Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

As I get feedback I may modify the survey.  It seems like it could be longer but I think those are the most important questions.
Thanks again.

Thanks.  Can you recommend recordings of the "Fudaiji" one.  My paper is due Saturday but it may lead to more investigation as I am also interested in the cognitive processes involved in improvisation.

Also, any other recommendations and, do you have materials you used for your presentation?  If not, can you tell me, Tsuru no sugomori aside, some of the characteristics of improvisation in your particular school?  I see you studied with Yoshio Kurahashi.  He is one of the flutists I analyzed.


Thanks again.

Last edited by KR (2008-12-08 18:49:04)

nyokai wrote:

Too bad, I just did a presentation two days ago on improvisation in the shakuhachi tradition in Denver, at the ISIM conference (International Society of Improvised Music).

There are so many versions of Tsuru no Sugomori (from different schools and temples) that your investigation might work better with something simpler. In order to have a baseline for comparing individual performers or performances you would at least need to start with one specific version of Tsuro no Sugomori, for example the Fudaiji one... but then you'd be eliminating some of your performers.

Nyokai:

I am very interested in the topic of improvisation and shakuhachi.  (And a little stunned to hear there is a society dedicated to this topic in music in general.)

I will post a general kick-off question to this in the appropriate section...but would love to hear more about this from you!

Kevin,

I think it must be said (because it hasn't been said clearly yet) that in traditional Honkyoku, actual improvisation has little or no place. True enough, Honkyoku, because it has been aurally transmitted through a number of different lineages, with different approaches and styles, is indeed a living thing, and I have heard players with a good grasp of the elements of Honkyoku 'improvise' music on the fly that may sound to the naive listener like traditional music (one such player is Riley Lee), but it ain't Honkyoku (and there's nothing 'wrong' with it, either, to my mind).

The only time I've heard any improvisation in Honkyoku is in Miyata's rendering of Tsuru no Sugomori, where he plays a short cadenza-like segment about half way through. There may be other examples, but I haven't encountered them. Anyone?

Perhaps you are already aware of this, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

Last edited by edosan (2008-12-10 23:53:31)

edosan wrote:

The only time I've heard any improvisation in Honkyoku is in Miyata's rendering of Tsuru no Sugomori, where he plays a short cadenza-like segment about half way through. There may be other examples, but I haven't encountered them. Anyone?

Atsuya Okuda? Maybe 'broad interpretation' is a better term than improvisation. I think his expression and sound is very dynamic in showing how a traditional musical language can change, not just in a forward way, but also back to a compositional root source, perhaps? (Pun intended

baian wrote:

i don't have it in front of me but i recall Koga mentioning in his book that after one has mastered the honkyoku the next level (?) is improvising using honkyoku phrases and compositional elements. Anyone remember better than i do what he was talking about ?

Koga sensei actually does a quite a few of these improvisations on many of his albums. He was talking about just what he said: using honkyoku phrases and compositional elements to improvise music.

See this link: http://www.komuso.com/people/Koga_Masayuki.html Wherein you will find albums featuring his many improvisations.

Improvisation happens mostly in Japan when:
1. You are a Sensei (especially on stage).
2. You are not a sensei and are playing somewhere NOT near your sensei.
3. You forgot your score.
4. You didn't have the piece memorized as well as you thought.
5. You're playing outside in the wind where you can't use a score but didn't really memorize the piece well enough.
6. When you are drunk and playing but forgot your sensei was nearby.
7. You're playing a shakuhachi you're not used to in a karaoke bar and realize all eyes are on the gaijin.

This list is not complete but I have the feeling I'll be getting some help with it soon!


All contributions from the "human" side which makes honkyoku "living" music.

•
Very nicely put, Elliot K.
•

Elliot K wrote:

Singing
This has been touched on before in the Forum, but it bears repeating. In music that is melody-driven, there's a piece of advice that I got more than 30 years ago when I was first dipping into jazz improvisation: If you can't sing it, don't play it...

I remember being taught something similar, it went something like "sing what you play and play what you sing", not "if you can't sing it, don't play it". I kind of interpreted it as if I should be able to sing everything I play and decided to take voice lessons and practiced singing a lot. After 5 years I came to the conclusion that I'd never be able to sing those runs and scales with twists and turns as fast as I could play them. It's an awful lot easier to train and wiggle your fingers fast than it is to sing a fast run getting each 32nd note to sound on pitch without having most of the note being a slide into it and out into the next. There are highly trained singers that can do it, mostly classical and usually sopranos, but for most people I think you can forget it. So, it's definitely a good thing to learn to sing enough to match pitches and play with exercises as far as playing and singing, but I'd be very hesitant to not play something just because I can't sing it, unless it's OK to slow it down to a point where I can sing it.

  Aside from becoming more intimate with the music by being able to sing it, one of the advantages of singing what you play is that for slow passages you'll be more likely to sing more expressively than you can play, and you can try to play as expressively as you sing. This depends on your singng abilities too, but even an untrained voice will generally be very expressive if the notes are well within your range.

  I think that this might relate to this "improvisation" thread in that even with a slow, unornamented  piece (honkyoku for shakuhachi), two players playing the same notes will play them very differently. A good player will have a lot more movement within each note than a less skilled player, and two good players will often play dramatically differently despite that they are playing the same notes in the same timing. That's what expression is all about, it's kind of a way for classical players to improvise without hacking apart a composers intentions. Most jazz players limit their improvisation to what notes they can play when, however as the bar is raised with better teaching techniques there is a trend toward relying on expression through tone. Kenny G. is a good example, but since everyone seems to hate him (I think wrongfully), I'll point out Gato Barbieri. Talk about getting one note to take you places! However, no one has yet to wiggle there fingers like Charlie Parker could.

YuccaBruce wrote:

Improvisation-how far we've drifted from the shore

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. That it's kind of radical to improvise with shakuhachi? I don't think I've come across any instrument in any culture where some amount of improvisation isn't acceptable. Honkyoku may be an exception, I guess that's what was being addressed in this thread. But I'm fairly certain that there aren't a whole lot of shakuhachi players who are as addicted to sheet music as Western classical musicians are, and even in that genre improvisation is kind of a lost art because those ornaments and cadenzas used to be improvised. Improvising might not be all that cool of a thing to do because seasoned musicians in most cultures usually don't have much respect for young whippersnappers who come along with flashy riffs without first learning a good part of the standard repertiore the hard way via practice and repetition. Improvisation generally is supposed to be reserved for masters of the instrument, not something for someone who doesn't know the tune to rely upon just because he knows how to blow. Jazz is sort of an exception, improvising is encouraged early in the learning process, and I'm sure there are exceptions in other cultures too. So, while it's not that clear to me whether there's any improvisation allowed in Japanese music, are the shakuhachi improvisers out there really that far out?

  Personally, I've been focusing on Turkish ney and shakuhachi for a couple years now and not learning much of any traditional repertiore. I know it's kind of wrong, and that I'm not sounding Turkish or Japanese on either instrument and considering that, it's kind of hard to even say that I'm really improvising as opposed to just noodling around,  but I'm fairly sure that learning to blow before learning the music can't be all that bad of a thing. With silver flute I spent a lot of time and money on lessons where the teachers were rushing me through "learning" one piece after another without me even being able to blow well. I can't blame the teachers too much because what are they supposed to do when a student comes to there door once a week asking to be taught? Show the student what they need to practice to learn to blow and tell them to put in the long tone practice time and then tell the student to give them a call in a year or so??? To a naive student a teacher like that would be considered not much help. Soon I'll have to bite the bullet, shell out the bucks, and take the 4 hour $40 round trip to NYC regularly for lessons, but while I can still improve my tone by a lot and I know what to practice to achieve that, I'll continue to do that and "improvise" in the meantime.

  BTW, I'm aware of the internet lessons some teachers here offer. Maybe soon...


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!!!!EDIT!!!

  Uh-oh! On second thought it looks like I went on a rant here and said some things that were entirely misleading. I'm not suggesting that any of the teachers were bad although teaching is an art and some teachers will be better than others. I was just trying to point out a problem with teaching flute. So, while there is the dilemma for teachers of "what the heck do I teach while this student can hardly get a sound", good ones will know things to teach. I did not mean to suggest that anyone should feel like they have to be able to play every note in order to take lessons or not waste money taking lessons. It might feel like it sometimes, but good teachers know what they're doing.

Last edited by radi0gnome (2008-12-16 12:31:44)