Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

I did not know that. 

I find that Gagaku is one of the most interesting and exciting forms of music I have ever heard.  I find it incredible how close it sounds to a lot of 20th Century avant garde music- particularly "digital minimalism".  Its ancientness, microtonal characteristics, and utilization of silence (ma) are striking.  In my mind gagaku has more to do with humanity's musical future than its more recent past (my opnion). 

I have been working hard at crafting hichiriki for the past year or so (not easy but probably not as difficult as crafting shakuhachi).

Gaga for Gagaku,
Michael

Gagaku is truly amazing in the way they reduce the melodies to their essence and superimpose the different parts. Great stuff!

"Somakusha" is in the Jin Nyodo repertoire although he didn't record it. It is in his notation. "Etenraku" is another gagaku melody frequently arranged for shakuhachi.

I thought gagaku is specifically large ensemble but if you hear about this small ensemble stuff please let us know.

For a smaller gagaku ensemble sound check out the Kyoto Imperial Court Music Orchestra.  I have one of their recordings, "Gagaku- Japanese Court Music", and it sounds like it has quite a few less instruments in the wind section for a leaner sound.  I am not sure if this is what you are interested in, however.  All of the standard gagaku instruments are represented on the record, not just a trio, although there is a ryuteki/shinobue solo, and a drum piece- both of which I think are not exactly traditional, though, there are a few forms of gagaku and I do not claim to be an expert on any in terms of repertoire.

Here is the web address for a youtube video of a gagaku type trio that I love: http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=bC0YJ5M_WWE

Etenraku

Live video at The Museum of Zen Culture and History at Komazawa University in May, 2005. Theremin by Yoko Onishi and Ryuteki by Tomoko Tonosaki.

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=THexrV6FGrw


This is beautiful...

Last edited by dust (2008-08-24 04:46:21)

Obviously I am in the minority here as regards the aesthetics of gagaku ;-), but this probably has a lot to do with my opinion of the Japanese Imperial Agency.

I will check out Malm.

BTW the hichiriki, along with its Korean cousin the piri, are the only two (AFAIK) extant double-reed cylindrical-bore instruments. These, like the clarinet and the panpipes, do not sound the even harmonics. The hichiriki, though, unlike the piri, has a very large reed and a very short body, so that the vibrational modes depend very greatly on the compliance of the reed, and the performer thus has great control over the intonation. The thing I find most fascinating about Japanese wind instruments (excluding the sho), is the great variety of expression and tonal color possible with them. I can think of no other culture with comparable instruments. Shakuhachi is, of course, king in this regard. The nokan, too, as a side-blown instrument, seems quite unique in sacrificing melody for expression.

FWIW,

Toby

Last edited by Toby (2008-08-24 23:03:55)

nyokai wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:

The music was about a 3 piece group,  a drum, some sort of string instrument and I think some sort of double reed.

Sounds like this could have been kagura (Shinto ritual music). There are several kinds of music that use some of the same instruments as gagaku.

Yes must have been music for some Kagura if there was 3 instruments or so. When I was in Japan at first i lived on the grounds of a Shinto shrine with my teacher as a uchi deshi and they used the name Gagaku was actually just for the music even if it was only 3 instruments made for use in varous Kagura/神楽 dances done in honor of various kami/Spirits or for some festivals.

I also like gagaku.  Tonight I watched a little kagura dancing at Tosa Jinja's annual end of summer matsuri, just a ten minute walk up the road from where I live; Tosa Jinja's one of the oldest Shrines in the prefecture, dating back to about the 11th century or so.   Tomorrow they'll have a shrine procession which will include four or five musicians playing hichiriki, sho, ryuteki, and a small drum.  There will also be guys pulling a wheeled cart with ropes which contains a massive old drum and hitting it with a staff about a meter and a half in length  (I was told the drum was about 500 years old).   The musicians are also members of a gagaku group in Kochi.  After they take the mikoshi to a smaller shrine a kilometer or so away, the shrine maidens do several Kagura dances, then the procession returns to the main shrine and the kanushi (Shinto priests) do a purification ritual.  Some years back I got lucky and was asked to join the procession as a player of horagai -- there were also guys carrying ancient spears, wearing tengu and oni masks, carrying a sacred tree that everyone tries to grab branches from once it exits the shrine grounds, and of course, carrying the heavy mikoshi, or portable god's shrine, all the participants in conical black hats and brown and white haori/hakama, except for the gagaku musicians  who are dressed in golden attire.  After we got back to the main shrine following the long walk in the summer heat and installed the mikoshi there was about an hour long ceremony where the priests said prayers, took food and sake offerings up to the back of the shrine, and did a lot of waving of sacred tree branches while all of us in the procession were sitting in the main shrine building giving set responses to the priests at various points during the ceremony; I was also admiring the huge coiled dragon painted on the ceiling of the shrine; while the kanushi were doing the rituals, storm clouds started gathering and just at the moment the ceremony ended there was thunder and lightning, with the latter striking quite close by accompanied by a massive downpour, the grounds flooding up to several inches for about 15 minutes, then the weather suddenly cleared.  Even in dry summers without much rain we always seem to get a good rain on that particular afternoon.  The gagaku musicians were also playing their music throughout much of that ceremony in the shrine building and it was really eerie with the music, the priests doing their chanting, and then the wind picking up, the skies darkening and all the weather effects coming in.  Perhaps the old Japanese gods haven't yet forsaken this part of the country...

Last edited by Daniel Ryudo (2008-08-24 12:46:40)

Thanks, Ed.  I'm going to try to leave work early today to try and catch the gagaku, and also to see if it rains...not a cloud in the sky now.  Lots of cicada music going on.

Last edited by Daniel Ryudo (2008-08-25 02:08:15)

Hi Kiku.  The weather didn't change right after the ceremony yesterday but heavy rain started early this morning and still continues.  Maybe it had something to do with the fact that there were only two gagaku musicians this year, a sho player and a player of ryuteki; they were playing throughout much of the ceremony .  I watched the event yesterday with a German player of shakuhachi who attended the first European Shakuhachi Summer School in London.

Last edited by Daniel Ryudo (2008-08-25 22:28:31)