>From: Ronald Seldin <nyogetsu@panix.com>
>Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 10:17:19 -0500 (EST)
>
>I really feel that I have to give my opinion of this latest
>"direction" of releasing notation of masters (usually deceased-
>YAMAGUCHI GORO, JIN NYODO, etc.)..
>
>I feel that it is an unhealthy direction for the future of HONKYOKU,
>no matter how fascinating it is..
I'm on both the shakuhachi@weber list and the sfbayshakuhachi list,
so I'm seeing more comments than some of you folks (and, when I get
a chance, I'll see about forwarding the sfbay traffic to the shaku
list here).
A couple of things about these discussions strike me. On the one
hand, I do not want to argue with the position that one cannot
really learn the shakuhachi without a *good* teacher (and I've had
two excellent ones). That said, I'm curious about how the
publication of sheet music could damage the shakuhachi community.
After all, it has been possible to purchase books of Honkyoku
notation in Japan for years. In the summer of '98 I picked up a
very nice accordian fold book by Notomi Judosho, with the
traditional 36 pieces in it. The hand is a bit difficult to read in
places and, as is traditional, the notation is more suggestion than
instruction. One of my teachers has a half dozen such books,
including a copy of the book I purchased thinking it was Goro
Yamaguchi's script but was not - only mostly the pieces on the CDs.
While the notation runs close to what's on the CDs, it's not exact
enough to make any claims about learning to play like Goro
Yamaguchi, or "studying" with him, by working between the notation
and the performance. At best, one gets a better sense of what
Yamaguchi-sensei might have been up to in his playing by comparing
the two.
Given that, where are we? One way to approach the problem is to ask
the question: how might the existence and availabilty of
these "books" affect the community? From my perspective, they pose
no danger at all. Of course, some unscrupulous people might take
the notation and set themselves up as teachers, but then there have
always been frauds in the komuso (small k) world and the existence
of readily-available notation isn't likely to increase their numbers.
Is there some other disadvantage that I'm missing?
On the other hand, I can see at least a couple of advantages to
these books. Many of the pages of photocopied sheet music that
I've been given or have seen floating around at the residencies in
SF, have been covered with the additional notes of interim owners.
In some cases, its so difficult to tell what is from Jin Nyodo's
original notes and what's been added that the actual notation is
obscured.
I like to have originals because I can photocopy a piece when I
get it, mark up the copy until it's useless and make a new photocopy
to mark up again. With this method, I know what has been added
and, more importantly, the additions make sense to me.
If you try this with photocopies as your "original" (or, as is too
often the case, photocopies of photocopies) and the quality
deteriorates quickly, loosing the small details from the original.
The second advantage is that it is very nice, when you've mastered
a piece to the point that you no longer need your marginalia, to
sit down and open up the fanfold book and play from published copy.
Then the notation serves its proper purpose, not an instruction
but a reminder.
Owning the notation won't do a thing for anyone's ability to play,
only persistence, acceptance and good teachers will do that. On the
other hand, as Z. Braverman noted on the sfbay list, Jin Nyodo's
calligraphy is beautiful, that alone making the sheet notation worth
having around.
bj
-
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jan 12 2000 - 13:24:03 PST