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Aesthetics in the Traditional Music of Japan

Author(s): AKIRA TAMBA
Source: The World of Music, Vol. 18, No. 2 (1976), pp. 3-10
Published by: Schott Music GmbH & Co. KG
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43563515
Accessed: 03-06-2019 15:08 UTC

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AKIRA TAMBA

Aesthetics in the Traditional Music of Japan

Although Westerners are beginning to acquaint themselves with the traditio
music of Japan through gramophone records and the increasingly frequent to
of Europe undertaken by Japanese artists, they still find it difficult to enter int
world of music so different from the one their ears are accustomed to. The
questions put to me by the students and the audiences I have had the opport
of speaking to on this subject show that they try in vain to grasp the characteri
of this form of musical expression by referring to their own system, derived as
is from a concept of aesthetics which has little in common with that of the
of olden times. Therefore I think it may be useful to throw some light on
principal aspects of the aesthetic which governs the organization of Japanes
traditional music.
But has there been only one, or have there been several systems of musical
aesthetics during the ten or more centuries in which what we now call Japan
traditional music evolved? When one reflects on the multiplicity of the socio
cultural and even the material factors - what I have in mind here are the mak
of the instruments and the elaboration of the basic sound elements - one would
expect to find the aesthetics varying according to the period, the place and
social class whose imprint it bears. For example, do genres as dissimilar as th
music of the Gagaku, which was cultivated by the aristocracy in the 9th cent
the music of the Nô, which was developed by the new ruling military class in
14th century, or the music of the Gidayu, which was associated with the pu
theatre that took root in the big urban centres such as Tokyo and Osawa in
18th century, derive from one and the same aesthetic? And, if they do, how
we to account for the specific character of each of these forms of music? T
difficulties inherent in such an approach would be more readily understood i
problem were transferred, let us say, to the domain of French music. Would
possible, without resorting to completely vague generalities, to frame a defin
of the aesthetics of French music on the basis of compositions ranging fro
Gregorian chant to the works of Debussy and Ravel, via those of Guillaume de
Machaut, Delalande, Couperin and Rameau? There is, however, one characteristic

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The famous singer and biwa player Shisui Enomoto

of Japanese traditional music which makes it easier to determine the aesthetic

principle which governs it: unlike French music, it depends not on the composer
but on the rules of a long-established musical genre and is consequently not
subject to the variations brought about by the aesthetic outlook of an individual.
For this reason we shall not be able to understand what the aesthetics of Japanese
music is unless we know the traditional forms of music with which it is inseparably
linked. Although it is difficult to describe music to the uninitiated without the help
of musical examples, I shall try to present the main genres of Japanese traditional
music. Owing to lack of space I shall leave out those folkloristic and contemporary
forms which are connected with the traditional music of Japan.

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 Two forms, both of which were adopted by the aristocracy of the 9th and 10th
centuries after they had been imported from the Asian mainland, will first claim
our attention. These are the Shômyô, the Buddhist liturgical chant, and the
Gagaku, instrumental music accompanied by songs and dances. It is interesting
to see how these musical forms of foreign origin were developed in order to
satisfy the requirements of Japanese aesthetics. The Shômyô, which in the 9th
century still bore only a loose association with the two Buddhist sects, the Tendai
and the Shingon, was gradually transformed so as to become two styles of music
which, from the end of the 10th century, were specific to each sect. The Gagaku
underwent a far-reaching modification as a result of the reform introduced in the
¡9th century by the Emperor Saga. This was the time when the composition of the
orchestra as well as the musical and choreographic structure of the pieces were
fixed once and for all and the playing techniques and musical modes standardized.
This period saw the first codification of Japanese aesthetics, and the Shômyô
and the Gagaku, which were its first " results", already exhibit certain characteris-
tics which reappear in later genres. Thus the method of composition based on
melodic patterns which was adopted in the Shômyô was to have a considerable
influence on ^Tàpanese vocal music from the Saibara to the Koto, including the
Rôei, /mayó1), Heikyoku, Nô, Jôruri, etc. The Gagaku provided an orientation
which was to become decisive for the playing techniques of the instruments, and
also for musical theory, by elaborating the io-ha-kyu (introduction, development,
quick) principle on which the temporal organization of Japanese traditional music
depends.
The Heikyoku and the Nò are the two most representative genres of the
medieval music of Japan. The Heikyoku is a narration of the epic of the Heike
(a clan which in the 12th century fought a memorable battle with the Genji) to the
accompaniment of the biwa, the Japanese four-stringed lute. This epic narration,
which originated in about the 13th century, soon became popular among the
common people who admired its pathos and morality: rewards granted in a future
birth to those who have led good lives during their earthly existence, and above
all the vanity of the things of this world. After it had adopted all the vocal and
choreographic forms that were already in circulation, the Nô was given a fixed
form for the first time in the 14th century by Zeami, who added a final touch of
stylization and refinement, thus making it into a dramatic form which appealed
exclusively to the ruling military class. The Nô thus developed from a simple folk
entertainment into a highly elaborate theatrical in which singing, mime and danc-
ing are combined with speech and the instrumentalists and the choir are closely
associated with the performance of the actors. Furthermore, in the Nô the pursuit
of an aesthetic aim is influenced by spiritual considerations, by contact with Zen
Buddhism, which was supported by the military in power at the time and was
therefore fully able to satisfy the aspirations of the ruling class.
Having been deprived of a theatrical entertainment to their taste, the people in
the cities began in the 16th century to create new musical genres. Two tendencies
dominate the music which was created by the common people during this period:
on the one hand the wish to combine music with drama, which at that time was a
flourishing art - in this way the Jôruri was to become part of the Bunraku puppet
theatre, and the Nagauta, Kiyomoto and Tokiwazu2) were to find their place in
the Kabuki, a theatrical combining singing and dancing; and on the other hand
a liking for solos, both instrumental and vocal, such as pieces for the shakuhachi,

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a vertical flute with five holes, and the koto, a thirteen-stringed zither, as well as
vocal items such as the Jiuta and the Kouta accompanied on the shamisen, a
three-stringed lute, and especially the Satsuma-biwa, an epic narration with biwa
accompaniment, which came into being in the milieu of the armies of Kyû-shu in
Southern Japan.
This brief survey at once reveals a fundamental characteristic of Japan's
traditional music which is connected with the country's socio-political structure,
namely that a given form of music is the property of a particular social class.
It is true of course that a similar social stratification can be found in Western
music at any period of its history, but nowhere has it been taken so far as i
Japan, where each class has its own specific instruments and its own ways o
playing them. Let us take the biwa as an example. The biwa used in the Gagaku
the one used in the Heikyoku and the one used in the Satsuma-biwa music diff
not only in their construction, being of different sizes and having different numb
of strings and frets, but also in regard to the fingering technique and the kind of
plectrum needed to play them. In addition to this the period and the social mil
in which the instruments were first used also differ in each case. The same app
to all the instruments and all the genres of the traditional music, the hierarch
structure of which undoubtedly reflects the divisions imposed by the feudal cl
But not all of Japan's traditional music has been conditioned by a particula
genre, background or period. There are other characteristics which persi
throughout the whole range of musical forms. The most apparent of these is surely
the ritual aspect of a musical performance. When attending a Gagaku or a Nô
performance we are fascinated by the manner in which the musicians and th
actors play their parts, for they seem to be enacting a ceremony in which eve
single detail is fixed. It is indeed true that no effect, no gesture, no shout is
improvised or left to the choice of the performer; everything is controlled an
governed with a precision which aims at being as effective as possible and co
sequently tends to become rigidified in the perfecting of a form stylized to t
utmost degree. What is the purpose of this musical ritualism? It is probably n
without some connection with the regulative power attributed to music in ancie
Chinese philosophy. The term reigaku, which associates the idea of courtesy
ceremonial (rei) with that of music (gaku), conveys the essence of a conceptio
of music which seems to have been appreciated and generalized to a grea
extent in Japan than in any other country of the Far East. The traditional musician
does not strive to acquire a technique in order to display his virtuosity but, on the
contrary, to reproduce secular musical gestures and forms of expression as fait
fully as possible so as to attune himself to the cosmic and social order which
depends for its support on the music fixed in this way. He therefore endeavou
to efface his own personality by devoting himself to a ritualized performanc
closer to asceticism or a religious practice than to an artistic entertainment.
The second characteristic shared by all the forms of traditional Japanese mus
is the pursuit of a static quality which matches the taste for the quasi-ritualis
stylization referred to above. Is this static quality not the ideal way of conveyi
the stability implied by the maintenance of the social order, the tranquillizin
effect produced by the concord between non-individualized man and the harmo
of the universe, the withdrawal, the meditation and the religious ecstasy aimed at,

A gagaku mask

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/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']

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for example, in the Shômyô liturgical chant? But if this static quality is conveyed
by a great slowness, especially in the gestures of the dances, and by a general
impression of slowing down, or rather of "sustention", this is because it cor-
responds not so much to an immobility but rather to an imperceptible progression.
Dynamism, which is called for particularly in the dramatic genres, is not unknown
in Japanese traditional music. In the Nô, for example, the Hataraki dance, which
mimes a battle or an act of revenge, often reaches a speed in excess of two
hundred beats to the minute. But instead of using acceleration and sudden con-
trast to move the audience, Japanese musical aesthetics strives to lessen their
effect in order to immobilize the individual emotional response of the performer
and of the spectator. The io-ha-kyu principle mentioned above guarantees the
continuous progression of a piece by controlling the speed of the development,
the intensity, the density, and the linking up of successive phases which, in the
Nô, for example, move imperceptibly from inertia to a quick movement without the
slightest dynamism becoming apparent. The above remarks will have made clear
the importance of this principle, which regulates the structure of all the traditional
musical forms.
The third specific feature of Japanese traditional music, with the exception of
the Gagaku3), lies in a particular mode of composition based on patterns. By a
pattern I mean here the smallest melodic or rhythmic group serving as a unit of
construction in a piece of music, just as words are employed to make up a
sentence or a text. In order to compose a piece of music, a juxtaposition or super-
imposition of such patterns is sufficient. The performers have to learn these
patterns by heart, a task which requires a considerable effort of memory. As the
patterns vary from one genre to another, a Nô drummer, for instance, would be
unable to play a drum part in a Gagaku or a Kabuki piece. This shows the extent
to which this method of composition reinforces the segregation of the musical
genres, a segregation which reflects that imposed by the feudal society. A
musician cannot move from one musical form to another any more than he can
from one social class to another, and so it is that each social stratum has come
to possess its own musical language.
Finally it is on the level of the musical performance, both in instrumental and
in vocal technique, that we find certain features of the traditional musical
aesthetics of Japan. In spite of the differences that can be noticed not only
between one genre and another but also between individual performers, some
constant features can be detected. The vocal technique, for example, commonly
employs a very wide and irregular vibrato as a kind of ornament, a gliding attack
from below the note, fluctuating pitches, a low timbre, etc. In the instrumental
techniques we find a marked preference for glissandi, an accelerating repetition
of the same note, an undulation of the notes, noises such as that of breathing,
strokes with the plectrum against the lateral holes or the sound-board, shouts,
etc. All these procedures are, as we know, prohibited in Western traditional music
which, having decided in favour of a polyphonic and harmonic system of com-
position, eliminated any unstable elements that were liable to impede an accurate
superimposition of the fixed pitches. In Japan, however, although the Gagaku
•has used a harmonic system based on the superimposition of fifths which, as in
the West, requires a fixing of the pitch of the notes and the adoption of a regular
rhythm, the traditional music is under the sway of a fluctuating system of com-
position which was imposed once and for all in the 14th century with the Nô. The

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The naga-uta ensemble of the Kabuki theatre

divergence we see here between the Western aesthetic, which advocates a strictly
controlled organization, and the Japanese aesthetic (with the exception of the
Gagaku), which calls for a fluctuating structure, between the choice of fixed and
abstract materials in the first case and of non-fixed materials and more concrete
sounds in the second, would seem to point to the existence of two different
conceptions of music. While fixity and abstraction are the prerogatives of an
intellectual construction which erases the stimuli inherent in the sound material
in order to convey the individual emotions and feelings of each compose
procedures of composition and performance characteristic of Japanese tr
music tend towards a more direct communication of an eminently psycho-
physiological type. To give two examples, it is only when experiencing them that
one can become aware of the telling quality of the wide and irregular vibrati,
which create the illusion of intensifying the feeling aroused by the sound, or of
the gliding sounds which arrest the listener's attention. In the same way the
principle of composition by patterns was generalized to the extent of facilitating
the learning of a piece by enabling the musician to memorize a complex sound
object. As for the jo-ha-kyu and the whole range of vocal and instrumental
techniques, do they not justify themselves by the direct impact they make on the
listener's sensibility?
A psycho-physiological organization of music is, however, not peculiar to Japan
but is found throughout the East, and in a particularly marked form in India.
Furthermore the philosophy of the reigaku, which is met with only in the Far East,
distinguishes the traditional music of Japan from that of South-East Asia and
locates it within close proximity to the conceptions of the Chinese. Thus the true

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characteristic of Japanese traditional music would appear to lie in a merging of
aesthetics and spirituality. Does not the path (dô) of art join the path of Zen
Buddhism, which prohibits discursive thought to make way for sensorial
apprehension and attributes to a ritualized observance the value it denies to our
transitory world?

Notes
1) Saibara: a vocal form of the 11th century corresponding to the solo of the
leading dancer followed by a choral song accompanied by the Gagaku
instruments; Rôei: Chinese poems sung to the accompaniment of the Gagaku
instruments, appreciated mainly by the aristocracy of the 11th century; ¡mayó:
vocal music of the 12th century generally accompanied by a drum and small
cymbals.
2) Nagauta: unlike the Jiuta and the Kouta which are short songs, the Nagauta
is a long vocal piece which contributes to the dramatic development of a
Kabuki play; Kiyomoto: a song accompanied on the shamisen (three-stringed
lute) used for sentimental scenes in the Kabuki theatre; Tokiwazu: a song
accompanying a Kabuki dance.
3) Although, in the Gagaku, the part of the kakko (horizontal drum played with
two sticks) employs rhythmic patterns, and koto and biwa parts include melodic
patterns, the overall system of composition is free as in Western music. |

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