Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

geni · 2006-10-27 16:34:09

Hi Guys,

I have this question..
How many pieces (traditional) do you know by memory?

And, which one you learned first?

Geni

caffeind · 2006-10-27 17:25:51

Ive memorised 9 honkyoku. First was Hon Shirabe.

How much importance does everyone place on memorising pieces?

Last edited by caffeind (2006-10-27 17:27:31)

dstone · 2006-10-27 17:56:40

I have been taught approximately 10 honkyoku but can play from heart only two or three at any given time without paper in front of me because I do not practice enough to keep them all ingrained in me. I really need to work on this. Continuing the bad habit, I'll probably continue to ask for or receive more honkyoku from my teacher (somewhat at the expense of the earlier honkyoku) to satisfy either intellectual or ego-based desires. Something to work on...

caffeind wrote:
How much importance does everyone place on memorising pieces?

I don't think it matters at all how many pieces one knows. But I do think playing from the heart (or at least memory) is most important.

On that topic... Some make a distinction between playing from memory and playing from heart. I just grabbed a Sri Chinmoy book on the subject... let me share a quote. Though he's not talking about honkyoku at all, I think this is a fundamentally valid principle...

Sri Chinmoy wrote:
Does it make a difference if you play music from memory rather than reading it off a sheet of music?

If you are interested in the spontaneous fountain of the heart, it is better to play music by heart. Then you can give life to the music. When you read music, the eyes are seeing the paper and the mind is operating. At that time, the mental consciousness enters into the picture; the paper consciousness enters into the mind, and the spontaneous, soulful qualities are all gone. So let the fountain flow only from the heart. If you have another small fountain in the mind, in spite of having a big fountain in the heart, you are going to create a problem. Again, if you know all the notes but just play mechanically, that also is not good. You should learn the music by heart, but you should also give life to the music while playing. Reading music takes away from the spiritual quality, even though it is the usual method.

This is a great book, easy reading. Maybe I'll put a quick review of it in the new reviews section.

-Darren.

Last edited by dstone (2006-10-27 18:05:26)

caffeind · 2006-10-27 18:34:06

Absolutely, number of pieces isnt important. Even four or five pieces seems to be enough for my lifetime. Ive selected a few favorites that I focus on.

A couple of methods I use for memorising... listening to an mp3 player with only the one track on it, listening to honkyoku and notating as it plays, writing out honkyoku from memory. Cover phrases on the notation with a texta as I memorise them, until all that is left is a few islands of information on the page. Not learning new pieces without having memorised the current piece.

To determine the overall flow of a piece, let alone the flow of individual phrases within it, you have to know where the music is going next, all the way through to the end. For me memorising is the only way with honkyoku.

Last edited by caffeind (2006-10-27 18:38:01)

Alex · 2006-10-30 04:03:36

Talking about how many pieces people know...

Does anybody know how many pieces a Komuso used to know? I was thinking the other day that when Kinko collected Honkyoku pieces from all over Japan, which later formed the Honkyoku Kinko repertoire, maybe the people he learned them from, those monks practicing suizen, only knew a few pieces, maybe only one. After all, if one tone is enough to reach enlightment, why bother to learn a lot of pieces?

Daniel Ryudo · 2006-10-30 04:17:42

My sensei (and his teacher) never stressed playing the honkyoku from memory and spent more time on gaikyoku, where he would have us playing one gaikyoku after another with no time to really absorb the pieces (unless we played them in concert a number of times) so I didn't start trying to memorize the honkyoku until after beginning to attend workshops with Yokoyama Katsuya and his students over the last five or six years. I've memorized eight honkyoku but if I don't play them every so often I forget parts of them so I could probably only play about five of those eight at present with no notation. The first piece I memorized was Tamuke, memorizing one line at a time, and singing the notes.

Last edited by Daniel Ryudo (2006-10-30 04:18:53)

Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

#1 2006-10-27 16:34:09

How many pieces do you know?

#2 2006-10-27 17:25:51

Re: How many pieces do you know?

#3 2006-10-27 17:56:40

Re: How many pieces do you know?

caffeind wrote:

Sri Chinmoy wrote:

#4 2006-10-27 18:34:06

Re: How many pieces do you know?

#5 2006-10-30 04:03:36

Re: How many pieces do you know?

#6 2006-10-30 04:17:42

Re: How many pieces do you know?

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