Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Thanks Phil,

Yeah, I was contacted by someone who wants to teach themselves Japanese music theory from a book and play it on Western instruments. When I explained that Japanese music doesn't even have a consistent notational system from instrument to instrument (in fact it's not notes, it's more like instructions), no score which can comprise all the instruments in an ensemble, that we never talk about music theory, blah blah, I realized how strange our practice is.

I told her she can learn some Japanese songs but that I don't know a simple way to learn the theory without learning some of the actual instruments.

The classic Malm book "Japanese Music and Musical Instruments" explains the basics of the scales, covers many forms of music, and even includes some appendices explaining the notation a bit. A very broad overview, but not bad as an introduction to the whole area of hogaku.

All this information is helpful. But the question still remains, "How do you play hogaku on western instruments?". Sure Rampal made a CD with the Western flute, but it looks like shakuhachi is better at playing Western music than flute is at playing Japanese music. Interesting that.

Tairaku wrote:

When I explained that Japanese music doesn't even have a consistent notational system from instrument to instrument (in fact it's not notes, it's more like instructions), no score which can comprise all the instruments in an ensemble, that we never talk about music theory, blah blah, I realized how strange our practice is.

I used to think that this was rather strange. The more I kept playing the more sense it made. The way I see it now, writing down exact instructions actually limits your playing a fair bit. Not only are you somewhat stuck with that is on the paper you also start to think in those terms.

Imagine playing different variations of Ro. Even without opening any holes at all you can produce what seems like an endless amount of different types of sounds. Some have very fine details thrown in, others are dramatically different. The more you try to categorise these sounds the less variety you actually have.

I talk about this topic a fair bit with my father who plays several western instruments. It took him a while to understand the idea. To him, there is basically one way to play some basic scale. It sounds the same every time and if it doesn't, you are doing something wrong. Starting a sound from nothing and slowly building it up was "wrong" for him because D is supposed to sound like something and have consistent volume unless the notes say otherwise. He actually can't play most anything without notation even though he has gone through those pieces a million times. To him, the notation is the foundation of music in a sense.

A while ago I played a recording of some honkyoku for him. Can't remember what it was but it was played on a fairly large flute and it was the kind of piece where it's rather hard to find any individual notes at all. He listened to it and said "to me, this isn't about music. Its' about philosophy". It was perhaps the first time we agreed on something about the differences between the two completely different styles of music.

amokrun wrote:

To him, the notation is the foundation of music in a sense.

I've noticed that this is a "problem" with a lot of musicians. I've come to the conclusion (many years after being taught it) that the notation is *not* the music, has nothing to do with the music, and is just an aid in memorizing and learning the music. A lot of very good Western musicians are lost without notated music. Part of the reason is the expansiveness of the repertoire they're expected to learn because it would be nearly impossible to memorize that many pieces, and partly because composers have come to realize that since the musicians are going to be reading the music and not memorizing it, they can write stuff that no one will ever be able to memorize in a reasonable amount of time. As far as it being a "problem", it is and it isn't. On one hand some of the most demanded musicians will be those that will be able to sight-read anything you put in front of them with minimal "teaching". On the other hand, I've heard old 78 recordings of flute players who I assume had much more limited repertiores than Galway or Rampal (I find it astounding how much those guys recorded), but sound as good as the best performances by those greats. Ie., I think something's been lost by demanding musicians to work as music machines rather than musicians.

radi0gnome wrote:

As far as it being a "problem", it is and it isn't. On one hand some of the most demanded musicians will be those that will be able to sight-read anything you put in front of them with minimal "teaching".

I would bet that that is one of the reasons. Being able to play anything that gets thrown at you well enough means that you can perform anywhere and play just about anything. Naturally this is a good thing if you are in the business of making money from playing. I also think that notation being the fundamental representation of a piece has the advantage that it's easy to preserve music and teach it. You just need to learn the notation, learn to play something and you have instant access to more or less all the music ever made. Compare this to learning one piece at a time and it's easy to see why this approach is a good thing.

There is a lot I'd love to write about my views on the topic but I fear I've derailed this thread badly enough as it is. Maybe another thread on the topic would be a good idea at some point. It's certainly an interesting topic to cover.

I had a CD of that guy.Great player.