William P. Malm

An Introduction to Taiko Drum Music in the Japanese No Drama

T he taiko is part of the No drama instrumental ensemble which consists of one flute and three drums. It is a barrel-shaped drum some twenty-seven centimeters in diameter and thirty centimeters in height. The skins (horse or cow) are lashed tightly to the body by two sets of ropes. The drum is held off the ground by a stand which tips the instrument slightly. There is a patch of deer skin in the center of the top head to which all blows of the two sticks (bachi) are directed. These sticks are held loosely in the hands but with stiff wrists so that there is a very slight roll in slower strokes.

Japanese nagauta notation and performance realities

Abstract Standard shamisen and drum notations are shown and analysed and historical records translated to show that much musicological data is available in the study of Japanese music. The actual performance of a piece, however, often varies from that seen in the written sources because each guild of performers provides subtle differences that identify the provenance of the sonic event. Thus accuracy and relativity work together to maintain the vitality of the music.

Music Cultures of the Pacific, the Near East, and Asia.

(NOTE: Each chapter concludes with a Bibliography and Audio/Visual Notes as well as a Sonic Glossary Index.) 1. Oceania. 2. Island Southeast Asia from the Philippines to Indonesia. 3. Muslim Africa, Ethiopia, and the Near East. 4. Central and Southern Asia. 5. Southeast Asia. 6. East Asia. 7. Northeast Asia and the Island Countries. Epilogue. Index.

The Anthropology of Music

reasons, conflicting findings tend to undermine the confidence of the music educator in research as a means of solving his daily problems. To a certain extent, discrepancies in such research findings are inevitable because the problems studied are often extremely complex and human beings do not respond predictably or uniformly as do the more objective elements and forces with which the chemist and physicist work. Some teachers fail to realize the potentialities of research in music education, while others apparently refuse to recognize its limitations. As a result, research in music education occupies a role that must be described as unclear if not, in fact, con-

The Eighth Day Festival on Miyakejima

MIYAKEJIMA is a small volcanic island some fifty miles out of Tokyo Bay in the Pacific Ocean. In this ten square miles of relative isolation a population of some 7,000 people live by means of fishing and the sale of butter, charcoal, and the essence of camellias which is used for perfume. The island population is concentrated in five villages which, until the twentieth century, were so mutually isolated that special dialects developed in each village. On 7 January I957, Yasuji Honda, Masao Urayama, and Hauro Misumi of the Folk Theatrical Society arrived at this island for the purpose of viewing one of its oldest festivals, the yoka matsuri. These men believed that, due to the purported antiquity of the festival1 and the isolation of the island, this event might shed some light on the ancient folk festivals of the main Japanese islands. The Folk Theatrical Society (Minzoku Geino no Kai) which sponsored the expedition was founded in 1952 to study Japanese folk events and encourage the revival of old, and the creation of new, folk theatricals. From I952 through I957 the Society published a journal, The Revival of the Theatre Arts (Geino Fukko) which was to be the successor of the long defunct Folk Arts magazine (Minzoku Geijitsu, I9281932). The Societys journal was in turn absorbed into the more general theatrical magazine, Geino. Besides studying and writing about folk theatricals, the members of this group hope to encourage them by providing opportunities for them to be seen, heard, and studied by other scholars and appreciated by a wider audience. The Society has close relations with the Waseda University Theatre Museum and with the Theatre Division of the Tokyo National Cultural Research Institute (Tokyo Kokuritsu Bunkazai Kenkyu Jo) in Ueno Park, Tokyo. In addition to these activities, the Society has collected many photographs, records, and field reports (in Japanese) from important Japanese folk events. They have also been instrumental in staging several excellent exhibitions of folk dance in Tokyo. At present the Society has some 200 members and is governed by a special ten man committee. The Miyakejima field group was kind enough to invite me to accompany them on their field trip. The report given here is based on the materials gathered by these men as well as my own observations. Since I was a foreign guest, the field recordings and interviews were not under my direction; thus certain details and conditions desirable from a Western viewpoint were not available. This is most evident in the recording situation described below and in the interrogation of the festival participants which covered only a few of the questions found on standard western documentation forms such as name, age, and place of origin. Questions of sources of the music and choreography and attitudes towards it were not covered. Nevertheless, enough material was collected and noted to produce a valid account of this old island festival.

The Rhythmic Orientation of Two Drums in the Japanese No Drama

cerning a part of one of the vital aspects of this art-rhythm. No music consists of two types, one of which is the chanting of the text by the actors or the chorus, known as utai or yokyoku, the other being the music of the hayashi, an ensemble of three drums and a flute. The latter group is used in a variety of combinations, with or without singing, so that the music can be changed to suit the mood and action of the drama. The flute is called Nokan, and the drum which is set on a low stand and played with two sticks is the taiko. The two hand drums are o tsuzumi and the ko tsuzumi, and it is with the music of these two, particularly the latter, that this article is concerned, altho the basic organizational principles stated here are in general applicable to the music of the taiko drum. The o tsuzumi is an hour-glass shaped drum held on the left hip and hit with one to three fingers of the right hand. The two horsehide skins are bound very tightly to the body, and further tension is exerted by a smaller rope which draws together five strands of the lashing rope. The heads are heated before every performance to further harden the sound, and the player usually wears papiermache thimbles on the right hand fingers to increase the characteristic dry crack of the o tsuzumi tone. This drum has two basic sounds, chyon which is strong, and tsu which is weaker. The ko tsuzumi is a smaller hourglass drum held on the right shoulder and played with one to three fingers of the right hand. Its skins are made with greater care and are lashed more loosely against the body. Tonal variations are produced by combining weak and strong blows directed either to the edge or center of the skin, with tension and relaxation on a special rope which encircles the drum. There are four basic sounds. One is pon, played in the center strongly with the ropes loose; at the moment of impact, or just before or after (depending on the school of drumming), the ropes are squeezed so that the tone wavers in a lovely liquid manner. This technique is the piece de resistance of No drum music. A lighter blow to the center of the drum with one finger and the ropes loose is called pu. A light blow to the edge with the ropes tense is chi, and a

The Society for Research in Asiatic Music; Its Aims, Functions, and Achievements

THE Society for Research in Asiatic Music (T6ya Ongaku Gakkai) was founded in 1937 for the purpose of investigating Asian music, including Japanese music, from both a historical and musical point of view. In this way the Society hoped to further Japanese musicological studies in general. At present the Society has 257 members and is governed by a board of 13 directors with a staff of 7 managing secretaries. Dr. Hisao Tanabe is president. The Society has six main functions. The first is the publication of a journal, reports and books, and the issuing of phonograph records. The Societys journal, the Ty6 Ongaku Kenkyu, was first published in 1937 and has now reached the thirteenth issue. Its articles have covered a variety of subjects from ancient Chinese music and archeological finds to modern primitives in Formosa and acoustical-mathematical equations. We have also on occasion mimeographed the materials used in lectures before the Society. The three most extensive works in this style are: 1) Skushigoto