While Japanese composers at the end of this century are finding their own personal expression, a Westerner's understanding of Japanese music may be enlightened by study of Japanese traditional music and instruments. In traditional shakuhachi music, temporal and spatial qualities depend heavily upon tone, color, intensity of breath, duration, and the use of 'non-tonal' breath sounds and finger trills.
In twentieth-century flute music, the codifying of multiphonics has provided a technical connection between old and new. Traditional Japanese music (whether shakuhachi, Nohkan, or Gagaku) has some technical similarities to twentieth-century Western flute music that incorporates extended techniques (whether French, American, or Japanese). These techniques have provided a mechanism for understanding those qualities that were previously "foreign" to Western ears.
A technical and non-technical approach to understanding can be enhanced by seeking the Japanese aesthetic, that is, by returning to the quality of the single tone. By searching for the profundity that even one tone can hold, an inner richness is reflected in the tone, and possibly in oneself.
The focus of this recital will be to introduce these qualities and techniques through three solo flute compositions: Kazuo Fukushima's Shun San, which was written in 1969 and is one of the earliest examples using multiphonics and other effects; Toru Takemitsu's Itinerant, In Memory of Isamu Noguchi (written in 1989); and an anonymous traditional composition (originally for shakuhachi), Kurokami.
is Professor and Head of the Department of Music at Northern Michigan University. She earned the D.M.A. in flute at the University of Texas at Austin, and was a student of John Hicks, Shirley Justus, Lois Schaefer, and Harold Bennett. Captivated by Japanese culture and its traditional and contemporary music, she is studying the repertoire and techniques of the shakuhachi, koto, and shamisen.
While Japanese composers at the end of this century are finding their own personal expression, a Westerner's understanding of Japanese music may be enlightened by study of Japanese traditional music and instruments. In traditional shakuhachi music, temporal and spatial qualities depend heavily upon tone, color, intensity of breath, duration, and the use of "non-tonal" breath sounds and finger trills.
In twentieth-century flute music, the codifying of multiphonics has provided a technical connection between old and new. Traditional Japanese music (whether shakuhachi, Nohkan or gagaku) has some technical similarities to twentieth-century Western flute music incorporating extended techniques (whether French, American, or Japanese). These techniques have provided a mechanism for understanding those qualities that were previously "foreign" to Western ears.
A technical and non-technical approach to understanding can be enhanced by seeking the Japanese aesthetic; that is, by returning to the quality of the single tone. By searching for the profundity that one tone can hold, an inner richness is reflected in the tone, and possibly in oneself. In the simple tones of the shakuhachi, the whole of nature can be heard, if we know how to listen. Even if the flutist does not "blow Zen," to go all the way with intellect, and then go beyond intellect is the way to the inconceivable. Sound is revered for its transcendental qualities.
The focus of this recital is to introduce these qualities through three solo flute compositions. These include Kazuo Fukushima's Shun San, which was written in 1969, and is one of the earliest examples using multiphonics and other effects; Toru Takemitsu's Itinerant, In Memory of Isamu Noguchi (written in 1989); and a traditional composition, originally for shakuhachi, Kurokami.
After reading Bruno Bartolozzi's New Sounds for Woodwinds in 1968, Kazuo Fukushima stated that a glimpse of the realm of new sounds opened, and that it became clear that the world of shadow was in reality a vast mine of intriguing sounds. It is significant that he recognized, through the sounds of the Nohkan flute and the shakuhachi that the way of performance of the flute had scarcely exhausted the possibilities inherent in the instrument. He listed the sounds as, "streams of sound-like belts of uneven denseness; subtle intervals like quarter tones resulting from a new fingering; sound groups that hustle and undulate; timbres markedly different from others; broken sounds; difference tones that come wafted from impossible directions; pedal key effects of softly rustling winds; pattering effects an octave lower than the overtones of the pedal key to which they are apparently in contrast, as short and whimsical as the far-away songs of the Himalayan cuckoo." His Shun San, a kind of Hymn to Spring, is an outcome of a collaboration with the flutist Ryuu Noguchi and was first premiered in 1969 in Tokyo.
Toru Takemitsu's Itinerant, In Memory of Isamu Noguchi was written to mourn the death of his friend Noguchi, the sculptor. To quote Buckminster Fuller, Isamu traveled on and on, unaware that the absolute political sovereignties of yesterday's world were to melt and merge into a unitary cosmos. He referred to Noguchi as the "intuitive precursor of the . . . one-town world man."
Takemitsu has combined traditional instruments with Western in works such as November Steps and frequently refers to water in a number of compositions, as in I Hear the Water Dreaming for flute and orchestra. Like Fukushima, many of the effects employed in Itinerant. . . are produced through contemporary multiphonics and other techniques yet resemble the most striking characteristics of the honkyoku, the original Buddhist shakuhachi pieces. These characteristics include the connection with nature, the extremely slow pace, the economy of material, the significance of Ma (silence), and the artistic ideal of concentration, stillness, and sensitivity for both those who play and those who listen.
Since Kurokami is a practice piece for shakuhachi, it might well be one for flute in order to grasp traditional characteristics and to become familiar with notation. Traditional music is a sonic, rather than graphic event. Notation is a memory aid. Notations are convenient and necessary illusion-like still photographs of a flowing stream.
In any cross-cultural consideration, the process of examining other musical traditions can produce new insights about one's own music. In these pieces, the music is a reflection of ancient traditions.