Comments on: Shamisen Rock Stars

By: naoko

naoko — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:00:21 +0000

Here is the English site of “Yoshida Brothers” http://www.domo.com/yoshidabrothers/
You can listen to some demo. They are so cool!!

By: Doug

Doug — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:07:51 +0000

@Jishin: That will be the day before my wife kicks me out of the house. Especially if I decide to do the cosplay.

By: Jishin

Jishin — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:50:33 +0000

Come on Doug I am waiting for you blog on some up to date cosplaying anime-influenced JPOP

By: Doug

Doug — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:08:09 +0000

Marcus: Yup, seen it, but sadly can’t go. On-call and have no car to drive out that far to the retreat. Ah well. Thanks for passing it along.

ロバート: “Plinky! Plinky!” I love it. I’ll definitely check out the suggestion.

Johnl: +1 for you and your excellent, expert opinion! Music is definitely not my forte, so greatly appreciated.

By: johnl

johnl — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 14:41:50 +0000

Oh, I forgot one point: when Umekichi was trying to teach the shamisen piece, she said ‘don tsu ten,’ which is a kind of solfege, called kuchi jamisen 口三味線 or more generally, kuchi shouga 口唱歌. Don tsu ten is an imitation of the sound of a shamisen.

However, when the sound of the shamisen is rather rough, say an unskilful player, the sound is described as ‘ben ben’ or ‘beben.’ I think that is the derivation of Unariya’s name.

Regards,
JL

By: johnl

johnl — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 10:18:19 +0000

The songs played by Unariya Beben sound more ‘down home’ because they don’t use the Miyako five-tone scale used in traditional music–that scale always sounds a bit like the minor scale in western music, because the scale involves a minor third. Okinawan music also uses a pentatonic scale, but it has a major third, so it sounds brighter. Mr. Unariya’s music seems to be using mostly a conventional western scale.

Umekichi plays a variety of traditional music that many geisha also study. I think she could work as a geisha, or maybe has some experience. The pieces played in the video are ‘dodoitsu’ a somewhat more lighthearted genre compared to my specialty, ‘nagauta,’ a kind of music developed in the context of kabuki.

At one time, I considered myself the best non-Japanese shamisen player in the world, but that was mostly because there was not much competition (10 or 20 years ago). Now, the Tsugaru genre has attracted a lot of younger Japanese and western players. I’ve seen some pretty hot players on youTube. However, the current Tsugaru music is a transformation of traditional country music of the Tsugaru region, now Aomori prefecture, in northern Japan. In the transformation, the singing was lost. But as Umekichi demonstrates, much of the charm of shamisen music is in the song.

Regards,
JL

By: ロバート

ロバート — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 08:22:02 +0000

ps. “Overland Blues” sounds like it should have been theme music in Firefly!

By: ロバート

ロバート — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 08:10:17 +0000

You should do a search for Yoshida Brothers on YouTube. Very modern interpretation of shamisen. Not very plinky plinky! I’d love to see them live.
(I like Okinawan shamisen of Takashi Hirayasu with Bob Grossman too.)

By: Marcus

Marcus — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 07:34:08 +0000

Hi Doug,

Seen this?

http://www.zen.ie/carrick.html

With palms together,

Marcus