Songs for Modern Japan

A delightful primer on early-to-mid-20th-century Japan’s fruitful fusion of music and design, as materialized in sheet music Winner of Third Place in Exhibition Catalogues from the New England Museum Association 2025 Publication Awards. Japanese society underwent a whirlwind of change during the first half of the 20th century, a time period marked by rapid modernization. While Western influences catalyzed an increasingly rapacious appetite for consumer goods, new sounds and mass-produced images flooded the stereos and screens of Japanese citizens. Perhaps more than any other objects from the period, sheet music covers graphically embodied this vortex of sights, sounds, events and ideas. Most commonly arranged for harmonica, piano, guitar and violin, music scores encompassed songs ranging from traditional Japanese folk tunes to movie scores, Western jazz, opera and patriotic marches. Publishers of music churned out sheets bound in graphically designed covers as diverse as the music