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#1 2007-05-01 16:51:22

kyoreiflutes
Member
From: Seattle, WA
Registered: 2005-10-27
Posts: 364
Website

Changing, or "covering", classical shakuhachi pieces

Do you think it's bad when someone doesn't play a classical shakuhachi piece the way it's written? What if they jsut want to "play with it"?

If yes, then do you think it's bad when a conductor rearranges a classical piece a bit?

If yes, then do you think it's bad when a band does a cover of a Beatles song and changes it just a bit?

In Western classical music, it's fairly common for composers to borrow themes from each other. I mean, there's really only SO much music a society can compose using a closed system like that, right? wink

Is this at all common in Asian/Japanese music? I certainly feel like I hear a few simillar themes in several honkyoku pieces, but I'm not sure as yet. I need to learn the notation and such this summer first.

It seems to me that there's a definate split between three shakuhachi camps: one likes traditional pieces and don't budge, one plays shakuhachi purely as an expressive instrument and never touch "traditional" music, and the other likes all of it. It seems to me that we have far more people of the third kind here, and international community. Not as many Japanese natives as I'd hope, though. Interesting.

Sometimes I see and hear pieces by composers like Marco Leonhard or David Zasloff: these composer/players obviously play the shakuhachi very well, and know how to get it to make all the "correct" sounds it can make, but it's more like an instrument to them than a zen meditation. I mean, they play to large concert halls rather than more intimate events. Do you folks take these kinds of players seriously?

I know, i'm babbling. Im not even sure what my "point" was in the first place. lol.

-E


"The Universe does not play favorites, and is not fair by its very Nature; Humans, however, are uniquely capable of making the world they live in fair to all."    - D.E. Lloyd

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."    -John Donne

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#2 2007-05-01 18:06:44

amokrun
Member
From: Finland
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 413

Re: Changing, or "covering", classical shakuhachi pieces

kyoreiflutes wrote:

Do you think it's bad when someone doesn't play a classical shakuhachi piece the way it's written? What if they jsut want to "play with it"?

I don't generally find any particular way to play to be "bad". One can say that it's not Kyorei or whatever but that doesn't make the playing itself wrong unless one was actually trying to play the real thing and just got it wrong. Same with the other questions. The nice thing about music is that although it takes a fair bit of skill to play, it is often easy to tell if you like something or not by just listening to it. If the listener likes the music, great. On the other hand, if you play honkyoku as a spiritual thing and do it for yourself, the important bit is whether or not you play in a mindful way.

kyoreiflutes wrote:

Is this at all common in Asian/Japanese music? I certainly feel like I hear a few simillar themes in several honkyoku pieces, but I'm not sure as yet. I need to learn the notation and such this summer first.

Gunnar Linder, my teacher, talked to me about how there is a number of phrases in honkyoku which all typically have a meaning. He actually did a fair bit of work categorising these. Although we didn't get far in this topic, it would basically explain why honkyoku sound one way or another even though they are all different. It's a bit like a language. You have a system for producing words that shapes the way how the language sounds. Thus it's fairly easy to tell japanese apart from english once you hear a bit of both.

I occasionally wonder if the original pieces were chosen partially so that specific techniques - rather than the pieces themselves - would be passed on. For example, say that I start a school of shakuhachi playing where I want to focus on very sad and moody pieces. I use a lot of muraiki techniques in my playing as well. Now, I need to somehow pass this information on to students who eventually can't consult me on what is the correct way to play like I did. Rather than trying to explain it all in detail on paper, I instead come up with a bunch of pieces where the proper way to use the techniques I liked makes the piece work. It is much easier to tell if a piece sounds right than if a single technique sounds right without context. After someone learns all these pieces well, he intuitively "knows" how to play like I did because he had to learn those techniques like that for the pieces to sound correct.

Same sort of thought has crossed my mind occasionally when I used to follow the martial arts scene more closely. It always seemed to me like the specific techniques were designed to pass on specific details such as "this school prefers to swing a sword in a wide arc" rather than the knowledge of how to actually complete those techniques. Although being able to hit someone in a carefully designed scenario may not necessarily help much, doing it over and over gives you a gut feeling for the "essense" of the school.

Although this is just my guess as a person who speaks horrible japanese and has barely studied the topic at all (i.e. I'm just making this up as I type), it would seem logical to assume that learning the traditional pieces teaches you how to play the way people play in one particular school. After that you could play any piece the same way and it would have the same characteristics.

This would be a really interesting topic to discuss with people who have actual information. I'd love to hear if my logic came even close to being right from someone who has studied long enough to know more about these things.

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#3 2007-05-01 21:38:27

geni
Performer & Teacher
From: Boston MA
Registered: 2005-12-21
Posts: 830
Website

Re: Changing, or "covering", classical shakuhachi pieces

good question(s).

For me its fine . but, they have to play it well:-) That's one of the importand point. Whatever they do, has to be quality.
A lot of people (composers/musicians) get inspired from traditional pieces and they write music. But, the Only good ones sound good.

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