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Japan Music
Traditional music, song, and dance have been performed
by
women, notably the geisha of Tokyo and Kyoto. Theatrical
performances by Kyoto geisha can be seen in the spring and
autumn
Miyako Odori dance performances. A nagauta (lyric
music)
singing group has a full orchestral ensemble, consisting
of drums,
flutes, samisen, and koto. The traditional
musical
notation is based on a five-tone scale, with semitones
often ending
on a rising note. Famous performers may play the
samisen or
koto only, or they may play together with a singer
or
dancer. The dances come from No, Kabuki, and folk sources,
featuring large ensemble dances as highlights of these
brilliant
spectacles.
Folk music and dance deriving from regional festivals
and
ceremonies began to become well-known in Japan through
radio,
television, and recordings. Folk festivals, concerts,
contests, and
taverns specializing in folk singing contributed to the
rising
popularity of these ancient forms, revitalized by the
growing
desire of the young in the 1980s to learn traditional
agrarian
songs and dances, while the Japan Folkloric Dance Ensemble
performed them internationally. Some thirty outstanding
performers
from all the traditional performing arts were designated
as
mukei bunkazai at the end of the 1980s.
Classical Western music has become a fundamental part
of
Japanese musical education since its introduction in the
nineteenth
century. The Toho School of Music in Tokyo has produced
many
outstanding international performers on the piano and
stringed
instruments. Children commonly studied piano or violin,
and the
famous Suzuki violin method of training children from the
age of
two had produced a generation of virtuosos; some, such as
Midori,
enjoyed an international reputation.
Symphony orchestras played in Tokyo and most major
cities, also
making international tours. Japanese musicians and
conductors
gained international recognition, some performing
regularly with
top foreign orchestras overseas and on tour in Japan.
Contemporary
Japanese composers have experimented widely with
instruments: using
Japanese and Western instruments together, using only
Asian
instruments, and capturing traditional sounds with
electronic
synthesizers and Western instruments. The Ensemble
Nipponica, Music
Today, and Sound Space Ark were among the major groups
promoting
modern Japanese music.
Classical Western opera enjoyed a boom, with many
foreign
companies performing, and even local companies rose to new
heights
with the development of leading operatic singers. Further
evidence
of interest in Japanese themes was shown by a major
competition to
write a new opera about Chikamatsu, with music composed by
Hara
Kazuko, a Doshisha University professor.
Popular music was enjoyed in many forms. Musical
comedies and
revues were standard urban entertainment. Broadway and
London hits
were quickly adapted by Tokyo theater troupes, often using
foreign
directors for notable productions and sometimes featuring
Western
actors who spoke their lines in Japanese. Japanese youth
everywhere
enjoyed popular music: highly international jazz, rock,
heavy
metal, folk, new music, pop, synthesized music,
instrumental music,
and Japanese folk songs. Springing from popular music were
the
works of experimental composers like Hosono Haruomi and
Sakamoto
Ryuichi, who blended Middle Eastern or Chinese sounds for
the huge
recording industry and film sound tracks. In 1988 Sakamoto
was
Japan's first Oscar-winning musician for his score for
The Last
Emperor.
Live jazz in concert halls, open air, and hundreds of
disco
coffee shops and pianobars was enthusiastically embraced.
While
American jazz greats were acclaimed, veteran Japanese
instrumentalists Watanabe Sadao and Hino Teramasu also commanded
major
audiences at jazz festivals. Kitaro was the leading
composer in
synthesized sounds, providing sometimes exotic, but
generally
soothing, music dear to the frazzled urbanite. While
percussionist
Tsuchitori Toshi recreated the Mahabharata and
other ethnic
works, an indigenous kind of jazz poured from the Sado
Island Kodo
drummers, whose prodigious athletic performances
mesmerized all and
made their home a new music festival center. Singing and
dancing at
amateur open nights (karaoke) at a growing number
of pubs
was an activity in which everyone could shine by singing
along with
prerecorded tapes. In the late 1980s, the
kawaiko-chan, the
new girl singers, also were popular. Records, tapes, and
compact
discs made every type of music available nationwide and
provided
common experience for music appreciation.
Data as of January 1994
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