What is this Japanese musical style, and how can I find more of it?
March 10, 2012 1:47 AM Subscribe
What is this Japanese musical style, and how can I find more of it?
What is this Japanese musical style, and how can I find more of it?
There's a particular style of music that I've stumbled across a few times and find very intriguing. Here are two brief examples recorded from the online radio station mentioned below.
The instrumentation always includes a plucked string instrument and percussion, and often a flute, as well as vocals. It's much more dense and rhythmically predictable than any of the traditional music styles for which I've found clearly labeled examples. I'm especially drawn to the fast pieces with multi-part vocals; however, there are slower and single-voice songs which have a lot of the same structure.
It seems to come up fairly often in the 5-7 am time slot on this Okinawa radio station during a program listed as 民謡特集, which Google Translate tells me means "Special folk song." I don't speak a word of the language, and so far my cut-and-paste and machine translation skills have failed to dig up much that's useful. I'd love to know:
1 - What's this music called, at whatever levels of specificity are appropriate.
2 - What magic keywords can I use to convince both the internet and Japanese record shops to show me more of it?
3 - Can anyone give me a very brief rundown on the music's cultural context? Are there particular political, social, or religious associations? Who is likely to be in the domestic audience listening to this stuff today?
Thanks!
Oh, and, I apologize to those who feel that posting audio tracks to youtube is inelegant. I generally agree with you. But, I've had a devil of a time finding anonymous and free places to post audio that aren't broken in my browser, to say nothing of your browser.
What is this Japanese musical style, and how can I find more of it?
There's a particular style of music that I've stumbled across a few times and find very intriguing. Here are two brief examples recorded from the online radio station mentioned below.
The instrumentation always includes a plucked string instrument and percussion, and often a flute, as well as vocals. It's much more dense and rhythmically predictable than any of the traditional music styles for which I've found clearly labeled examples. I'm especially drawn to the fast pieces with multi-part vocals; however, there are slower and single-voice songs which have a lot of the same structure.
It seems to come up fairly often in the 5-7 am time slot on this Okinawa radio station during a program listed as 民謡特集, which Google Translate tells me means "Special folk song." I don't speak a word of the language, and so far my cut-and-paste and machine translation skills have failed to dig up much that's useful. I'd love to know:
1 - What's this music called, at whatever levels of specificity are appropriate.
2 - What magic keywords can I use to convince both the internet and Japanese record shops to show me more of it?
3 - Can anyone give me a very brief rundown on the music's cultural context? Are there particular political, social, or religious associations? Who is likely to be in the domestic audience listening to this stuff today?
Thanks!
Oh, and, I apologize to those who feel that posting audio tracks to youtube is inelegant. I generally agree with you. But, I've had a devil of a time finding anonymous and free places to post audio that aren't broken in my browser, to say nothing of your browser.
Best answer: Actually you might be better off calling it "sanshin" rather than "shamisen," as it's a little different from the mainland shamisen.
On youtube I think you might be well off searching for "琉球舞踊" or Ryu(u)kyu(u) Budou as well as Sanshin (plus Okinawa).
It's definitely very Okinawan/Ryukyuan music, so searching just for Okinawa or Ryukyu will be a good start. It's probably played on the radio primarily in Okinawa. The title of the show means something like "Folk Song Special Collection"
I wish I could figure out how to listen to that radio station!
posted by that girl at 2:22 AM on March 10, 2012
On youtube I think you might be well off searching for "琉球舞踊" or Ryu(u)kyu(u) Budou as well as Sanshin (plus Okinawa).
It's definitely very Okinawan/Ryukyuan music, so searching just for Okinawa or Ryukyu will be a good start. It's probably played on the radio primarily in Okinawa. The title of the show means something like "Folk Song Special Collection"
I wish I could figure out how to listen to that radio station!
posted by that girl at 2:22 AM on March 10, 2012
Actually the Ryukyuan Music wikipedia page might be a good start.
posted by that girl at 2:30 AM on March 10, 2012
posted by that girl at 2:30 AM on March 10, 2012
Try some youtube searches for 登川誠仁 Seijin Noborikawa or 嘉手苅林昌
posted by zachawry at 3:35 AM on March 10, 2012
posted by zachawry at 3:35 AM on March 10, 2012
Best answer: Most of this music is in Okinawan, which is pretty different from regular Japanese. I have a couple albums by Seijin Noborikawa, and according to the Japanese liner notes, most of the songs are along the lines of
Oh, isn't it great to live in Okinawa....Pretty girls....Lotsa fish and pristine oceans...Gotta eat a lot and get drunk a lot
interspersed with songs like
Oh, the mainland Japanese and Americans decided to make a battlefield of our island, turning it into a living hell, oh that sucked!
posted by zachawry at 3:38 AM on March 10, 2012 [1 favorite]
Oh, isn't it great to live in Okinawa....Pretty girls....Lotsa fish and pristine oceans...Gotta eat a lot and get drunk a lot
interspersed with songs like
Oh, the mainland Japanese and Americans decided to make a battlefield of our island, turning it into a living hell, oh that sucked!
posted by zachawry at 3:38 AM on March 10, 2012 [1 favorite]
You should also check out Shoukichi Kina, who, starting in the early 70s, did great stuff mixing traditional Okinawan folk music with Western pop.
posted by neroli at 5:43 AM on March 10, 2012
posted by neroli at 5:43 AM on March 10, 2012
Response by poster: Man thanks, all. That's exactly what I was looking for. (And in not much more time than it took to compose the question!)
I remember looking briefly at the Ryukyuan wikipedia page, but somehow convinced myself that wasn't what I was hearing. Seems to to be a superset of the stuff I'm talking about.
that girl, if you're interested, I've been listening to the station using the tunein player. I've not tried it except in their android client, but searching for Uruma at tunein.com may work.
Thanks, zachawry and neroli, for the specific artists.
posted by eotvos at 11:24 AM on March 13, 2012
I remember looking briefly at the Ryukyuan wikipedia page, but somehow convinced myself that wasn't what I was hearing. Seems to to be a superset of the stuff I'm talking about.
that girl, if you're interested, I've been listening to the station using the tunein player. I've not tried it except in their android client, but searching for Uruma at tunein.com may work.
Thanks, zachawry and neroli, for the specific artists.
posted by eotvos at 11:24 AM on March 13, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by squidlarkin at 2:00 AM on March 10, 2012