"Fill World With Gentleness"

April 4, 2021 7:11 PM

Hitoshi Yasui makes music as "chair house", and is currently working on the "Piano Ten Thousand Leaves Project" (Soundcloud). Each day, chair house improvises, records, and uploads an original piano composition. They're generally quiet and gentle pieces. He started the project in 2014, and aims to create 4,536 songs in total to match an 8th century anthology of Japanese poetry. If he stays on track, he will finish in mid-2026.
posted by brainwane (8 comments total)

thank you.


title completely accurate.
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:24 PM on April 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Oh yes. Yes yes yes, this will be my soundtrack tomorrow at work - thank you!
posted by esoteric things at 8:28 PM on April 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Wow, that exceeded my expectations by a lot (which were low, I expected anodyne pentatonic meandering). Really very nice little piece, that I sampled.
posted by thelonius at 9:26 PM on April 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

These are lovely!

There is only bright, gray light coming through the plastic on my windows (don't ask) today, and this music makes that pleasant instead of sad.

I will be streaming this guy a lot from now on.

Thank you for this post!!!!
posted by wenestvedt at 6:05 AM on April 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

I am so glad people share my joy!

I stumbled upon this work while searching for random words (here, probably "chair") in a podcast app. You can subscribe to this as a podcast using this feed URL.

Also, I am intrigued by the things the artist says on Twitter.

I think he is saying: here is some autogenerated sheet music for what I just improvised, and I think it is impossible for a human to deliberately play this music by following these notations, but go ahead and read it and try to play it if you want!
posted by brainwane at 6:55 AM on April 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

I'm adoring this. Thanks! Anybody know what the 8th century anthology is? Are all of the pieces named after or somehow inspired by each of the poems? (I did a similar project once -- one poem for each of the chapters of the Tao Te Ching.) Thanks for sharing this!

UPDATE: I think it's the Man'yoshu. Look likely to others?
posted by foodbedgospel at 10:52 AM on April 5, 2021

I don't know the world of minimalist piano music but around 1:36 in "The Gentle Pattering of Rain" I was reminded of Vince Guaraldi. And now I am thinking about the piano score in "Mr. Rogers's Neighborhood" and the stripped-down Debussy in "Untitled Goose Game".
posted by brainwane at 8:06 AM on April 6, 2021

Really enjoyed the movie-score-esque ending of "Been Leveled And Strewn With Fine Pebbles And Sand - #2688" from late April.
posted by brainwane at 6:14 PM on May 4, 2021