>From shakuhachi-request@communication.ucsd.edu Tue Jan 11 15:29:38 2005
>
>My favorite Minyo player is Iwao Yoneya. I was lucky to get 3 of
>his LP's on my first trip to Japan in 1975. Years later I realized
>what a treasure these albums were and discovered that the notation
>was inside the album covers. Of course having the notation didn't
>help much, but some. A few of the pieces I was able to follow along
>with and now include them in my concerts. But most are too difficult
>for me to learn off the album. So many complex trills etc.
The Yoneya Minyo books are probably the biggest collection of Minyo
pieces in one place. 11 books with 30 to 35 pieces in each. Easy
to read style, with a lot of the "trills" noted. Well worth the
$10 or so per book. Someday we'll finish the translation of the
titles into Romanji and English and there will be a complete website
for reference.*
>I wish that I could have studied Minyo with him.
A while back, my teacher gave me a copy of an old Yoneya audio
cassette tape converted to CD. I have a few Yoneya CDs
(available in Japan, in SF Japantown and Little Tokyo in LA) and
love to listen to his work. On the CD I got from Yoshizawa, was the
piece Akita Oiwake. I really like this one and decided to see if I
could figure out what Yoneya was doing, and learn to play it sort of
like he does. I've spent about 40 hours listening to the piece
on a computer, looping it a phrase at a time, and writing down my
closest approximation of what he's doing.
Slowly, I'm learning to play the piece with some of his details.
Yoneya died a couple of years ago, so this is as close as I'll come
to studying with him. But it's interesting, challenging, and a lot
of fun.
bj
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* This website is currently under construction at
http://communication.ucsd.edu/shaku/Titles/Yoneya_Titles/
if anyone wants to take a look.
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