Thanks Brian,
This is the most interesting and provocative question posed on this
list for some time. I guess Japanese players and listeners would be
most qualified to answer the question, but they might be too polite!
A lot of western shakuhachi players prefer to play the meri notes in
line with western tuning i.e. tsu meri=E flat rather than between Eb
and D, which is more in line with Japanese thinking. I'm not referring
to players who are not skilled enough to play the microtone, but even
players who could play either way but still play the western pitch.
Of course if you're playing a melody which originated in vocal music
with lyrics, not knowing the language or the lyrics will usually affect
the performance.
The next logical question might be, "If westerners play with an
"accent" is that an undesirable quality?" Should we be trying to sound
Japanese all the time? Jazz has been dealing with this issue for
almost 100 years. Jazz started out as a black art form, therefore
should white players try to sound black? Of course jazz in America is a
much more recent and quickly evolving form than traditional Japanese
music is, so maybe the answer is different in each case. Maybe not.
BR
On Jun 30, 2004, at 2:49 AM, shakuhachi wrote:
> Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 19:00:35 -0400
> From: "Brian Miller" <ramasita@peoplepc.com>
> To: <Shakuhachi@communication.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: Do Westerners Have a Shakuhachi Accent?
> Message-ID: <000c01c45e2c$e6627280$305179a5@lanc.thmulti.com>
>
> When I listen to shak recordings made by various performers, it seems
> that the Japanese players sounds more traditionally Japanese than
> Western performers. Even those Westerners who have studied in Japan
> with
> Japanese
> teachers seem to speak a subtle, but different sound language. Is
> this
> my
> imagination, or does it simply demonstrate my lack of sensitivity? I
> know that unless learned at a very young age, most second language
> speakers have an accent - no matter how long they have been speaking
> their second language. If I recall correctly, this has to do, in part,
> because the speaking organs (mouth, throat, muscles, ligiments, etc.)
> are shaped by the unique pronounciations of a particular language. By
> the age of 6 or 7 these
> organs are already pretty much molded. Could it be that the Japanese
> language translates in an indirect way into the sounds blown with the
> shakuhachi via the physical characterists of the native speaker?
>
> Am I way off based, or have other's speculates similarly?
>
> Cheers,
> Brian
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