I think Phil's idea of letting students improvise and create their own
ideas as a supplement to traditional repertoire practice is a very good
one. He's right in that in the present iemoto system we just repeat or try
to copy what the teacher instructs, so basically all the improvisation I
have picked up has been outside of the system. Yokoyama Katsuya did tell
me at one of his workshops that one should memorize the honkyoku in order
to make them one's own -- if you have it in your mind without the notation
in front of you it perhaps makes it easier to shape it eventually into your
own honkyoku, putting different nuances in there while retaining the spirit
of the original but our ryuha hasn't encouraged that practice. Memorizing
the honkyoku also takes some very serious study, but I think it is also a
good thing to try to do (not that I've done much).
Dan
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