 1970s. Okuda has variously said that it had no specific inspiration, or that it was inspired by the opening of a piece which she declined to name, but which is now widely believed to be David Bowie's Hang On to Yourself.[7][3]

Present work

Okuda works in Casio's R&D Center in Hamura, in the Tokyo suburbs.[1]

Her recent work includes real-time automated visual accompaniment for music performance, which she calls "music tapestry."

Patents
  • US patent 10803844, "Electronic musical instrument", published 2019-05-30
  • US patent 10360884, "Electronic wind instrument and method of controlling electronic wind instrument", published 2018-09-20
  • US patent 9384716, "Automatic key adjusting apparatus and method", published 2015-08-13
  • US patent 9018505, "A method of automatically playing accompaniment", published 2014-09-18
  • US patent 8907197, "Performance information processing apparatus, determining tempo and meter based on performance", published 2014-03-06
  • US patent 8648241, "Key determination apparatus", published 2012-03-29
  • US patent 8324493, "Electronic musical instrument", published 2011-08-04
  • US patent 8314320, "Automatic accompanying apparatus", published 2011-08-04
  • US patent 5375501, "Automatic melody composer", published 1994-12-27
  • US patent 5302777, "Music apparatus for determining tonality from chord progression for improved accompaniment", published 1994-04-12
  • US patent 5179241, "Apparatus for determining tonality for chord progression", published 1993-01-12
  • US patent 4875400, "Electronic musical instrument with touch response function", published 1989-10-24
  • US patent 4685370, "Automatic rhythm playing apparatus having plurality of rhythm patterns", published 1987-08-11
  • US patent 4643068, "Electronic musical instrument with automatic rhythm playing unit", published 1987-02-17

References
  1. Hashino, Yukinori (1 February 2022). "Okuda Hiroko: The Casio Employee Behind the "Sleng Teng" Riddim that Revolutionized Reggae". Your Doorway to Japan. Nippon.com. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
  2. "Casiotone keyboard advertisement (1982)". The San Bernardino County Sun. 8 September 1982. p. 42. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  3. Carrasco, Manuel Lagraneme (21 March 2017). "The Sleng Teng Riddim: From King Jammy to David Bowie". Vice. One of the most important riddims in the history of music is the well-known Sleng Teng Riddim, considered a watershed within popular music because it is the first 'riddim' created entirely digitally.
  4. "Sleng Teng Riddim | Riddim-ID". riddim-id.com. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
  5. "Wayne Smith's Under Mi Sleng Teng – the song that revolutionised reggae". the Guardian. 20 February 2014. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
  6. Trew, James (4 December 2015). "How Casio accidentally started reggae's digital revolution". Engadget. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
  7. Robathan, Hannah (1 September 2016). "Do We Owe Reggae's Digital Revolution To David Bowie?". Culture Trip.
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