Navigating Musician’s Dystonia: An Interview with Satoshi Yamaguchi
Satoshi Yamaguchi, the former drummer of popular Japanese band RADWIMPS and Visiting Researcher at Keio University, shared his insights with student affiliates Rie Aiyama and Sakura Armstrong on his personal struggle and research on Musician’s Dystonia, a neurological disorder that affects professional musicians. Yamaguchi also joined CSGJ for a public event on February 19th where he presented his research and conducted a live drum performance.
Rie:
We're so excited to have you here at the Centre for the Study of Global Japan. First, could you just tell us a little bit about yourself – your background, what led you to become a musician, and your relationship with music before your diagnosis with dystonia?
Satoshi:
Hi, I'm Satoshi, the drummer for RADWIMPS. I started playing drums when I was 14. I was involved in a track and field club, and some of them were playing guitar and bass and wanted to form a band. So, they invited me to join the band. Naturally, a drummer wasn't there, so I became the drummer.
When I was in high school, our band participated in a nationwide competition for music. It was there that I met RADWIMPS. My band lost, and RADWIMPS won. At that time, I kind of fell in love with their music. Even though we were rivals, I loved their music so much. When I was in my first year in music college, coincidentally, I met this guitarist for RADWIMPS at the Shibuya intersection. At that time, RADWIMPS were facing some issues – they were trying to find a new member, especially a drummer and bassist. So, this miracle meeting brought me to join RADWIMPS.
Rie:
You were diagnosed with musician's dystonia, a condition that many people don’t know a lot about. Can you describe what it feels like to experience it, and how it changed your life, your career, and your relationship with music?
Satoshi:
Musicians' dystonia is a movement disorder affecting 1% of professional musicians. It affects musicians' skilled motor control. It's said that once it's developed, over 60% of musicians have to quit or take a break – it's a very difficult disease for musicians. In my case, when I try to play the drums, my right shin moves involuntarily, so I can't express my feelings with my right foot. I developed this condition when I was 24. At the time, nobody knew what it was. Not only me, but people around me didn't know about this condition. They thought I might be sick. I thought I was in some kind of slump. I can't describe it in detail. I don't know why, but sometimes my right shin moves involuntarily. That made it so hard for me to play the drums. At that time, I was suffering, and the band members were suffering too. They didn't understand what was going on.
After five years, I realized that my condition was called Musician's Dystonia. This very famous rock drummer, Yukinojo Shiratori from Kishidan, a well-known J-rock band, announced that he had developed this condition and had to take a long hiatus. Reading about this, I realized that I had very similar symptoms. That was how I went to a medical institution and got my official diagnosis. For 5 years, I had been in a kind of darkness – getting the diagnosis was a little bit of a good thing for me. But at the same time, I realized that having this disorder would make it very difficult for me to continue my musical career.
Rie:
Did you receive support from people around you, like your band members, during this time?
Satoshi:
I think they tried to support me, but they didn't know how to do it. Sometimes, from the outside, my symptoms didn't seem obvious, even though I was suffering from it. From the outside, they couldn't recognize it. So naturally they said: “Satoshi, it's okay. You played very well. You don't need to take it seriously.” But from my view, the symptoms were unmistakable, very vivid in my brain. So, there was kind of a gap in our understanding. Eventually, even though we all tried to make the situation better, our communication broke down. This eventually led me toward research about musician's dystonia.
Rie:
That leads me to my next question. What motivated you to turn away from music and to research? How did that experience as a musician influence the kinds of questions you wanted to ask as a researcher?
Satoshi:
As I mentioned, we had loved each other as band members, but our communication was broken, and I thought the problem was a lack of knowledge about Musician’s Dystonia. So I thought, if there's a kind of explanation, maybe we could understand each other more – but there was nothing.
But we were just rock musicians. We were not researchers. We were very far away from academia. But anyway, I felt like in this society, information about musicians' dystonia was not available. I wanted to fill this gap. That is one motivation. And second, I was not the only one. I found out that so many fellow Japanese rock drummers suffered from this condition.
In the last decade, many well-known Japanese professional drummers reported having been diagnosed with Musician’s Dystonia. I thought this was heartbreaking. At the same time, I suspected there might be some kind of risk factor for professional drummers. It's unnatural. Among pro bassists or pro guitarists, we didn't see the same phenomenon. Pro drummers reported dystonia at a much higher rate. Naturally, I wondered why?
Rie:
Do you think the gap in research on Musician’s Dystonia was specific to the Japanese music industry? Or was this the case around the world?
Satoshi:
I think there’s a gap in the world. My research field is called music neuroscience. There are actually many studies on classical musicians, but very few on rock musicians, especially drummers. I just submitted my very first paper, a large-scale epidemiological survey on Japanese drummers. Now I aim to extend this kind of survey to Taiwan, and also to North America.
Rie:
Your research led to the co-development of VXD, a voice-controlled bass drum interface. Could you explain how that works and why your voice became the medium through which you play drums?
Satoshi:
Through conducting research, I understood how difficult it is to cure my symptoms. In Japanese, we say akirameru, which in English means to give up. In some ways, I accepted my condition, and I gave up trying to use both of my legs. But that didn’t mean I gave up playing the drums.
In 2023, I was at Stanford University doing my research. There, I coincidentally discovered Japanese taiko culture in the U.S. and North America. I was so surprised. Especially in the Bay Area, the Stanford Taiko Club is very, very popular. And also, the San Jose Taiko group is one of the most popular taiko groups in the world. I met them and learned a lot from them. I found that for them, playing taiko is not only for fun, but something that has sustained the Japanese American community since World War II. Playing taiko, Buddhism, Matsuri, Kendo, Judo – these kinds of practices were very important for them to survive. Especially since playing taiko is very easy, rather than playing piano or guitar. That’s the charm of percussion, I think, because there are no notes. Knowing that history changed my attitude towards music. Before then, I’d just played instruments for fun, for entertainment. But I realised that music can help people live, connect souls, and sustain communities. Music is so special.
That experience changed my perspective, and naturally, I started playing taiko with them. Interestingly, taiko is taught orally, not through sheet music. It was then I realized, oh, my voice is also an instrument. Drummers are so busy because they use four limbs, right? But, I realized that, oh, my voice is available! That gave me the idea for VXD – instead of my leg, I could use my voice. Yamaha has this cutting-edge technology called Real Sound Viewing. You might know about pianos that play automatically – not just piano, it also works for bass and drums. Yamaha can create music through this technology. When I discovered it, I thought, maybe we can make an acoustic drum sound using my voice. So I asked them if we could collaborate, and they said yes.
Rie:
Your solo tour and the event tomorrow is called “The Past Can Be Changed”. What do you hope students will take away from hearing your story?
Satoshi:
I don't want to force an audience to take away a specific message. But I'd be happy if I could provide some hints as to how to live, because to live is very hard. Nobody can avoid facing setbacks in life. At the event, I’ll be talking about my biggest personal setback and how I learned that the past can be changed.
Rie:
Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. We look forward to hearing more of your thoughts and your performance tomorrow.
Satoshi:
Thank you.
