Learning Objectives
- Examine the historical and religious elements of Japan and their influence on Japanese musical genres.
- Analyze the Japanese aesthetics that shape the musical elements, playing methods, and performance practices of Japanese music.
- Examine the crucial impact of shomyo, Japanese Buddhist chant, on hogaku.
- Explore the different genres of hogaku, or traditional Japanese music, through text, visual images, audio, and video.
- Identify the primary genres of Japanese hogaku music in the following categories: solo, ensemble, and theatre arts.
- Analyze the music of gagaku and shakuhachi through guided listening by simultaneously hearing the music, viewing the graphic layout, and reading the accompanying text.
- Examine j-pop and minyo, Japanese folk music.
Musical Elements
Some Japanese musical elements differ significantly from their Western counterparts. The specific elements we examine in this section are: semitones and slides, scales and modes, heterophony and harmony, free rhythm, and the traditional form of hōgaku compositions called Jo Ha Kyu. The section ends with a brief discussion of Japanese musical pedagogy.
Buddhist chant, or shomyo, brought Chinese music theory to Japan. Japanese modes, or chosi, add semitones to Chinese modes. Semitones and microtones prevail in hōgaku music, heard in singers’ vocal inflections, the gagaku hourglass drum’s bending pitches, and shakuhachi music’s sliding pitches
Japanese scales are primarily pentatonic. Their pitches do not equally divide intervals, as in the Western method of equal temperament, but vary depending on genre. Two primary modes of Japanese music are the ryo and the ritsu modes. Fifteen hundred years later, ryo and ritsu are still the backbone of gagaku court music and Buddhist music.
Heterophony, or the simultaneous performance of two melodies, is common in many Japanese music genres. Harmony, although non-existent in hōgaku, is sometimes present in western-influenced Japanese music. Often influenced by Japanese Buddhist chant or shomyo, melodic lines in Japanese music have different formulas and ornaments with names that reflect their origin.
Like harmony, steady rhythm is a Western quality. Most hōgaku is characterized by a more free-flowing rhythm. This greater rhythmic freedom lends itself well to ma and augments the expressive nature of a piece. In the guided listening example of gagaku music, listen for the space between the fourth and the first pulses of a beat. Hōgaku also treats tempo much differently than the West, often slowing music so dramatically that it obscures the beat.
Jo Ha Kyu, the most common musical form in hōgaku, uses rhythm rather than melody to differentiate the three sections referenced in its name. Jo (meaning introduction), is slow. The next part, Ha (meaning breaking apart), speeds up in tempo. The final part, Kyu (meaning rushing), speeds up to the climax of the piece then slows down again towards the end. In many different hōgaku genres the pedagogical methods by which teachers transmit knowledge to students are similar.
The teacher’s residence often houses a music studio where lessons take place. He or she sets aside days and times for instruction. Rather than scheduling individual appointments, students do not have a specific lesson time and often have to wait their turn. By watching their peers’ lessons, they learn even more about the instrument and its repertoire. The teacher, or sensei, first plays the piece simultaneously with the student. The student attempts to emulate the teacher’s timing, pitches, rhythm, and phrasing. Hogaku students work towards achieving a level of competence that will allow them to teach students of their own. As a unit, the sensei and the student continue a legacy with roots in Japan’s feudal past.
