Radio gymnastic exercise started to be broadcasted in 1928 all around japan. Music for the first version of the radio gymnastic was composed by Naoaki Fukui. Since then, many musical pieces in connection with radio gymnastic exercise had been written. “Song of a Radio gymnastic Exercise”, which starts with lyrics ‘a new morning has come, it is hopeful morning…’, is a relatively well-known piece. Not only this piece, but also a lot of accompaniment music for exercise has been written by several composers. A gymnastic music used today “Radio gymnastic Exercise No. 1” is composed by Tadashi Hattori and
“Radio gymnastic Exercise No. 2” is composed by Ikuma Dan. “Radio gymnastic Exercise No. 3”, which was published in 1946, was composed by Kunihiko Hashimoto. This music and the accompanying exercise was broadcasted for only one and a half year
because of its complicated action which was assumed to be too difficult to spread by radio broadcasting. In 2015, this exercise was reissued by two medical doctors: Masaya Anzai and Tatsuki Inoue. The published CD and the DVD are now on sale.
In “Radio gymnastic Exercise No.3”, a nimble music with staccato is accompanying to the step and bending exercise, and unconstrained music in legato is accompanying the neck turning and side-body stretching movement. There is a modulation in the middle of the piece. Descents with short time value in treble are repeated with a circumnutation exercise. This music relates to the movement of exercise and is rich in its musical development.