Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Well said Jeff.

I was playing in the park and a group of 10 year old school kids came by:

Kid number one: "Hey mister is that Chinese music?".

Kid number two: "No that's Japanese music. Japanese music is always sad."

True story.

Melancholy over being melancholy

Well put Jeff, and much to think about.

This whole sadness/melancholy business has been the source of much teeth-gnashing for me recently.   My partner, being somewhat of a stress-addict, likes to relax to happier music, like Cuban, and that sort of thing.  That's not really my cup of tea, but I can understand where she is coming from. 

I find that shakuhachi music demands attention, or focused listening.  It is intense stuff and not just background music.  I don't think you can wash the dishes and listen to honkyoku at the same time.  Then again, who knows. 

So, back to the teeth-gnashing part....

I was practicing sanya sugagaki recently when she freaked out on me, accusing me of trying to poison her mood and inflict the equivalent of "emotional poisoning".  I was taken aback to put it mildly.  For me, I was just practicing, but for her, the sadness factor was just too much and was plunging her into a depressive state (something she is not too prone to).  I guess I could take it as a compliment, as I was at least able to evoke an emotional response, but this has actually caused me to be a little more secretive with my practice as I do not wish to cause emotional distress or unbalance a mood that needs to be happier rather than sad. 

So, all this is just to say that I both understand, and suffer from, the fact that shakuahchi music seems to be so damned depressing.   I find it cathartic and  expressive and at moments, when I am "one" with the breath, I feel an indescribable connection to something more fundamental, but I suppose we need to be aware of those around us.  Sqealing out Hi and San no U till the paint peels may be fun, but is not going to win you a popularity contest. 

I guess there is a massive difference between playing a piece and listening to a piece.  I never used to think about this divide, but it does exist.  To make matters even more confusing, I try to explain to others that Honkyoku is not quite music, but a kind of sonic meditation.  Don't get me started on that one though.  Anyways, very thought-provoking post Jeff.

I think the answer is a lot simpler. Most non-musicians, and an awful lot of student musicians, equate slow music with sad music. Slow music does indeed loan itself to expressing sadness and in pop music it's easy to notice that an awful lot of slow songs have sad lyrics. However, outside of the pop music world slow tempi appear to be used more often to invoke calmness with an attempt to entrain the body to a resting state heartbeat.

I guess you've got to take into account who you're playing for to determine how they will interpret the piece.

I'll leave the the topic of minor keys and dissonances for further discussion because I just realized it isn't all that simple.

By far people have used the word 'haunting' rather than 'melancholic', and sometimes 'enchanting'.
And many have commented that the sound has 'lifted them rather than 'lowered' them, perhaps it has interrupted their already existing melancholy and brought them into the present.
Then I improvise a lot as well as playing the few Honkyoku I have learned.
And as the Honkyoku, 'thus have I heard' were formed by meditators so perhaps should be respected in that way. Meditation is not really an activity that is performed.

K.

edosan wrote:

Melancholy over being melancholy

Which Honkyoku is that, 'The Black Narcissus' ?

K.

What has been stated as the 'intent' of Honkyoku ?

Historical intent, Modern intent, or any other ?

I would like to have had the opportunity to be more involved with the Sangha, I am wondering how the emotional question is shaped by being in Japan or by being elsewhere, as the conditionings are different. I think this has something to do with your discussion. Yet, I am not so sure as to what a Westerner is any more, there has been so much migration during the last few decades. And to this point, in Japan, how much are the young Japanese following tradition as much as another Modern persona ?

K.

Jim Thompson wrote:

Most blues musicians I know (myself included) first reaction to honkyoku is "That's the blues".

I remember thinking of various people throughout history, musicians, artists, writers, other historical figures etc. who would be most interesting to hear what they would do with a shakuhachi because for one reason or another they seemed to me to have some innate affinity with the essence of the thing. Skip James was high on that list. So was Robert Pete Williams.

Last edited by ABRAXAS (2010-10-26 22:10:28)

radi0gnome wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:

Most blues musicians I know (myself included) first reaction to honkyoku is "That's the blues".

Maybe some blues sub-genre, I don't see any resemblance here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8iuhQfwm10

Maybe slide guitar..., but anything else, I don't see it. Blues has rhythm and a chord sequence. But I'm not a blues musician to any extent, where do you see it?

Why did you select that as an example ?

If you know anything about Manic-Depression, you know the blues. Then you know what is really Up, and what is really Down. And the time and space between.
I don't think many people are comfortable with those extremes for very long, it uses a lot of energy. And I also feel a lot of what we hear as 'Blues music' is pretty lightweight relative to the 'Dark Night of the Soul' that is deeply experienced.

So, can I identify these feelings in the Honkyoku I hear ?
I'm gonna check it out.

K.

Funny, but my personal experience doesn't reflect at all the views expressed so far. When I heard Shakuhachi for the first time I felt it was the sound of the soul longing to return home... but without any emotional edge. I've been playing for about thirty years  and never heard the word depressing or sad referred to the music. My girlfriend is a Yoga and Meditation teacher, and she leads once a week a Zen meditation session with me playing Honkyoku (usually an extended version of Kyorei and/or Honshirabe). She described Shakuhachi as "the sound of meditation" to her students (I guess I'm a lucky guy). I remember my first sensei shunning emotional expression of any kind, even when I came to the session with issues, the attitude was "shut up and play the flute". I've gained a great appreciation for that attitude as I've matured as a person and a player. The blues is emotional and rhythmical, and in that sense I don't see the parallel at all with Honkyoku.

Karmajampa wrote:

Also, while anything may be used as a meditative object, some things are more mundane than others. Consequentially, there are different results from the meditation , more or less beneficial.

K.

I have to disagree with this one too. Objects have no inherent qualities other than what we project on them. In that sense your guru's shoe may be much more powerful than any crystal, even though it would be pretty "mundane" to everybody else! Besides that, true meditation is deeply, simply and truly being in the moment, and therefore it has no "result", and is not dependent on any object.
  And talking about this, could it be that Honkyoku doesn't have an inherent quality either, and the experience is a combination of where the player's "being" is at that moment and where the listener's "being" is at? After all, the same piece played by two different players can "feel" totally different, and the same piece heard at different times and different circumstances can "feel" different too. And could "intention" came into play?
  In the end, it all comes down to mind games, and ultimately my sensei was totally right... shut up and play.

jdanza wrote:

The blues is emotional and rhythmical, and in that sense I don't see the parallel at all with Honkyoku.

While I enjoy the Lester Young videos, I second Jdanza's opinion.

jdanza wrote:

Objects have no inherent qualities other than what we project on them. In that sense your guru's shoe may be much more powerful than any crystal, even though it would be pretty "mundane" to everybody else! Besides that, true meditation is deeply, simply and truly being in the moment, and therefore it has no "result", and is not dependent on any object.

If that’s true Pepe, then your girlfriend should probably be telling her students that the shakuhachi is not “the sound of meditation” but potentially one of indefinitely many sounds of meditation. And I’d be very careful about projecting the qualities of a teddy bear onto an oncoming 18 wheeler in the hopes of getting a cuddle. Inherent qualities may be an illusion but they’re a very persistent illusion.