Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

INVESTIGATION COMMENCED

I'm so terrified by the "DOKYOKU POLIZEI" that I withdraw my request.

Thanks to all that responded, and be assured that I will immediately delete all traces of our correspondence.

(does this *really* need a smiley)

Meian student wrote:

No help on the Furuya score, but Ajikan is in Tokuyama's Red coded (advanced) sheet music collection -- numbered R7 on shakuhachi.com. The recording is on Tokuyama's Shumi album.

Since it's in the Jin Nyodo repertoire, I'm sure you could learn this through Bill Shozan Schultz. I'm sure he could teach it from either score. Or both!

-- Chris Moran

Thanks Chris,
I know Bill Schultz can teach both. I am just curious where someone can buy it?

BTW, how much Tokuyama's scores are different from Nyodo's or Furuya's ones (in terms of pieces, not just calligraphy)? I saw Kyorei, it looks quite different from Nyodo's version.

Thanks a lot, Nyokai!

nyokai wrote:

Tokuyama has some rarer pieces that are not in the Jin Nyodo repertoire. Of the ones that are, the details are often different, but the overall structure of the pieces is similar and the overall sound is VERY similar. He is a Meian player.

As for Kyorei, his is very close to Jin Nyodo's except that he is one of those players who plays the first half in the high register. This is a very common way of doing it among some schools of Meian players (including some Taizan Ha branches). As for the notation, his Kyorei notation and Jin Nyodo's are very close -- you might have been thrown off because he uses the ha character where Jin Nyodo uses ri and hi.

Hi Nyokai
As you probably know, Kyorei comes from the Seien-ryu repertoire of Fudaiji. However it was popularized by Higuchi Taizan who learned it from his Seien-ryu teacher. The versions usually heard today come from Higuchi Taizan's transmission of his arrangement of the piece.

Taizan kept the basic melody of the piece but rearranged it in several ways, by repeating some phrases, removing some sections, changing the ornamentation slightly, and perhaps most significantly by changing the register. In Seien-ryu the first half of the piece is in otsu, and the second half in kan. Taizan changed this putting the first half in kan and the second half in otsu. One explanation I have heard for this is that Taizan had also studied Banshiki Cho (he studied Kinko-ryu with Araki Kodo II (Araki Chikuo)), which is a similar piece but which starts in Kan first, then otsu. I don't know whether that is the real reason.

Jin Nyodo's Kyorei appears to follow Higuchi Taizan's arrangement, with some additional arrangement. It appears that Jin follows the first half (kan section) of Taizan's arrangement, but playing it instead in otsu. Then repeats that section once more (still in otsu) and ends with the first 2 phrases (more or less: tsu, re, u, ... ri) of the second section, omitting the rest of the second section. Thus he stays in otsu for the entire piece. Other than that it is pretty identical, with just a few stylistic changes.

Example:
A section from the beginning of the piece (I will write in Kinko style so everyone can understand. New line represents new breath):
Seien-ryu:

OTSU
tsu re u
u ri ri
u ri ri

becomes
Higuchi Taizan's version:

KAN
tsu
tsu re
u
ri ri
tsu
tsu re u
ri ri
tsu re u
ri ri
ri ri ri

Then
JIN NYODO (differences from Taizan's version highlighted in CAPITAL LETTERS):

OTSU
tsu
tsu re
u (END PITCH DOWN)
U ri ri
tsu
tsu re u (END PITCH DOWN)
U ri ri
tsu re u (END PITCH DOWN)
U ri ri
U ri ri ri


Do you know from whom Jin learned the piece? I wonder if he received it in this arrangement or whether he arranged it himself after learning it from Taizan-ha.

Last edited by Justin (2009-07-18 00:35:27)

Bruce wrote:

>That notation is the Chikuho version of Ajikan.

How can a piece notated in Furuya's modified Kinko script be a Chikuho version?  A version of a piece is intimately tide up with the way the notation spells out how the piece should be played.  You can "translate" the note order from one kind of notation to another, but many of the other aspects of the piece that the notation system attempts to convey are more difficult, if not impossible, to translate on the page.

Now, I suppose that one could argue that Furuya's score for Ajikan is so sparse that it could be used to teach the Chikuho version of the piece, but in that regard, so could the Aoki Reibo version: "Ignore this Re here, hit Chi again here, lots of furi in this phrase," or Jin Nyodo's version.

Nevertheless, it is indeed the Chikuho version of Ajikan. Riley plays the Chikuho version, and taught me that very version from that very sheet, during which time I did mark it up a bit, but only for my own edification (sic), adding nothing substantial to it. There is no particular reason why a very close approximation can't be rendered from one notation to another, especially as Furuya likely transcribed the piece into his own hand from a recording, and not from the Chikuho notation. There is nothing unique about the way the shakuhachi is played in any version of Ajikan (or any other honkyoku, I reckon) that requires a particular notation to transmit it. I have no idea how this came to pass (a Chikuho honkyoku written out in Furuya's New Kinko), having been too distracted to ask about it at the time.

Last edited by edosan (2009-07-18 01:19:46)

edosan wrote:

Nevertheless, it is indeed the Chikuho version of Ajikan.

That explains then why it is totally different from Miyagawa Nyozan's Ajikan! I had been quietly wondering whether it was a hoax after all the recent discussion of notation copyright! Do you know the history of this piece? A Chikuho composition? (Couldn't find info on it from the komuso.com Chikuho page).

nyokai wrote:

I have always been fascinated by the melodic and structural similarities between Banshiki-cho (Kinko piece) and Kyorei.

Yes it does seem they share common ancestry. Fudaiji was a branch monastery of the the main Kanto temples where Kinko-ryu was based and I believe they were quite strongly connected. It's a shame that so much of the history was lost from the bombing of Hamamatsu during the war, destroying many documents which could perhaps have told us more about this.

nyokai wrote:

I really think they are the same piece, that Kyorei is a slowed-down version broken into more breaths and minus the standard Kinko ornaments.

It seems there has been some general tendency to slow down the pieces. This piece is a good example - looking at the example I gave above of the older Seien-ryu version compared to the Taizan (and Nyodo) version you can see the increase in breaths. I like slow honkyoku, but it's interesting to think how the rhythm of many of the pieces may have been quite different in the Edo period.

Chris Moran wrote:

I think Dr. Lee needs to be questioned.

Here's his email:

     riley[at]rileylee[dot]net

Question away. I think he may even be back in Oz by now. If you want another hint: Listen to Ajikan on Riley's CD 'Breath-Sight' while peering at the Furuya Ajikan in question [put those handcuffs away...we'll discuss that later...], and you will see that it is the very same rendition as on the printed page. Finally, it ain't like any Ajikan you know of, on account of it's Chikuho.

But, you know, go ahead. Ask him.

Tairaku wrote:

I wonder why Furuya transcribed the notation from Chikuho to Kinko, and where he learnt it from.

It's enigmatic (something I overheard a tour guide say to a visitor at Stonehenge in 1988...).

Chris,
    Did I miss something? Last time I looked you were the Grand Knobness or something and now here you are an inmate. Wha'  hoppen?

Tairaku wrote:

Rumor has it he's been "rendered" by the DOKYOKU POLIZEI (not for any particular offense, but as a 'sympathizer') and is now in an "undisclosed location" somewhere in Japan or Germany. If we don't hear from him soon www.shakuhachiforum.com legal aid will call Amnesty International and Knobiers Sans Frontieres and see what we can do to spring him. In any conflict the journalists are among the most vulnerable.

I'm really sorry to hear that. I have fond memories of Chris as a happy go lucky kid when we were both working as towel boys in a Bangkok brothel in the early seventies. As far as his more recent political activities go, I swear to you, I know nothing.