--- Paul Cohen <paulcohen@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> Each to their own...Sidney Bechet was well known for his heavy use of
> it.
> http://www.jazzradio.org/sidney.htm
> http://www.npr.org/programs/jazzprofiles/archive/bechet.html
Well, jazz is jazz and shakuhachi....and yet, while Yamaguchi Goro's
use of vibrato is considered excessive by some players, he pulled it
off--beautifully, needless to say. My honkyoku teachers have always
emphasized that at least koten honkyoku should be played without
vibrato, and they treat it like a law (though you hear it occasionally
in their recordings). In Indian classical singing it is also not used,
and I feel there is a consonance there in that these are both
expressing an austere, spare aesthetic. Personally, I can't stand
hearing koten honkyoku played with vibrato--Mozart's statement about
what's natural is germane, but there's also the simple reason that
honkyoku is supposed to be transparent, so to speak, and vibrato
muddies things up.
Last year, when I was practicing nightly on a pedestrian street in
Kichijyoji, a part of Tokyo, an old man (85) came out frequently from
the noodle shop where he worked and stood listening to me for a few
minutes. After doing this a number of times he came up to me and told
me repeatedly that "kubifuri san nen" (it takes three years to learn to
move your head to make vibrato). I eventually realized that he was
criticizing my playing honkyoku without vibrato. He demonstrated by
singing a minyo to me, with lots of vibrato. I tried to tell him that
it should be that way, but he was obstinate about it. Finally, one
night when he came out on his way home I switched to Esashi Oiwake,
with LOTS of vibrato, and as he walked away he started singing along,
and then turned to me with a big smile--he seemed really happy to hear
that I'd learned to do vibrato :-).
Peter
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