"but I really, really wanna thank you / for dancing till the end / you found a way to break up"

[larryhammer]

Belated realization: the music from my childhood that I mentally label "traditional Japanese music" is almost all shinkyoku ("new music") compositions for shakuhachi flute and koto composed in the early 20th century with conscious Western influences. That last may be why recordings are available in the West, being partially adapted to the classical music listener's taste -- but that's armchair sociology. I've no idea why I imprinted on this style in particular, especially instead of traditional sankyoku ("trio") music for a three-instrument ensemble of shakuhachi, koto, and shamisan. My parents' musical tastes may be involved.

Some examples:

"The Sea in Spring" (warning: autoplay) is a classic by Michio Miyagi -- link is to a 1930 recording with the composer on koto.

Another by Miyagi. More are available here and here.

A recent concert featuring music of Miyagi, one of his students, and the student's school with a mostly koto focus, but includes two shakuhachi+koto pieces (starting at 23:00).

Many titles linked to from this page have clips, usually 30 seconds long, of available recordings by many composers.

---L.

Subject quote from "Dance Apocalyptic," Janelle Monae.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I love the fusion of Japanese and Western music. My favorite opera, by far, of Puccini's is Madama Butterfly, whose Japanese influence is minimal, but enough there to be utterly splendid, at least to my ear.

[larryhammer]

Heh -- the fusion from the other direction.

---L.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm kind of curious as to why your parents were playing shinkyoku so much during your childhood that you remember it today.

As someone playing this music as a pretty serious hobby, it's extremely amusing to see the Tadaos anonymized away as Miyagi's students. It's like, "the program will feature music by Haydn and one of his students, including the latter's ninth and final symphony." (Maybe not quite that extreme...)

What is really interesting is that below the layer of shinkyoku you have Meiji shinkyoku, which are the same sort of thing -- self-aware attempts to update traditional koto music for changing times, just a century earlier. But this layer of music tends to get subsumed into the "traditional" category, because although it did draw on foreign influences (e.g. Chinese-derived popular "minshingaku"), it didn't do so as overtly or systematically. To the point where now to the untrained ear many of the pieces are indistinguishable in style from what came centuries before. I don't think the same can be said of Miyagi's shinkyoku. --Matt

[larryhammer]

Miyagi is clearly, yes, drawing on Western forms, especially contemporary (to him) composers, in a way that I cannot discern in the Meiji shinkyoku I came across while poking about. I can't really tell the difference between Meiji and Edo music, to be honest -- as you say, no training.

"Miyagi's students" was easier than trying to explain, especially since I'd probably get the explanation wrong.

As for why, I've always assumed it was part of the brickabrack (along with a flute, an ink painting, and an origami book) my parents picked up during our year in Sendai when I was four that formed the background of my childhood.

---L.