At 07:12 AM 10/3/2005, Justin . wrote:
>I have started to analyse Yokoyama's pitch in his
>Koten Honkyoku. In case anyone is interested, far it
>looks something like this:
>D
>Eb -25c
>F
>G
>Ab -25c
>A
>Bb -25c
>C
>Db -25c
>
>...I think there may be more
>subtleties to it.
Is this an abstract intellectual exercise? Or will it lead to a
shakuhachi student adjusting his tsu-meri with an electronic tuning device?
The results above seem to suggest a constant, unvarying pitch
throughout the duration of the tone, like a piano or a
synthesizer. But for a shakuhachi student, to paraphrase Bill
Clinton, it all depends on the meaning of "tsu-meri" (and the meaning
of "ro," since the interval between those two tones is what a student
is really interested in).
Analyzing one tsu-meri/ro interval in a Yokoyama recording, I found a
variable use of pitch as an expressive element. Both pitches varied
throughout their durations, "constantly changing from 116 cents (a
little more than a Western tempered half-tone) to as wide as 145
cents (nearly 3/4 of a Western tempered whole tone)" [from my April
2004 posting to this list]:
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~signell/take/
The lesson I take from Yokoyama is that I should discard my Western
preconceptions and listen more carefully to pitch variations in
shakuhachi performances. And variations in tone color, in dynamics, etc.
Karl
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