Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Very interesting.

I wouldn't recognize a lot of American (United Statian) folk music either most likely... but I bet I know more than 4 songs.

I frequently have Japanesre people coming through my gallery, I mention my interest in Shakuhachi. Virtually all of them have never seen or heard 'live' Shakuhachi playing.

One woman, when shown a Shakuhachi, would not touch it, she was almost in fear of breaking some mystique regarding it.

But, they do recognise 'Sakura' when I play for them.

K.

I work at a college and have many japanese students, and when I play in the japanese garden that is part of the college, many of them ask me what kind of instrument I am playing, and when I tell them it's a shakuhachi, they don't know what it is, but it sounds familiar.

I then play some muraiki, and higher pitched "soundtrack" kind of musical noises, and they immediately recognize it from anime and movies. Some do recognize sakura even fewer recognize kojonotsuki.

I spoke to a friend who also plays shakuhachi and he told me that it doesn't surprise him. He said that the shakuhachi is the japanese version of a jug band instrument that many prefer to forget about.

I used to play in the streets regularly here in Japan. In Tokyo many people had not previously heard live shakuhachi before. And one guy remarked "that's.... shamisen, right?" But to be fair some people did recognise it. I even had a few people mention John Neptune! Since a lot of people are into jazz they had heard shakuhachi through John's music. Few knew the music I was playing, honkyoku, though I was glad to see it go down well even with some tough looking teenagers.

In Kyoto it was a different story. I had many more people there telling me their father or grandfather used to play shakuhachi. I used to play sankyoku there sometimes too and had many koto players listening in, knowing the pieces having studied them themselves.

As for "Auld Lang Syne", when I first came to Japan I was baffled when hearing this music playing in restaurants or shops in the evenings occasionally. What's going on, is it New Year already?! Finally I realised in Japan this is the signal to say "We're closing now, kindly leave".

I don't know about Tokyo but Justin was right about Kyoto, and the same goes for Nara. I often play songs like Kojyo no tsuki and Sakura Sakura and many people often sing along with them.  I hear it often mentioned that their father or granfather played and that they remember seeing komuso wandering around the neighborhood, unfortunately more than a few people said they were kind of scary or pushy. I don't really play Minyo but I have a feeling there is a bigger following in the countryside, but even still the listeners and the minyo shakuhachi player's numbers are dwindling.
I am performing tomorrow at Todaiji Temple in front of the Great Buddha (Daibutsu), I'll do a test and see the response from honkyoku and folk type songs. Given the atmosphere I'm 100% into doing honkyoku, but I know the grandmas will want a few nostalgic throwbacks to please them. Maybe even a little anime for the youngsters.

In my experience most people in Japan - especially the younger generation (under 50 today) know very little about traditional Japanese music.

Remember that they are also a product of a country that decided not to teach any traditional music in schools since 1871. It will be interesting to see if and how this will change when the kids who have since 2002 had at least some exposure to traditional music and musical instruments in middle school grow up.

I travelled 12 month in Japan in a van from north to south and on as many islands as possible. In my own experience I met most min'yō passionate people in the Tsugaru region in northern Honshū. There many - even to some degree the young - could sing along the few min'yō songs I could play.
Otherwise where-ever I have been in Japan the older generation loves min'yō (and enka)... when it comes to honkyoku.... some love it as a proud and beautiful part of the Japanese heritage - while quite a few thought it was boring... well it is just not party music.

Most Japanese I have met surely knew what a shakuhachi was... but very often it will be the first time they saw it or heard it live - unless they are playing music or doing something like that themselves.

The younger generation - in general - seems very cut off from traditional music that for them is just old and 'dasai' (not cool. I really hope the new school system will change this.

radi0gnome wrote:

Taldaran wrote:

I spoke to a friend who also plays shakuhachi and he told me that it doesn't surprise him. He said that the shakuhachi is the japanese version of a jug band instrument that many prefer to forget about.

I think I get his point, but jug band instruments are generally easy to play, kazoo and washboard being favorites, along with some kind of simple bass.

I guess I should have rephrased what I wrote saying. "folk instruments".

I played bluegrass with an excellent washtub bassist. He plays both electric and upright bass but really enjoys the "tub". It's an instrument that like shakuhachi takes practice and a good ear to play in pitch.

Last edited by Taldaran (2010-04-28 12:01:30)

Yes we have a regular bluegrass festival in Darrington Washington, and there are a lot of people who attend itbut I am not part of a jug band.

I also play banjo and one of the bluegrass bands I worked with did a couple of ozark style folk tunes and the bassist brought out his washtub...people laughed until we started to play. It was also fun to do Bela Fleck style with the tub too.

Seriously though he ripped on that tub! He had an acoustic engineer find the best spots to cut ports in it, and he used a clip on mike at the port to get the thump, and another one aimed near the spot where the string attaches to the tub to catch the attack of the string. It sounded huge.

I do think a jug band would be fun especially if you could pass around a full jug till it's empty and then you would have a backup instument at the ready!

I think a Bombay Sapphire bottle would work as a substitute...