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Music of Japan

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Many styles of traditional music are included in the music of Japan. Numerous performers can be found across the country, playing a lot of styles of folk and classical music. The word for music in Japanese is 音楽 (ongaku), combining the kanji 音 (sound) with the kanji 楽 (music, comfort).

The modern Japanese music scene includes a wide array of performers in distinct styles of both traditional and modern styles, ranging from rock, salsa and tango to country music and hip hop. Local music often involves karaoke, a form of amateur performance in small nightclubs [1].

Characteristics

Outside of Japan, the country's music has an image closely tied to its pop music, which is generally bubblegum songs with Japanese lyrics and often incomprehensible English refrains. Pop stars (aidoru kashu) of this scene are generally attractive singers, boy bands and girl groups. However, music author John Clewley has described Japan's musical output as a "wide range... from ancient Buddhist chanting and court music to folk and old urban styles, from localised popular styles like kayokyoku and enka to Western classical, jazz and every form of pop... found in the West" [2].

The taiko is regarded as a simple but spiritual instrument

Japanese music has long been tied to Japanese rituals, literature and dance. Theatrical music is the most historically important field of Japanese music, which East Asian musical scholar Isabel Wong attributes to the "Japanese love of storytelling and preoccupation with ritual". She also notes the Japanese preoccupation with the "words and literature" of music, as opposed to the instrumentation, and that all Japanese instruments were "developed to emulate the human voice". She describes Japanese instrumental music as inherently chamber music "in its conception" [3].

Japanese music is eclectic, having borrowed instruments, scales and styles from neighboring cultures. Early poems, songs, and temple music employed only a few notes. Importations, particularly Chinese, began in the 5th century. Gagaku, which is still performed today, came from China while Buddhist song came from Korea — both in the 6th century. Many instruments, such as the koto, was introduced in the 9th and 10th centuries. The accompanied recitative of the Noh drama dates from the 14th century and the popular folk music, with the guitarlike shamisen, from the 16th.[4]

Classical music

There are countless types of classical music in Japan. Two of the oldest are shōmyō (声明), or Buddhist chanting, and gagaku (雅楽), or orchestral court music, both of which date to the Nara and Heian periods.

Gagaku is a type of classical music that has been performed at the Imperial court since the Heian period. Kagurauta (神楽歌), Azumaasobi(東遊) and Yamatouta(大和歌) are relatively indigenous repertories. tōgaku (唐楽) and komagaku (高麗楽) are the music originating in Chinese Tang dynasty and Korea. In addition, gagaku is divided into kangen (instrumental music performed as such) and bugaku (舞楽) (dance accompanied by gagaku).

Originating as early as the 13th century are honkyoku (本曲)("original pieces"). These are solo shakuhachi pieces played by mendicant Fuke sect priests of Zen buddhism. These priests, called komusō ("emptiness monk"), played honkyoku for alms and enlightenment. The Fuke sect ceased to exist in the 19th century, but a verbal and written lineage of many honkyoku continues today, though this music is now often practiced in a concert or performance setting.

Noh (能) is usually accompanied by music, uta (唄) and hayashi (囃子)

Theater also developed in Japan from an early age. Noh or nō arose out of various more popular traditions and by the 14th century had developed into a highly refined art. It was brought to its peak by Kan'ami (1333-1384) and Zeami (1363?-1443). In particular Zeami provided the core of the Noh repertory and authored many treatises on the secrets of the Noh tradition (until the modern era these were not widely read).

Another form of Japanese theater is the puppet theater, often known as bunraku (文楽). This traditional puppet theater also has roots in popular traditions and flourished especially during Chonin in the Edo period (1600-1868). It is usually accompanied by recitation (various styles of jōruri) accompanied by shamisen music.

During the Edo period human actors (after 1629 only men; after 1652 only male adults) performed the lively and popular kabuki (歌舞伎) theater. Kabuki, which could feature anything from historical plays to dance plays, was often accompanied by nagauta (長唄) style of singing and shamisen performance.

Biwa hōshi, Heike biwa, and mōsō

The biwa, a form of short-necked lute, was played by a group of itinerant performers (biwa hōshi) who used it to accompany stories. The most famous of these stories is The Tale of the Heike, a 13th century history of the triumph of the Minamoto clan over the Taira. Biwa hōshi began to organize themselves into a guild-like association (tōdō) for visually impaired men as early as the thirteenth century. This guild eventually controlled a large portion of the musical culture of Japan.

In addition numerous smaller groups of itinerant blind musicians were formed especially in the Kyushu area. These musicians, known as mōsō (=blind monk) toured their local areas and performed a variety of religious and semi-religious texts to purify households and bring about good health and good luck. They also maintained a repertory of secular genres. The biwa that they played was considerably smaller than the Heike biwa played by the biwa hōshi.

Lafcadio Hearn related in his book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things "Mimi-nashi Hoichi" (Hoichi the Earless), a Japanese ghost story about a blind biwa hōshi who performs "The Tale of the Heike"

Taiko

The taiko is a Japanese drum that comes in various sizes and is used to play a variety of musical genres. It has become particularly popular in recent years as the central instrument of percussion ensembles whose repertory is based on a variety of folk and festival music of the past. Such taiko music is played by large drum ensembles called kumi-daiko. Its origins are uncertain, but can be sketched out as far back as the 6th and 7th centuries, when a clay figure of a drummer indicates its existence. Chinese and Korean influences followed, but the instrument and its music remained uniquely Japanese. Taiko drums during this period were used during battle to intimidate the enemy and to communicate commands. Taiko continue to be used in the religious music of Buddhism and Shintoism. In the past players were holy men, who played only at special occasions and in small groups, but in time secular men (rarely women) also played the taiko in semi-religious festivals such as the bon dance.

Modern ensemble taiko is said to have been invented by Daihachi Oguchi in 1951. A jazz drummer, Oguchi incorporated his musical background into large ensembles, which he had also designed. His energetic style made his group popular throughout Japan, and made the Hokuriku region a center for taiko music. Musicians to arise from this wave of popularity included Sukeroku Daiko and his bandmate Seido Kobayashi. 1969 saw a group called Za Ondekoza founded by Tagayasu Den; Za Ondekoza gathered together young performers who innovated a new roots revival version of taiko, which was used as a way of life in communal lifestyles. During the 1970s, the Japanese government allocated funds to preserve Japanese culture, and many community taiko groups were formed. Later in the century, taiko groups spread across the world, especially to the United States. There is now a video game, called Taiko Drum Master, about taiko.

Yukar

Among the minority Ainu of the north, yukar (mimicry) is a form of epic poetry. The stories typically involve Kamui, the god of nature, and Pojaumpe, an orphan-warrior.

Min'yō: Folk Music

Geisha with her shamisen, 1904

Japanese folk songs (民謡 min'yō) can be grouped and classified in many ways but it is often convenient to think of four main categories: work songs, religious songs (such as sato kagura, a form of Shintoist music), songs used for gatherings such as weddings, funerals, and festivals (matsuri, especially Obon), and children's songs (warabe uta).

In minyō, singers are typically accompanied by the 3 stringed lute known as the shamisen, taiko drums, and a bamboo flute called shakuhachi. Other instruments that could accompany are a transverse flute known as the shinobue, a bell known as kane, a hand drum called the tsuzumi, and/or a 13 stringed zither known as the koto. In Okinawa, the main instrument is the sanshin. These are traditional Japanese instruments, but modern instrumentation, such as electric guitars and synthesizers is, also used in this day and age, when enka singers cover traditional min'yō songs (Enka being a Japanese music genre all its own...).

Terms often heard when speaking about min'yō are ondo, bushi, bon uta, and komori uta. An ondo generally describes any folk song with a distinctive swing that may be heard as 2/4 time rhythm (though performers usually do not group beats). The typical folk song heard at Obon festival dances will most likely be an ondo. A fushi is a song with a distinctive melody. Its very name, which is pronounced "bushi" in compounds, means "section" or "node." The word is rarely used on its own, but is usually prefixed by a term referring to occupation, location, personal name or the like. Bon uta, as the name describes, are songs for Obon, the lantern festival of the dead. Komori uta are children's lullabies. The names of min'yo songs often include descriptive term, usually at the end. IE- Tokyo Ondo, Kushimoto Bushi, Hokkai Bon Uta, Itsuki no Komoriuta...

Many of these songs include extra stress on certain syllables, as well as pitched shouts (kakegoe). Kakegoe are generally shouts of cheer, but in min'yō they are often included as parts of choruses. There are many kakegoe, though they vary from region to region. In Okinawa Min'yō, for example, one will hear the common "ha iya sasa!" In mainland Japan, however, one will be more likely to hear "a yoisho!," "sate!," or "a sore!" Others are "a donto koi!," and "dokoisho!"

Recently a guild-based system known as the iemoto system has been applied to some forms of min'yō; it is called. This system was originally developed for transmitting classical genres such as nagauta, shakuhachi, or koto music, but since it proved profitable to teachers and was supported by students who wished to obtain certificates of proficiency and artist's names continues to spread to genres such as min'yō, Tsugaru-jamisen, and other forms of music that were traditionally transmitted more informally. Today some min'yō are passed on in such pseudo-family organizations, and long apprenticeships are common.

See also Ainu music of north Japan.

Okinawan folk music

Main article: Music of Okinawa

File:Rimi2004.jpg
Rimi Natsukawa 2004

Okinawa has been under the control of Japan since 1609, except for a brief period of US domination during and after World War II. Umui, religious songs, shima uta, dance songs, and, especially katcharsee, lively celebratory music, were all popular. A modern Okinawan folk artist is Rimi Natsukawa who is most famous for her song Nada Sousou.

Okinawan folk music varies from mainland Japanese folk music in several ways.

First, instrumentation. Okinawan folk music is often accompanied by the sanshin whereas in mainland Japan, the shamisen accompanies instead. Other Okinawan instruments include the Sanba (which produce a clicking sound similar to that of castanets) and a sharp bird whistle.

Second, tonality. A pentatonic scale, which coincides with the major pentatonic scale of Western musical disciplines, is often heard in min'yō from the main islands of Japan. In this pentatonic scale the subdominant and leading tone (scale degrees 4 and 7 of the Western major scale) are omitted, resulting in a musical scale with no half-steps between each note. (Do, Re, Mi, So, La in solfeggio, or scale degrees 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6) Okinawan min'yō, however, is characterized by scales that include the half-steps omitted in the aforementioned pentatonic scale, when analyzed in the Western discipline of music. In fact, the most common scale used in Okinawan min'yō includes scale degrees 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7.

Arrival of Western music

Ayumi Hamasaki, Japan's top-selling female artist, appears on the cover of one of her latest albums, MY STORY.

After the Meiji Restoration introduced Western musical instruction, a bureaucrat named Izawa Shuji compiled songs like "Auld Lang Syne" and commissioned songs using a pentatonic melody. Western music, especially military marches, soon became popular in Japan. Two major forms of music that developed during this period were shoka, which was composed to bring western music to schools, and gunka, which are military marches with some Japanese elements.

As Japan moved towards representative democracy in the late 19th century, leaders hired singers to sell copies of songs that aired their messages, since the leaders themselves were usually prohibited from speaking in public. This developed into a form of ballad called enka, which became quite popular in the 20th century, though its popularity has waned since the 1970s and enjoys little favour with contemporary youth. Famous enka singers include Misora Hibari and Ikuzo Yoshi. Also at the end of the 19th century, an Osakan form of streetcorner singing became popular; this was called ryūkōka. This included the first two Japanese stars, Yoshida Naramura and Tochuken Kumoemon.

Westernized pop music is called kayōkyoku, which is said to have begun with "Kachūsha no uta" (1914; see 1914 in music). This song was composed by Nakayama Shimpei and first appeared in a dramatization of Resurrection by Tolstoy, sung by Matsui Samako. The song became a hit among enka singers, and was one of the first major best-selling records in Japan. Kayokyoku became a major industry, especially after the arrival of superstar Misora Hibari.

Later, in the 1950s, tango and other kinds of Latin music, especially Cuban music, became very popular in Japan. A distinctively Japanese form of tango called dodompa also developed. Kayokyoku became associated entirely with traditional Japanese structures, while more Western-style music was called Japanese pops. In the 1960s, Japanese bands imitated The Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, along with other Appalachian folk music, psychedelic rock, mod and similar genres; this was called Group Sounds.

Since then, bubblegum pop and J-Pop have become some of the best-selling forms of music, and are often used in films and television, especially in Japanese animation. The rise of disposable pop has been linked with the popularity of karaoke, leading to much criticism that both trends are consumerist and shallow. For example, Kazufumi Miyazawa of The Boom, claims "I hate that buy, listen and throw away and sing at a karaoke bar mentality."

The late 90's brought the arrival of many new artists, including Ayumi Hamasaki and Utada Hikaru. To date, Hamasaki has sold a combined total of 43 million copies of all her singles and albums which makes her the highest-selling female artist ever in Japan while Utada Hikaru's debut album, "First Love", went on to be the highest-selling album ever in Japan with 7.6 million copies sold.

Japanese rock

Happy End - frequently cited as the first Japanese rock band

Main article: Japanese rock

Homegrown Japanese county rock had developed by the late 1960s. Artist like Happy End is considered to have virtually developed the genre. During the 1970s, it grew more popular. The Okinawan band Champloose, along with Carol, RC Succession and Shinji Harada were especially famous and helped define the genre's sound. In the 1980s, the Boøwy, Southern All Stars became the biggest band in Japanese rock's history, and inspired alternative rock bands like Shonen Knife & the Boredoms and Tama & Little Creatures. Most influentially, the 1980s spawned Yellow Magic Orchestra, which was inspired by developing electronic music, led by Haruomi Hosono. In the latter period of 80s, rock duo B'z made their debut, they have been getting No. 1 in all their singles and albums since their first No. 1 single "Taiyou no Komachi Angel" in 1990. This is Japanese historical record.

In 1980, Huruoma and Ry Cooder, an American musician, collaborated on a rock album with Shoukichi Kina, driving force behind the aforementioned Okinawan band Champloose. They were followed by Sandii & the Sunsetz, who further mixed Japanese and Okinawan influences. At the same time, singer-songwriters like Mana and Hyde became extremely popular.

Japanese Latin,reggae and ska music

Other forms of music, from Indonesia, Jamaica and elsewhere, were assimilated. African soukous and Latin music was popular as was Jamaican reggae and ska, exemplified by Rankin' Taxi and Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra .

Roots music

In the late 1980s, roots bands like Shang Shang Typhoon and The Boom became popular. Okinawan roots bands like Nenes and Kina were also commercially and critically successful. This led to the second wave of Okinawan music, led by the sudden success of Rinkenband. A new wave of bands followed, including the comebacks of Champluse and Kina, as well as new acts like Soul Flower Union. An updated form of Okinawan folk called kawachi ondo became popular, led by Kikusuimaru Kawachiya; very similar to kawachi ondo is Tademaru Sakuragawa's goshu ondo.

Western classical music

File:Ozawa Vienna NYC.gif
Seiji Ozawa conducting the Vienna New Year Concert

Western classical music has a strong presence in Japan and the country is one of the most important markets for classical music. A number of Japanese composers have written in the western classical music tradition, with Toru Takemitsu (famous as well for his avant-garde works and movie scoring) being the best known. Also famous is the conductor Seiji Ozawa. Since 1999 the pianist Fujiko Hemming, who plays Liszt and Chopin, has been famous and her CDs have sold millions of copies.

Jazz

From the 1930s on (except during World War 2, when it was repressed as music of the enemy), jazz, like classical music has had a strong presence in Japan and is an important market for the music; it's not uncommon for out-of print jazz recordings to be available only in Japan. Today, a number of Japanese are playing jazz, and not just to audiences in Japan. Musicians such as Hiromi, Keiko Matsui, June Kuramoto (of Hiroshima fame) & Sadao Watanabe have a huge fan base outside their native country.

Game music

When the first electronic games were sold, they only had rudimentary sound chips with which to produce music. As the technology advanced. the quality of sound and music these game machines could produce increased dramatically. The first game to take credit for its music was Xevious, also noteworthy for its deeply (at that time) constructed stories. Though many games have had beautiful music to accompany their gameplay, one of the most important games in the history of the video game music is Dragon Quest. Koichi Sugiyama, a composer who was known for his music for various anime and TV shows, including Cyborg 009 and a feature film of Godzilla vs. Biollante, got involved in the project out of the pure curiosity and proved that games can have serious soundtracks. Until his involvement, music and sounds were often neglected in the development of video games and programmers with little musical knowledge were forced to write the soundtracks as well. Undaunted by technological limits, Sugiyama worked with only 8 part polyphony to create a soundtrack that would not tire the player despite hours and hours of gameplay.

Another well-known author of video game music is Nobuo Uematsu of Squaresoft. Even Uematsu's earlier compositions for the game series, Final Fantasy, on Famicom (Nintendo in America) are being arranged for full orchestral score. In 2003, he even took his rock-based tunes from their original MIDI format and created The Black Mages.

Koji Kondo, the main composer for Nintendo, is also prominent on the Japanese game music scene. He is best-known for the Zelda and Mario themes. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is speculated to have fully orchestrated game music.

Today, game soundtracks are sold on CD. Famous singers like Utada Hikaru sometimes sing songs for games as well, and this is also seen as a way for unknown singers to make their names for themselves.

Traditional instruments

See also

Template:EastAsianmusic

References

  • Brandon, James R., William P. Malm, and Donald H. Shively. Studies in Kabuki: Its Acting, Music, and Historical Context. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1978.
  • Clewley, John (2000). "The Culture Blender"". In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.) (ed.). World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific. Rough Guides. pp. 143-159. ISBN 1858286360.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  • Malm, William P. Japanese Music and Musical Instruments. 1st ed. Tokyo, Rutland, Vt.: C. E. Tuttle Co., 1959.
  • ---. Nagauta: The Heart of Kabuki Music. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973.
  • Wong, Isabel (1997). "The Music of Japan". Excursions in World Music (2nd Ed. ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. pp. 104–129. ISBN 0132306328. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)

Notes

  1. ^ Clewley, pg. 143
  2. ^ Clewley, pg. 143
  3. ^ Wong, pgs. 128 - 129
  4. ^ The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia 1983 edition ISBN:0-380-63396-5 © Columbia University Press
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