Introduction
The modernization process following the Meiji Restoration, of 1868, and the introduction of Western music into the primary school curriculum, had a powerful influence on the role of the shakuhachi in Japanese culture. This bamboo flute had been the sole – or nearly sole – domain of the mendicant monks of the Fuke sect. With the abolishment of that sect, in 1871, and the prohibition of begging that held for the following decade, the social position of shakuhachi players was radically changed. The nature of that change is the subject of this article.
Shakuhachi said to be owned by Ozaki Shinryū (1820–1888)
History and Background
The shakuhachi is a Japanese vertical notched oblique bamboo flute with four finger holes on the front and one thumbhole on the back. It is widely believed that the shakuhachi was introduced into Japan from China via the Korean peninsula during the Nara period (710–794), as one of the instruments in the gagaku (court) ensemble,Footnote 1 although there are other versions of how and when the instrument came to Japan.Footnote 2 The earliest examples of the shakuhachi extant today are found at the Shōsōin, a repository built in 756, which contains eight shakuhachi used in the ceremony performed for the consecration of the Great Buddha of Tōdaiji temple in 752.Footnote 3 These shakuhachi have six finger holes (five in the front and one thumb hole) and produce a heptatonic scale as probably used contemporaneously in China. When the gagaku ensemble was reorganizedFootnote 4 in the mid-ninth century, the shakuhachi fell into disuse. A period of several centuries ensued in which no references to the instrument appear in surviving historical documents.
The first mention of the instrument after this hiatus appears in 1233 in the Kyōkunshō [
], a ten-volume treatise on gagaku written by Koma Nochikazane [
]: ‘The short flute is called shakuhachi. It is now played by mekurahōshi [blind monks] and performers of sarugaku [theatre]’.Footnote 5 The first known illustration of a shakuhachi is found in the Taigenshō [
],Footnote 6 of 1512, although the illustration is dated to the late fourteenth century. This shakuhachi is called hitoyogiri, or ‘one node shakuhachi’.Footnote 7
During the early seventeenth century, the shakuhachi-playing monks organized themselves within an institutional setting under the Fukeshū [
] or Fuke sect, a subsect of Rinzai Zen. The monks of the Fuke sect were termed komusō [
] or ‘priests of nothingness’. The first decree that granted the Fuke sect special privileges, Keichō no Okitegaki [
], was enacted in 1614 by the first Tokugawa Shōgun, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616). This served as the legal basis for the establishment of the Fuke sect, which admitted only men of the samurai class and rōnin [
, unemployed samurai] as members of the order. The special privileges granted the komusō included monopoly rights over the use of the shakuhachi (laymen were officially prohibited from playing the shakuhachi – a rule implemented in 1677) and travel passes that allowed them to travel to any part of Japan.Footnote 8 According to the rules of the sect, the shakuhachi was to be used exclusively as a hōki [
], a sacred tool, for the purpose of spiritual training and for takuhatsu [
, religious mendicancy]. However, it is known that some komusō did not obey these rules and even opened shakuhachi-teaching schools, in Edo (present day Tokyo) for example.Footnote 9
In all, Nakatsuka Chikuzen lists 77 Fuke temples scattered around Japan during the Edo period.Footnote 10 Three of the most important were Myōanji in Kyoto and Ichigetsuji and Reihōji in the Kanto region, the area around Edo, or present day Tokyo.Footnote 11 Each temple developed its own corpus of music which, when taken together, comprise the repertoire of approximately 150 honkyoku [original or fundamental pieces] from the Edo period known today. The term Honkyoku refers to the solo pieces played by komusō monks, which have their roots in the Edo period and were used either for their spiritual training or for religious mendicancy. Interaction among the temples, including musical exchange, took place by means of komusō monks who wandered from temple to temple.Footnote 12 Music other than honkyoku was referred to as gaikyoku [outer pieces] or rankyoku [disorderly pieces].Footnote 13
The relationship between the bakufu [the Edo government] and the Fuke sect worsened, due to difficulties controlling the sect and criminal behaviour on the part of some monks. In 1847 a decree from the government stated that the Fuke sect was subject to the same rules as the Rinzai sect. This revoked the special privileges granted in Kenchō no Okitegaki, which led to frustration among the komusō monks. The deterioration in the relationship culminated when Gendō Kanmyō, the thirty-third kansu Footnote 14 of Myōanji, and Myōan Sugyō, also from Myōanji, were involved in the ‘Hamaguri Gomon Rebellion’ [
], in 1864, as advocates for Imperial rule against the Tokugawa Shogunate. Mutual distrust increased, as did the number of sanctions and investigations of komusō monks.Footnote 15
The Edo bakufu was overthrown in 1868, and in October 1871 the new Meiji government (1868–1912) issued a decree, a Dajōkan Fukoku [
], which, among other things, abolished the Fuke sect indefinitely. Begging was prohibited in 1872, although it was made legal again in 1881.Footnote 16 These events, along with the Meiji Government's decision to prioritise Western music in compulsory education, naturally had a strong impact on the shakuhachi, its music and its environment, and they led to major changes. According to Tsukitani Tsuneko and Shimura Satoshi, after the abolition of the Fuke sect, the shakuhachi was to follow two distinct paths, one secular and one religious.Footnote 17
Education and Music
Music occupied an important place in the Meiji government's policy. This is manifested in the activities of the Ministry of Education's Music Investigation Committee [Monbushō Ongaku Torishirabe Gakari,
].Footnote 18 Music was considered essential for nation building and modernization in the nineteenth century, particularly in the sphere of education. This was the case not only in Japan but also in Europe and the United States. According to Richard Miller, there were two main reasons for the high profile of music in the Meiji government's politics: first, the longstanding link between morality and music in Confucian philosophy,Footnote 19 which has been a major influence for structuring the nation in Japan since the Nara period (710–794), and second, the fact that music played an important role for military purposes, which linked it with popular entertainment with morale.Footnote 20
A compulsory four-year school system was launched in Japan in 1872, and in 1874 Isawa Shūji (1851–1917) – in collaboration with Nomura AkitariFootnote 21 (1819–1902) – developed songs to be used in kindergarten, selecting text from Kojiki [
], a Sino-Japanese text dated ce 712. Isawa was thereafter sent to the United States by the Monbushō [Ministry of Education] and studied at the Bridgewater Teacher's Academy during the years 1875–1877, then pursuing science studies at Harvard University. The Meiji government sent delegations to Europe and United States to study their educational systems, and foreign educators were invited to Japan to teach and help structure the establishing education system.Footnote 22 Here, the influence of Johann Friedrich Herbert (1776–1841) on Japan's efforts to create an educational system cannot be ignored. Herbert was a German educator, philosopher and psychologist, who is considered the founder of pedagogy as an academic discipline. He asserted that the goal of education was the production of correct moral judgement. And as he believed a moral judgement was in its essence an aesthetic judgement, music occupied an essential place in his pedagogy. This had a strong impact on Isawa's methods when he returned to Japan. He became the Director of the Music Investigation Committee in 1879, and the changes he initiated are still visible today, not only in the sphere of music education, but also in traditional Japanese music. Together with the American music educator Luther Whiting Mason (1818–1896) with whom he had studied music at Bridgewater, Isawa led a team of musicians and educators in the development of a music curriculum for the compulsory primary schools. The result of their work was a set of songbooks, teachers’ guides and school courses based on principles of European and American schools. The first edition of the songbook Shōgaku shōka shū shohen [
, Collected Songs for Elementary School, First Edition] of 1881, contained European and American melodies from the collections Mason and Isawa had brought with them from the United States, along with some from Japan.Footnote 23 A collection of songs for kindergarten children, Yōchien shōka shū [
], was published in 1887, and one for middle school, Chūtō shōka shū [
], appeared in 1889.Footnote 24 According to Ury Eppstein, 30 of the 33 songs in the first elementary school songbook are derived from identifiable Western sources, and 28 are in a major key, although there is disagreement among scholars regarding the sources of the songs. All the songs are written in staff notation, with the Japanese text below.Footnote 25 Three songs bear the time signature
, two are in
, 21 are in
and one is in
. Twenty-one of the songs are in key signature of C, six are in G, four are in F and two are in D.Footnote 26 The lyrics were either translations from the original, or newly written Japanese texts, and the Ministry of Education was very attentive to their content.Footnote 27
It is thus evident that although a hybridization may have been the aim of Isawa and his team, it was, in fact, Western classifications of pitch, rhythm and tonality that they introduced to ensuing generations of Japanese students. The songbooks served as standard material until the early twentieth century and formed the basis for further developments of material for the public school curriculum.
Shakuhashi: The Music and the Instrument in the Late Nineteenth Century
From the above, it can be seen that the shakuhachi went through two radical changes during the nineteenth century. First, the the abolition of the Fuke sect triggered a secularization process for the instrument's use and repertory. Second, the Japanese musical world was profoundly affected by the introduction of Western music and its theoretical foundations into the education system, and the shakuhachi was not exempt from this. The results of these changes to the education system are still felt today, in the alienation the Japanese people often feel towards the traditional music of their own country. Under these circumstances, the shakuhachi could not remain unchanged, and both the instrument and its music underwent major changes during this period.Footnote 28 Our aim here is to investigate more closely how these changes occurred.
Although the Keichō no Okitegaki had officially restricted playing of the shakuhachi to komusō monks, who were allowed to use it exclusively as a sacred instrument, in fact it had continued to be played as a secular instrument throughout the Edo period. According to Ueno Katami, a document submitted by the Reihōji and Ichigetsuji temples (the main Fuke temples in Edo) shows as many as 21 shakuhachi teaching studios in Edo.Footnote 29 According to the eighteenth-century Gayū manroku [
, Miscellaneous records of elegant pastimes], ‘nowadays, typically the shakuhachi is a long, thick instrument. It is tuned with the shamisen,Footnote 30 and in this way, its pitch has become quite low. Its voice is the height of licentiousness’.Footnote 31 The books Uta Keizu [
, A genealogy of song], of 1782, and Yamato Kōsaku eshō [
, Yamato Kōsaku's annotations on painting], of c. 1688, show the shakuhachi depicted both as one of the instruments in the sankyoku Footnote 32 ensemble and in an ensemble with dancers, shamisen and two drums.Footnote 33 The popular usages (performance activities and teaching shakuhachi to commoners) most probably helped prevent the shakuhachi falling into oblivion in the nineteenth century, after the abolition of the Fuke sect; instead it became widespread and popular among the general public. The playing of gaikyoku led to the first changes in the instrument. This is seen with the reduction of the third finger hole.Footnote 34 According to Maru Sadakichi, who wrote a series of articles on the shakuhachi in the early twentieth century,Footnote 35 this technique was invented around the end of the Edo period by the Kinko player and maker Araki Kodo II (1823–1908). He changed the size of hole three in order to accommodate it to other instruments.Footnote 36
The numbering of finger holes from the lowest front hole: one to four, five is the thumbhole. Shakuhachi jizai hō, 1897: 5. Reproduced by the courtesy of Gekkai Bunkō, Hosshinji Temple
Changes of this type became even more important when adjusting the pitches of the shakuhachi to Western pitch. As can be seen on Figure 3, modern fingering charts place the notes of the shakuhachi according to Western pitch. They are pitched according to the standard size shakuhachi, measuring one shaku and eight (hachi) sun, a measurement from which the name shakuhachi is derived. One shaku measures 30.3 cm, and thus the standard size shakuhachi 1.8 is 54.54 cm. Most instruments from the Edo period measure between 1.7 and 2.0 in length and are constructed in such way that there is a node in the bamboo at the top and at the bottom of the instrument.
Fingering chart of Senshū Shakuhachi Kōbō. Reproduced by courtesy of Mitsuzuka Yukihiko, Senshū Shakuhachi Kōbō
Thus, although the komusō, who generally made their own instruments during the Edo period,Footnote 37 would have chosen which bamboo to harvest according to the size of the instrument they wished to construct, nature always had the final say in fine tuning, both with regard to the length of the bamboo tube and the width of the bore. Shimura Satoshi, who has investigated in detail the construction of Edo period shakuhachi and the way these archaic instruments were played, concludes that they cannot be played in the way modern shakuhachi are. Knowledge of both the blowing techniques and the instrument construction characteristic of the Edo period has, he says, been lost.Footnote 38 After the abolition of the Fuke sect and the prohibition of begging, the demands of ensemble and unison playing, and later the influence from Western musical instruments, required a new and standardized shakuhachi, which arrived on the scene gradually.
A modern jinuri shakuhachi with a joint in the middle made by the maker Bonchiku
A jinashi shakuhachi from around the turn of the twentieth century. Only the joint in the former reveals the difference to the casual observer
X-ray of a jinuri shakuhachi
X-ray of an Edo period jinashi shakuhachi (Photo by Shimura Satoshi)
In the construction of the jinuri shakuhachi, the modern standard instrument, the bamboo is cut across the bore into two attachable halves. The length of the bamboo, and thereby the pitch of the tube, can thus be regulated, while retaining a node at the top and one at the bottom of the finished instrument. The bore is coated with ji, a paste made of urushi [
], a Japanese lacquer made from the sap of the urushi tree, (rhus verniciflua) and tonoko [
, powder from ground stone]. The application of ji to the bore means that the bore's shape can be carefully calculated and modified, and thus controlled, by the maker; this is an important contrast to the bore of the jinashi shakuhachi, which consists of only the natural bamboo and at times a thin layer of lacquer applied for protection against wear (though nodes and other irregularities may be filed down).Footnote 39 The manner in which the jinuri shakuhachi is built thus produces a more standardized instrument with a more reproducible timbre and volume, while the jinashi shakuhachi is correspondingly less uniform and less predictable.Footnote 40 These changes occurred gradually, as the livelihood and environment in which shakuhachi players and makers lived and worked changed, and can be followed in publications from the nineteenth century onwards. Surviving instruments remain as testimonials to these changes.
(a) the bore of a typical jinashi shakuhachi from the Edo period (b) Jinuri shakuhachi type 1 (c) Jinuri shakuhachi type 2 (From Shimura Satoshi, Kokan shakuhachi: 74)
Nakao Tozan showing the correct performance posture for (a) sitting and (b) standing.
According to Shimura, the manufacturing differences between the Edo period shakuhachi and the modern one are greater than are generally recognized and, as noted above, require a corresponding change in performance techniques as well.Footnote 41Figure 5 shows x-ray photos of a jinuri shakuhachi (5a) and a jinashi shakuhachi (5b). Note how the nodes of the jinashi shakuhachi make chambers in the bore while the ji-paste smoothes out the bore of the jinuri shakuhachi. Figure 6 is taken from Shimura's X-ray studies of approximately 30 modern jinuri shakuhachi and 100 Edo period shakuhachi. Figure 6a shows a typical Edo period shakuhachi bore with no ji added. Some bores from the period also have a thin layer of urushi lacquer applied. The nodes are left intact, so they create three main chambers inside the instrument. The overall shape of the bore is reverse conical, with the narrowest point at the lower end of the instrument. Figures 6b and 6c show two typical bores in modern jinuri shakuhachi. Here the nodes have been filed down and the inner shape of the bore has been built up with ji paste (often the lower end hole of the bore is also enlarged). Not only does this enable the maker to better control the tuning, it also produces greater volume, as the bamboo cylinder does not absorb as much sound when coated with ji.Footnote 42 Moreover, since the bore is smoother, the modern shakuhachi produces less noise and fewer partials than the jinashi shakuhachi did.Footnote 43 These changes have almost been forgotten and many contemporary shakuhachi players are unaware that the instrument they play is by no means a precise replica of the Edo period shakuhachi.Footnote 44
Advertisement of a shakuhachi maker in Sankyoku 14 (1922): 5
Cover of Shakuhachi no shiori
Cover of Saishin shakuhachi onpushū
‘Kimigayō’ 1b ‘Hotaru no hikari’ [Auld lang syne] 1c ‘Ake no kane’. From Kayufo: Shakuhachi hayashinan: 36–9. Reproduced by the courtesy of Gekkai Bunkō, Hosshinji Temple
‘Sassatsu shigure’ [Patter of the drizzle], from Kokon zakkyoku shū (1892): 54. Reproduced by courtesy of Gekkai Bunkō, Hosshinji Temple
The shakuhachi became a musical instrument, rather than a religious one; it was played not to achieve enlightenment, but to entertain.Footnote 45 The instrument was increasingly played as a hobby, and it's use in ensembles grew. The shakuhachi also entered the min'yō [folk song]Footnote 46 world as an accompaniment to song. However, the players of folk songs and those from the shakuhachi groups that came directly out of the heritage of the Fuke, represented especially by the three main groups Kinko, Myōan and Tozan had and still have almost no contact, as their performance environments are almost completely isolated from each other.
Today, the Tozan and Kinko schools dominate the world of shakuhachi in Japan. Both schools begin teaching with gaikyoku, or ensemble pieces, and only as an accomplished player is one allowed to enter the realm of honkyoku. In this way, the transmission strategy and method has departed not only from that of the komusō monks during the Edo period, but also from the Myōan players, who continued to play shakuhachi as a spiritual praxis and therefore only play honkyoku.
In order to trace in detail the development of the shakuhachi from a solo instrument for honkyoku pieces, and a tool for spiritual training of monks, to a musical instrument on concert stages, I shall here follow a series of publications from the late nineteenth century which show the rapid changes in attitudes toward shakuhachi playing and the ways in which ideas from the newly secularized world were assimilated.
Shakuhachi Publications: Self-Teaching Manuals, Scores and Music
Nakao Tozan'sFootnote 47 (1876–1956) manual for self-study, published in 1908, is regarded as a pioneering and even revolutionary book as it broke with the tradition of strict oral transmission.Footnote 48 However, already in 1892, only 21 years after the abolition of the Fuke sect and 16 years before the publication of Tozan's work, a manual entitled Kyokufu: Shakuhachi hayashinan Footnote 49 indicated the direction in which the shakuhachi was heading with great strides. The introduction to this manual explains that there are good reasons for taking up the playing of shakuhachi, as it improves health due to the positive effects on posture and lung capacity.Footnote 50 The promotion of health as a reason for playing the shakuhachi indicates the beginning of the instrument's dissemination to the general public and the move away from its use as a sacred tool. The fact that the book is a manual for learning shows the rapid change in attitudes not only toward playing the instrument but also toward transmission, which earlier had been strictly limited to oral transmission from master to disciple and – at least officially – restricted to Fuke sect members. Like Nakao Tozan's later self-teaching manual, Kyokufu: Shakuhachi hayashinan consists of pieces to study and play. One surprising characteristic of early shakuhachi manuals is that honkyoku pieces are rarely included; the majority of the pieces in the manuals from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were pieces for shamisen or koto transcribed to shakuhachi notation, as well as popular and military songs.Footnote 51 Evidently, for some time after the abolition of the Fuke sect, honkyoku were not in vogue; indeed, the early Meiji manuals would seem to indicate that the tradition of teaching ensemble pieces first comes from this phase of shakuhachi history.
Kyokufu: Shakuhashi Hayashinan begins the section of scores with the national anthem, ‘Kimigayō’, another indication of the zeitgeist of the early Meiji era. The majority of the manuals from this period seem to begin in this way (See Example 1a). ‘Hotaru no hikari’ [Light of fireflies], is the Japanese version of the Scottish song ‘Auld lang syne’, and had been included in Isawa Shūji's songbook in 1881 (Example 1b). ‘Hotaru no hikari’ was to become an extremely popular song in Japan. It was used for school graduation ceremonies and is today often played at any event that is drawing to a close, from the closing of a fitness centre for the day to the 5pm signal that it is time for children to go home played over a village's municipal loudspeakers. ‘Hotaru no hikari’ is an excellent example of a song imported by Isawa and his team that is still heard in modern Japan and continues to have symbolic meaning there. ‘Ake no kane’ [Bells at dawn] (Example 1c) is a song from the nagauta Footnote 52 repertoire – a song text accompanied by the shamisen. Songs, koto and shamisen pieces transcribed for shakuhachi, and the national anthem compose the typical content for manuals of the time. As seen in Example 1, scores are written from right to left and top to bottom in traditional Japanese style. Below the title of ‘Ake no kane’ (Example 1c), it is noted that the shamisen is to be played with a tuning called san sagari [
]. This means lowering the third string one note from the honchōshi [
] mode, where the first and third strings are usually tuned an octave apart and the second string a fourth apart from the first string. Here the third string is lowered a step and the strings are tuned, for example, D–G–C. The score thus shows the tuning the shamisen player is to use when accompanying somebody using this manual to learn the shakuhachi. The melody is transcribed to a shakuhachi notation often referred to as ro tsu re [
] (the first three mnemonic names of the sounds of a shakuhachi), and there is also an indication of rhythm.Footnote 53 The first notes at the top of the first line form an upbeat before the song begins. They have each half a note value, which is indicated by the vertical line to the right of the notes. Notes with no accompanying line have a full note value. Rhythm in shakuhachi notation is relatively novel in this period, as honkyoku pieces had been in free rhythm, but some notation of rhythm became necessary when the instrument became part of an ensemble. In the upbeat beginning to the piece, we see a Western concept already entering the shakuhachi world.
(a) fingering chart and (b) pitch explanation with Western, numeric and one of the Japanese notations, Ongaku Zensho Dai ni hen: Shakuhachi no shiori (1894): 6 and 16. Reproduced by the courtesy of Gekkai Bunkō, Hosshinji Temple
The notation systems and the iemoto seido [guild system]Footnote 54 of the shakuhachi – and all Japanese traditional instruments – can be challenging, and this may have been one reason why the Ongaku Torishirabe Gakari and later the Tokyo Academy of Art chose to adopt Western musical notation. Choosing the notation system of one particular ryūha [school] would have given that school an advantage compared with other schools; even today, many composers choose to write contemporary pieces for Japanese instruments in Western notation, which is considered more ‘neutral’.
In the late nineteenth century, no standard notation system was yet in use and the non-uniformity of the notation systems used becomes clear when searching through the publications of self-teaching manuals for shakuhachi. Some use the ro tsu re system,Footnote 55 attributed to the early Kinko ryū masters,Footnote 56 which with a few exceptions dominates today.Footnote 57 Other books use numerals, perhaps to simplify the notation for the general public. The use of numerals – both ArabicFootnote 58 and Sino-Japanese numeralsFootnote 59 – equal the do re mi system and have been derived from the Galin–Paris–Chevé method.Footnote 60 Octave changes are represented with dots above or below. Other manuals use the Japanese syllabic system iroha [
].Footnote 61 One example of the non-uniformity of notation systems in publications from the late nineteenth century is the Kokon zakkyoku shū [
], printed in 1892. Here the fingering is represented by Arabic numerals.
The tune of ‘Sassatsu shigure’, for example, is here notated from left to right – the opposite direction to that of traditional Japanese writing (see Example 2). Thus, just 25 years after the Meiji Restoration and only 11 years after the publication of Isawa Shūji's first songbook, in some publications the direction of music writing had been modified to the European standard. ‘Sassatsu shigure] has a time signature
, and a European concept of rhythm. To the left of the time signature, they key of D major is indicated by writing nichō [
]. As scales have not been a part of Japanese musical theory (apart from court music), this also indicates the pace with which Western musical concepts were being absorbed into traditional music. 0 is notated if there is a rest, and a note held for longer than a beat is represented by a horizontal line after the first beat. All songs in Kokon zakkyoku shū and Shakuhachi hayashinan are notated in
or
, and surely one of the reasons rhythmic indication became important was the change in shakuhachi playing from a solo tradition to ensembles.
Ongaku Zensho Dai ni hen: Shakuhachi no shiori (1894), ‘Omae machi machi’: 26. Reproduced by the courtesy of Gekkai Bunkō, Hosshinji Temple
In 1894, a new page in the dissemination of shakuhachi playing through self-teaching manuals was turned, when fingering charts began to appear with explanations of playing techniques and pitch. On page six of the Ongaku Zensho Dai ni hen: Shakuhachi no shiori, of 1894, a fingering chart shows the fingerings of the Western twelve-note chromatic scale (see Example 3a). The three upper holes on a shakuhachi are the circles above the line in the middle. The top circle represents the thumbhole, the circle below it the top hole on the front of the instrument, and the circle below the second top hole on the front of a shakuhachi. The two circles below the line are the lowest two holes on the shakuhachi, normally held with the right hand. To the left of the chart, is indication that the top three holes are held with the left hand and the two lower with the right hand. To the right of the chart, the fingers used to cover the holes are explained. The notes on the lowest line are Japanese mnemonics for the pitches. The fingering chart is not helpful to a modern shakuhachi player, as partial fingering and head positions – meri and kari (see below) – are not yet notated. However, fingering charts for shakuhachi must have been a striking novelty at a time when transmission had recently been an exclusively oral transmission between master and pupil. This manual thus represents a new stage in self-teaching. From the same work, Example 3b shows a pitch chart, with an octave divided into a chromatic scale. To the right, the pitches are written in columns with the Japanese solfège system, numeric representation is shown in the middle and the Western equivalent pitch is on the left. The notes D, C, F and G each have a sharpened note above them represented by ♯ signs. Above A, a B with a ‘p’ to its left is seen. This is most probably a typographic mistake for B♭. The numerals also have sharps. D is the lowest note with C above it and thereafter E and F and so forth above, which is also thought to be a typographical error, as C ought to have been below D.Footnote 62 How this translates into practice is seen in the score for ‘Omae machi machi’ [Waiting and waiting for you] written in Japanese solfège in Example 4. The need of pitch control in order to play a chromatic scale on a five-holed flute also ignited a greater demand for well-tuned instruments that could compete in volume and accuracy in pitch with other instruments or in unison in larger shakuhachi ensembles. These two aspects of the development in shakuhachi, the adoption of Western pitch and instrument making, thus went hand in hand.
Shakuhachi kyokufushū (1893), p. 12. Reproduced by the courtesy of Gekkai Bunkō
, Hosshinji Temple
Shakuhachi jizai hō, p. 6: drawing of meri and kari technique, shakuhashi jizai hō. Reproduced by the courtesy of Gekkai Bunkō, Hosshinji Temple
The score in Example 4 is written from right to left and top down in a Japanese mnemonic system. ‘Omae machi machi’ is in
and a fast tempo is indicated. A comma in the score represents a bar line. Vertical lines within the columns are held notes, and the vertical lines to the right of the columns indicate that the notes to the left are quavers. Shakuhachi no shiori shows the attempt to add Western concepts such as time signatures and barlines to Japanese notation. In Tozan school scores today, a bar is written as a box thus the lines of the box represents barlines.
The fine adjustments to the notation of shakuhachi scores continue in Shakuhachi kyokufushū, of 1893, which uses more sophisticated musical symbols from Western notation. In Example 5 the repeat sign is introduced together with the time signature, which is here
. The pitches are in the ro tsu re system with an older notation above it as a support, and the score is written horizontally left to right. The quavers have a horizontal line under the notation and bar lines are vertical lines. The repeat signs are explained with the Japanese word for repeat above. A dal segno sign is written in after the first line and explained in the appended text. The upper octave, called kan (
], is shown with a dot above the note and the notes without the dot above are played in the lower octave called otsu [
].
Shakuhachi sokusei jizai, 1898,67 fingering. Reproduced by the courtesy of Gekkai Bunkō, Hosshinji Temple
The introduction to the 1897 publication Seisoku shakuhachi jizaihō states that honkyoku did not suit the average person and the instrument had therefore hitherto been misunderstood. It goes on to state that the shakuhachi has begun to receive the attention it deserves, due to contemporary music played with koto and shamisen, which is good music [
, hin ga yoi].Footnote 63 Notation is then discussed, and it is mentioned that in some places, such as around Saikyō in Osaka, shakuhachi is still taught without notation. However, it goes on to say, notation helps accuracy and prevents mistakes in rhythm;Footnote 64 it also aids the player in remembering pieces. Therefore, the author explains, notation is used in this book.Footnote 65Shakuhachi jizai hō presents the fingering by explaining which holes are closed or open note for note (See Example 6).
Shakuhachi sokusei jizai, 1898,68 (b) four different systems of notation compared and (c) rhythmic variations written out with three different notation systems and compared. Reproduced by the courtesy of Gekkai Bunkō, Hosshinji Temple
68 There are no page numbers in this publication.
Thereafter, and for the first time, the work systematically describes various techniques other than fingering used in shakuhachi playing. On pages five and six, for example, it explains how important it is to play the meri and kari techniques correctly, as otherwise the charm of shakuhachi will be lost and the audience will not be moved. Meri and kari are the two main head positions in shakuhachi playing, and the player changes between these positions throughout the performance. These techniques enable the shakuhachi, which has only five finger holes, to produce more notes than the five in the anhemitonic pentatonic scale to which the instrument is tuned. See Example 6 for illustration of the meri kari technique.
Even before the turn of the twentieth century, the self-teaching manuals had become increasingly sophisticated. This can be seen in the publication Shakuhachi sokusei jizai Footnote 66 where the fingering chart of a diatonic scale becomes easier to understand and use. Interestingly, however, half-holing is still not depicted as a half-filled hole. Here the manual provides a textual description of the meri position below the depiction of the fingering holes (Example 7a).
Example 7b shows and compares the writing of the same pitches in four different notation systems. From left to right, shakuhachi, sūji (Arabic numerals), kanshin (a Japanese solmization here named Sino-Korean solmization) and ōshū (European solmization). The European solmization is the French do re mi fa sol la si do, although there are minor mistakes in the Romanization, such as po instead of do, le instead of re, and sor instead of sol. There are also minor mistakes in the Romanization of the kanshin solmization – hu should be ha, and the ho second from the bottom should be ro. It is also interesting that the author has chosen to begin the major scale on the second note on the shakuhachi with the lowest finger hole open, probably in order to avoid too much cross fingering or partially closed holes when playing a major scale. Example 7c shows different rhythmic figures. The column to the right shows the rhythmic figure in Western notation, while the other two columns represent shakuhachi notation in the middle and digital notation to the left, written in the same rhythmic figure. The circle in the top of the right column is a semibreve and below it is a dotted minim. These rhythmic mixed groups of notes are not simple to notate and they include different length rests as well.
The Establishment of Shakuhachi Ry ūha [Schools]
At the same time that these self-teaching shakuhachi manuals were being published, several new shakuhachi schools were established. Tozan ryū was established in 1896 by Nakao Tozan. Sōetsu ryū was established by Kondō Sōetsu in Osaka, and the Myōan kyōkai was established in Kyoto, loosely gathering the players who continued the praxis of playing shakuhachi as a spiritual tool. Around 1890 Higuchi Taizan established the honkyoku repertoire for the Myōan kyōkai and applied the notation system, ro tsu re, instead of the fu ho u system used by the komusō monks during the Edo period. In 1914 Kobayashi Shizan (d. 1934) became the thirty-sixth abbot of the Myoanji. He improved Higuchi Taizan's notation system and published the 32 honkyoku still used today.
Traditional Japanese music thus continued to evolve, adapting to new environments and experiencing a period of rediscovery. However – and significantly – it failed to gain official intellectual support. The emphasis of the Tokyo Academy of Music was on the advancement of Western music in Japan; the task of keeping a live and developing hōgaku world was left to the musicians themselves.Footnote 69 Note, in contrast, the case of visual arts, where the Japanese government invited the American art scholar Ernest Francisco Fenollosa (1853–1908) to teach at Tokyo Imperial University. Fenollosa, together with his student Okakura Tenshin (1862–1913), became influential and valuable advocates for the revival of Japanese art. As the Japanese music scholar Kikkawa Eishi puts it:
In the world of Japanese arts, a savior called Fenollosa appeared. He acknowledged the value of Japanese pictorial arts, as well as its excellence. In addition, nationalists including Okakura Tenshin, succeeded in preventing the decline of Japanese arts and therefore Japanese arts soon could recover from the crisis. However, the world of Japanese music, not having a Fenollosa during the Meiji era, was not rescued. If Isawa Shūji had been a philosopher like Okakura Tenshin, and if Mason [Luther Whiting Mason] had had Fenollosa's aesthetic sense, the situation would have been quite different. Mason was a good music teacher, but he was not able to understand the heterogeneous beauty of Japanese music. Isawa Shuji was a thoughtful educator, but he was not a philosopher capable of penetrating the aesthetic value of Japanese music.Footnote 70
Thus lacking official support, Japanese music suffered during the late nineteenth century, when an influential group of intellectuals supported by politicians one-sidedly favoured Western culture and a concept called Bunmei-kaika [
, civilization and enlightenment]. They despised Japanese culture and even discussed the idea of abandoning the Japanese language.Footnote 71 The result of leaving the task of maintaining traditional music as a live musical tradition to the practising players was that the players of the Myōan Kyōkai, who continued to approach shakuhachi playing not as a musical instrument but as a hōki [sacred tool], were marginalized. With time, they became to be considered a group of amateurs, unable to play in tune and only playing simple pieces.Footnote 72 The players of the Tozan and Kinko schools, on the other hand, came to dominate the hōgaku (Japanese music) world, as they played in ensemble music and were exposed to the general public through concerts and, later, through such media as recordings, radio and television. Thus, the shakuhachi became an important Japanese stage performance instrument. In Nakao Tozan's Tozan ryū shakuhachi onpu: Kaisetsu,Footnote 73 photos of Tozan himself show good performance postures and explain that placing the right foot a little forward gives the most stable and elegant standing posture.
Given that generations of Japanese pupils sang the shōka songs in school and learned Western musical language including pitch sensitivity, it is hardly surprising that, as Shimura has argued in his work on the old jinashi shakuhachi,Footnote 74 knowledge of the playing techniques of the old shakuhachi were lost. In fact, today we can only guess how the old instruments that survive – testaments to the changes in a tradition –would have been played, or how they would have sounded during the Edo period.
It is clear that the shakuhachi world changed very quickly – even during the earliest years of the Meiji period. Ensemble playing as entertainment was necessitated by the prohibition on begging, and was most probably also seen as an opportunity for artistic development by some former komusō monks. The secularization and increasing popularity of the shakuhachi during the early twentieth century ensured a professional environment in which the iemoto system protected the repertoire and styles. Iemoto such as Nakao Tozan collected a large following, with a pyramidal hierarchy with the master at the top, his top students below and the magodeshi [literally: grandchild student, which means students of a student] at the base.
Shakuhachi makers also became specialized in the styles of the different schools. Maru Sadakichi wrote, in 1922, that more and more players wanted shakuhachi, from makers who had become increasingly specialized in one particular type of shakuhachi made with a particular school in mind (either Tozan or Kinko), and that some makers even began making instruments for one particular teacher and his students. Maru describes in his series of articles in the Sankyoku journal during 1922–3 that a single maker tended no longer to be involved in the whole process of shakuhachi making, as they had been before. One set of workers harvested the bamboo, others made the bamboo into simple instruments and, finally, the master maker created the finished instrument.Footnote 75 In the same volume of the journal, Sankyoku, an advertisement for a shakuhachi maker can be found on page five (see Figure 8). The advertisement is a photo from the maker Komatsu Haō's atelier and shop, and shows a large amount of bamboo and shakuahchi. Shakuhachi are stacked on shelves along the walls and standing on the floor. To the left in the room, a stock of bamboo can be seen. A person, most likely the maker, is posing in the middle. The advertisement promises that shakuhachi suited for all schools can be found here, and when purchase is for more than ten yen, adjustment, fine-tuning and repair will be provided free of additional charge, and that all wishes will be met.Footnote 76
Maru notes that despite the fact that the shakuhachi traditionally had been made by the players themselves, players had now lost confidence in their ability to make the instrument as well as play it. By 1922, according to Maru, it had become normal for the professional maker to come to the teaching arena to sell his instruments.Footnote 77 In the making of the shakuhachi, the placement of the finger holes according to a formula called towari [
], in which the fine tuning was done by the technique of filing away nodes in the bore to tune an instrument, had, he says, already disappeared around 1910. Thereafter, the technique used to tune the instrument was to add ji paste to the bore.Footnote 78
It is worth mentioning that many of the instructional manuals and books with shakuhachi scores published in the early twentieth century had a nationalistic turn. This can be seen in the frequent publication of scores with military music and an increasing use of shakuhachi in gendai hōgaku [
], a new hybrid music combining Japanese and Western music. Virtuoso players such as Nakao Tozan and Yoshida Seifū (1890–1950) collaborated with other musicians and experimented with the shakuhachi together with composers and players of other instruments such as shamisen and koto but also Western instruments. Composer Miyagi Michio (1894–1956) wrote Haru no umi for shakuhachi and koto in 1929. According to Chiba Yūko, the majority of the Japanese people today think of Haru no umi as representative of traditional Japanese music, despite the fact that when it was first heard, in 1929, the reception was negative due to its too-obvious foreign structure.Footnote 79 This resentment of the foreign music disappeared quickly, and old emotions and sounds were forgotten; today only a few people with a specialist musical training can hear the fact that the structure of Haru no Umi is highly influenced by Western classical music. The changes undergone by the shakuhachi are forgotten, and today's instrument and music are often believed to be unchanged from the Edo period.
Conclusion
The shakuhachi is an example of how quickly a musical tradition can be renewed and modified when the conditions for its existence are removed or altered. The publications discussed here help us to trace the speed and energy with which the changes were occurring as early as the end of the nineteenth century. Shakuhachi players rapidly adapted to the new social environment in the fast-changing Meiji period. A new world with a secularized and musical shakuhachi quickly emerged, and there was a surge of interest in ensemble playing and a Western approach to music. The Meiji government's policy – specifically aimed at school children's singing – of a structured and systematic musical education in the service of the nation altered the perception of music. This altered perception is surely one reason that Japanese today often feel alienated from Japanese traditional music.Footnote 80 Traditional shakuhachi music, in particular, was adapted to suit listeners who were now being conditioned to new musical ideals. Myōan were the losers in this change, as they became stigmatized as amateurs unable to play in tune. Today, they are all but forgotten: in the Hōgaku Journal, the largest contemporary Japanese music monthly magazine (published since 1987) that focuses on the music of shakuhachi, koto, shamisen and taiko, the Myōan style is rarely mentioned apart from a few reviews of CD releases.
Yet, it is important to understand the shakuhachi as a living and constantly changing tradition, subject to political and cultural changes. Political decisions during the nineteenth century resulted in the loss of the shakuhachi's traditional milieu; but these same changes opened new opportunities, in the form of ensemble playing and the encounter with Western music. The changes undergone by the tradition are evident in the visual representation of shakuhachi players. Figures 9 and 10 show two images of shakuhachi players, from 1894 (Figure 9) and 1916 (Figure 10). In 1894, the cover of Shakuhachi no shiori shows a player who is no longer a komusō, but who is still clearly a member of the nobility. The image of shakuhachi as an instrument of the elite thus seems to have still been present and living in the Meiji era, as the instrument had until 1871 only been played officially by men of samurai rank, who had joined the ranks of the Fuke sect. However, by 1916, the cover of Saishin shakuhachi onpushū (Figure 10) shows an average man wearing eyeglasses. He is playing outdoors, as many players today do if they live in metropolitan areas, as either their homes are too small or the neighbours too close by to play at home. These two covers show clearly the progress of the shakuhachi from an instrument associated with the nobility, in the Edo period, to one for the average man in the Meiji. In this way, the shakuhachi successfully adapted to the rapidly changing society in Meiji Japan to become today one of the Japanese instrumentsFootnote 81 with the largest following outside that country.
], Taigenshō [
] (1512), ed. 
] in 1887, and in 1952 it became the Music Department of the Tokyo University of Fine Arts [
].
, On music], in his eponymous work, Xunzi. See Xunzi: A translation and study of the complete works, transl. by John Knobloch (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1988–90).
, Miscellaneous records of elegant pastimes] (Osaka, 1763, originally published in 1755)
] system, used during the Edo period by the komusō monks.
