I agree completely with your point about how one plays (or performs)
shakuhachi or any other instrument, but I don't think that is
equivalent to the terminology or notation, or other things like that.
The latter are symbols, certainly, with the own inherent beauty or what
have you as a result, but to me they're first and formost a means of
communication, a map, or in the case of honkyoku perhaps a finger
pointing vaguely in the right direction. Perhaps the metaphor of
surgery was use for that reason. Another might be the Mars probe that
was shot off into deep space due to inches being substituted for
centimeters in the navigational software.
Expression is much more than that---I think that goes without saying.
Although I strongly believe in accepting a teacher's way of playing,
which means trying to copy it, I also strongly believe that once you
learned it exactly as you've been taght to play it you should make a
piece your own. I think it would be worse than boring if we all played
like our teachers, the music would not have any life to it.
Peter
--- Karl Signell <signell@cpcug.org> wrote:
> At 04:30 AM 7/18/03 -0700, Peter H wrote:
> >It only matters to me as it would be nice to have some more
> >uniformity in terminology, or at least a better understanding among
> >schools of each other's terminology.
>
> Like music everywhere, shakuhachi terminology and performance can be
> marvelously varied (inconsistent). Wouldn't it be boring if
> everything
> were uniform?
>
> As a young shakuhachi student, Yamaguchi Gor・asked his father
why
> the
> father never answered his questions completely. The father answered
> that
> he wanted his son to just listen to the father's playing and create
> his own
> musicality from that.
>
> Karl
>
>
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