February 4 — Kitaro’s Birthday: “Silk Road,” the Timeless Synthesizer Epic of Golden Dunes

Who Is “Kitaro”?

Today, February 4, marks the birthday of one of the best-known Japanese musicians in the world, Kitaro (born February 4, 1953).

Born into a farming family in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, he became passionately devoted to soul music in his high school years and taught himself to play the guitar. Later, through the legendary group Far East Family Band, he had a fateful encounter with the synthesizer, and from the late 1970s he began walking the path of a solo career.

His music, while built with Western electronic instruments, is distinguished by the fact that an Eastern spirituality—and a profound reverence for nature—always sits at its core. After the explosive success of Silk Road in the 1980s, he shifted his base of activity to the United States in the 1990s, winning major honors such as a Grammy and a Golden Globe. As “KITARO of the world,” he continues to carve his name into music history.

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YouTube Video Introduction – Start with the Official Videos

Let’s unpack Kitaro’s profound sonic world through two images that symbolize his music.

[Official audio]

Credit: 
Kitaro – “Silk Road” / Silk Road (Original Soundtrack from the NHK TV Series)
Notes: 
This is the original studio version composed as the main theme for the NHK Special documentary series “Silk Road — 絲綢之路 —,” first broadcast in 1980. Making full use of the analog synthesizers Kitaro favored at the time—such as the “KORG 800DV” and “Minimoog”—he completed the piece through an almost mind-boggling process of multi-track recording. Rather than mechanical perfection, the subtle pitch wavering that conveys the heat of the performer’s fingertips evokes the shimmer of desert heat haze and the immensity of long history. It is a historical masterpiece in the story of synthesizer music.

[Live footage]

Credit:
 Kitaro – “Silk Road” (Live in Yakushiji / 2001 Special Concert)
Notes:
 This is the record of a historic dedication concert held in 2001 on a special stage at Yakushiji Temple in Nara, a World Heritage site. Performed around the same period as his Grammy win, it features a grand arrangement that combines the studio version’s delicacy with crawling, earth-shaking low frequencies and dynamic percussion. The synthesizer’s roar that slices through silence and the resonance of strings that melt into the night sky of the ancient capital brilliantly resurrect the spirit of the Silk Road—where Eastern and Western cultures intersect—for the modern 21st century.

When I First Heard This Song

My Age	Elementary school	Junior high	High school	University	20s	30s	40s	50s	60+
Release year				1980
When I heard it				●

The first time I heard this piece, as I also noted in the commentary, was when I watched the NHK Special documentary series “Silk Road — 絲綢之路 —” (※), which began airing in April 1980.

The program itself was excellent, but the pairing with this theme music was especially perfect—and Koji Ishizaka’s narration was wonderful too.

It’s a song that has stayed with me.

A Sound at the Civilizational Turning Point of 1980

The year 1980 (Showa 55) was a strange branching point in Japan: people were becoming confident about the “future,” while also beginning to feel nostalgia for what had been “lost.” I was a fourth-year university student—just before stepping into working life.

The Rise of Technopop and Kitaro’s Paradox

At the time, Japan’s music scene was being swept by a technopop storm led by Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With precisely computer-controlled, inorganic, urban beats being defined as “cutting-edge,” the sound Kitaro presented pointed in the exact opposite direction. While using the synthesizer—then the newest weapon—he summoned not a digital future, but soil and wind from thousands of years ago.

The Social Impact of the NHK Special “Silk Road”

The NHK Special documentary series “Silk Road — 絲綢之路 —,” which began airing in April 1980, was a documentary of unprecedented scale in the TV world of that era. With its theme of tracing the roots of the Japanese people, Kitaro’s music provided the perfect palette. On Sunday nights, that melody flowing into living rooms presented a spiritual open plain to the hearts of Japanese people who—after the period of rapid economic growth—had obtained material abundance.

A Multi-Angle Analysis of the Song “Silk Road”

Why does this piece grip people’s hearts so strongly—and never let go? Let’s dig into the reasons from musical and structural perspectives.

Memories Awakened by the Pentatonic Scale

The melody of this piece is built on the five-note scale (pentatonic scale) common to folk songs across Japan and many parts of Asia. In terms of structure, it can feel like a Western scale with certain tones removed—and to Japanese ears it carries an unreasoned, immediate nostalgia. By wrapping this traditional tone sequence in the newest electronic timbres, Kitaro sublimated it into an “eternal standard” that never feels old-fashioned.

The Rhythm That Marks the Caravan’s Footsteps

What supports the piece is a powerful bass rhythm, stamped at a steady tempo. It symbolizes the footfalls of camels continuing their silent trek across the desert. That pulse—step by step, firmly pressing into the earth in harsh conditions—reminds the listener of the preciousness of perseverance. Over that unwavering rhythm, the synthesizer melody dances freely, dramatically portraying the traveler’s loneliness and the joy of finding an oasis.

The Synthesizer as a Traditional Instrument

For Kitaro, the synthesizer is not merely a type of keyboard. He treats it as an instrument that directly reflects the performer’s breath—like the shakuhachi, the transverse flute, or the ryuteki (dragon flute).

The Necessity of “Waver” Living in Analog Circuits

As you can hear in the official audio, his timbre is never a perfectly straight line. From attack to decay, it contains complex changes in overtones. This is partly a byproduct of the voltage instability inherent in synthesizers from the 1970s to the 1980s—but by synchronizing that instability with his own breathing, Kitaro gave electronic sound a living sense of blood and life.

Sound Sculpture as Craftsmanship

He rarely uses preset sounds as-is. With his own hands he moves knobs and sliders, synthesizing from zero the waveform closest to his emotions in that moment. This process—something you could call the sculpting of sound—is the wellspring of the overwhelming persuasiveness in Kitaro’s music. Each tone has its own face like a grain of desert sand, and as those grains layer, they build the vast landscape of towering dunes.

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The Truth of Orientalism That Took the World by Storm

By the mid-1980s, Kitaro’s music had completely leapt beyond Japan’s borders and grew into a global phenomenon. Signing a worldwide distribution deal with Geffen Records in the United States in 1986 was exceptionally rare for a Japanese artist of that time.

An Eastern Resonance That Answered Spiritual Hunger

The U.S. music scene then was an era when visual flashiness was emphasized with the rise of MTV. In the middle of that, Kitaro—long-haired, bearded, silently facing his synthesizers in an outfit reminiscent of a dojo uniform—appeared to Western audiences like an Eastern philosopher. It was not mere curiosity toward exoticism; it can be said to have offered deep healing to people who felt spiritual thirst within a materialistic society.

An Epic Talent Recognized by Hollywood

In the 1990s, his talent blossomed in the world of film music as well. In 1994, winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for the music to director Oliver Stone’s film Heaven & Earth demonstrated the high narrative power of his music. Then in 2001, he won the 43rd Grammy Awards for Best New Age Album for Thinking of You. This stands as proof that the sonic system he built carried a universal strength that appeals to fundamental human emotions beyond language and cultural barriers.

The Fusion of Motion and Stillness in Live Performance

As the Yakushiji live footage I introduced shows, Kitaro’s true essence lies in the tremendous release of energy in live performance.

Performance as Ritual

Onstage, Kitaro does not fit within the frame of a mere keyboard player. Surrounded by multiple synthesizers, he sometimes beats a huge Japanese taiko drum, squeezing sound out with his whole body. His 모습 is less like a “musician” and more like a shrine miko or a mountain ascetic serving a sacred rite. The structure—beginning in silence, gradually heating up, and becoming a massive swell—invites the listener into deep meditation while also making them directly feel the pulse of life.

A Happy Marriage of Tradition and Technology

What deserves special mention in live settings is the perfect harmony between electronic instruments and acoustic ones. Powerful drums and delicate strings fill the gaps within the grand, cosmic expanse painted by the synthesizers. There is no binary opposition such as digital vs. analog. Every sound is integrated as part of the natural world, and as Kitaro conducts at the center, the entire venue begins to throb like a single giant living organism.

What “Silk Road” Asks of the Present

More than 40 years after its release, why does Silk Road continue to resonate without fading? The answer lies in the essence of “journey” that this piece contains.

A Melody for Facing Loneliness

This piece has no flashy ornamentation whatsoever. What it offers is a dry expanse of sandy earth—and the loneliness of an individual walking across it.

Modern society overflows with excessive information and connection, yet the time human beings originally need—time to “confront the self”—is steadily being lost. The melody of Silk Road forcibly returns the listener to a space of introspection. That mournful synth-lead tone seems to project distant foreign landscapes while also illuminating an inner primal scenery deep within the listener’s heart.

The Universality of a Rhythm That Marks Eternal Time

What flows beneath this piece is “the passage of time” itself—beyond any shaped language. Against the modern sense of speed where even one second matters, this rhythm makes you feel a great time scale that moves in units of thousands of years. Sand swirls on the wind, mountains are worn down, civilizations rise and fall. By experiencing such a macro perspective through sound, everyday worries and impatience will surely disperse—like a single grain of sand lost in immense dunes.

A Prayer for Sound That Rings on February 4

The sounds Kitaro has spun do not become outdated; rather, their importance grows precisely in today’s turbulent age.

A Spiritual Bridge to the Future

He once dreamed of connecting the world as one through music.

Just as the Silk Road once carried cultures and connected human hearts, his synthesizer functions as a spiritual trade route for the modern era. To listen again to this immortal masterpiece on his birthday, February 4, is not mere music appreciation. It should become a message of encouragement to yourself—rediscovering the quiet passion within, and stepping forward powerfully into tomorrow.

A Golden Melody That Never Falls Silent

The electronic particles released from Kitaro’s fingertips will continue to dance across skies around the world. That tone—like wind crossing a desert—gently yet sternly keeps asking where we came from and where we are going. The journey to find new hope beyond a horizon shining in gold has only just begun.

(※) About the NHK Special “Silk Road — 絲綢之路 —”…

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What Was “Silk Road — 絲綢之路 —”?

The NHK Special: Silk Road — 絲綢之路 —, which began airing in 1980, is known as a monumental work in the history of Japanese television documentaries. The series followed the Silk Road—the ancient trade routes that connected Eastern and Western civilizations—through on-location reporting, depicting the eastward transmission of Buddhism, the rise and fall of desert city-states, ethnic cultures, and artistic heritage with archaeological and historical insight and magnificent visuals. It was not merely a travelogue, but a highly regarded attempt to reconstruct the history of civilizational exchange through moving images.

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An Overwhelming Production Scale and Visual Expression

At the time, long-term location shoots were carried out in places where foreign media coverage was not easy—China’s Western Regions, Dunhuang, the Pamir Plateau, and more—and weighty film-shot visuals were recorded. Cinematic methods were incorporated into composition and editing, and there was a unified aesthetic across the entire program including music and narration. Though it was a television program, one major feature of the series was its completeness—worthy of being called a “visual epic.”

Under the influence of this program, the historical concept of the “Silk Road” became widely known among the general public. Interest in Buddhist art and Central Asian history increased, and its cultural contribution—raising the level of Japan’s educational programming—can be said to have been enormous.

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The Narration That Shaped the Program’s World

What gave spiritual unity to this grand visual world was the presence of Koji Ishizaka, who served as narrator. His narration was composed with a controlled, dignified tone, never overloading emotion, and it quietly guided viewers onto the time axis of history.

His voice carried both calmness and clarity, maintaining a delicate balance: it never became too explanatory, and yet it never became overly theatrical. This style harmonized extremely well with the work’s dignity, which handled a vast historical space called the Silk Road. In the structure where image, music, and narration became a trinity, Ishizaka’s voice can be regarded as one of the work’s spiritual pillars.

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The Public Broadcaster’s Stance I Felt from NHK Back Then

I feel that behind the realization of such a large-scale work of high cultural significance was the stance NHK had at the time as a public broadcaster. Rather than prioritizing short-term buzz or entertainment value, it emphasized historical value and cultural responsibility—investing time and budget, and producing programs with a long-term perspective. In that attitude, there was a strong awareness of a public mission.

I think Silk Road was one of the outcomes that symbolized NHK of that era. Programs were made on an axis different from ratings absolutism, and it felt as though the production floor had the viewpoint of “whether it will remain for future generations.”

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How I Feel About Today’s NHK

However, looking at today’s broadcasting environment, I feel that the traces of that era have faded. There are more situations where NHK’s reporting stance becomes a subject of debate, and I have the impression that trust in its neutrality—especially in handling political and social issues—has been shaken. Compared with the expectations I once had for a public broadcaster, I cannot help but feel a decline in quality.

For that reason, I think it may be more desirable to move away from the semi-compulsory system of the license-fee model and shift to scrambled broadcasting where viewers can choose. If it claims publicness, thorough neutrality and restoration of trust must be prerequisites; and if those are not sufficiently fulfilled, a system that leaves the decision of whether to watch to each household may be healthier.

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What “Silk Road” Left Behind

The value of Silk Road as a work has not faded even now. Including the dignified narration of Koji Ishizaka, this series is proof that there was indeed an era when outstanding television culture existed. At the same time, it also compels us to reconsider what a public broadcaster ought to be. It is a work that makes it hard not to be conscious of the gap between the brilliance of a cultural legacy and the circumstances surrounding broadcasting today.