Music in Japan : experiencing music, expressing culture / Bonnie C. Wade.
| Author/creator | Wade, Bonnie C. |
| Format | Book |
| Publication Info | New York : Oxford University Press, 2005. |
| Description | xxii, 184 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm + 1 audio disc (digital ; 4 3/4 in.) |
| Subjects |
| Series | Global music series Global music series. ^A563337 |
| Contents | International interface: looking westward. Setting the scene ; "The west" goes to Japan ; Meji-period modernization ; World War I and immediately following -- International interface: looking eastward. Tradition in a time of change ; Interface in the first millennium ; The Gagaku ensemble as we hear it. Aerophones ; Chordophones ; Membranophones and an idiophone -- Percussion parts in Gagaku music. Strokes and stroke sequences ; Coordinated percussion patterns -- Gagaku through time -- Focusing inward and across boundaries. Beyond classical music training ; Beyond the palace ; Beyond the temple ; Fuzzing of folk and popular ; Tsugaru syamisen ; The Syamisen ; Drumming ensembles ; Matsuri bayashi -- Within the world of Koto. Keiko Nosaka and the twenty-stringed Koto ; Tsukushi-goto ; Yatsuhashi Ryu and "Rokudan" ; Ikuta Kengyo and Yamada Kengyo ; Michio Miyagi and Shin nihon ongaku ; Traditional music for Koto ; Contemporary composition for Koto -- From theater to film -- Intertextuality in the theatrical arts. The No drama and Ataka. The staging ; The plays and musical setting ; The acting forces ; Movement ; The musicians and instruments -- The Kabuki theater. From No to Kabuki ; Kanjincho ; The musicians ; The music -- The film Men Who Step on the Tiger's Tail -- Managing international interface. Continuing interface. Looking to the east ; Niche musics from around the world ; Jazz and the authenticity issue ; Hip-hop in Japan -- Continuing the inward look. National cultural policies ; The choral phenomenon -- Music and the media. Film music ; Enka ; J-pop ; Theme songs ; The New York Nexus ; Noise -- From Japan outward. Japanese diasporas. Karaoke ; Jazz and "Japaneseness" ; Expressing "Japaneseness" aesthetically ; The seasons in Japanese music -- Keiko Abe and the marimba. |
| Abstract | This book offers a vivid introduction to the music of contemporary Japan, a nation in which traditional, Western, and popular music thrive side by side. Drawing on more than forty years of experience, the author focuses on three themes throughout the book and in the musical selections on the accompanying CD. She begins by exploring how music in Japan has been profoundly affected by interface with both the Western (Europe and the Americas) and Asian (continental and island) cultural spheres. Wade then shows how Japan's thriving popular music industry is also a modern form of a historically important facet of Japanese musical culture: the process of gradual popularization, in which a local or a group's music eventually becomes accessible to a broader range of people. She goes on to consider the intertextuality of Japanese music: how familiar themes, musical sounds, and structures have been maintained and transformed across the various traditions of Japanese performing arts over time. Music in Japan is enhanced by eyewitness accounts of performances, interviews with key performers, and vivid illustrations. Packaged with an 80-minute CD containing examples of the music discussed in the book, it features guided listening and hands-on activities that encourage readers to engage actively and critically with the music. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 170-174), filmography (pages 174-176), and index. |
| LCCN | 2004041486 |
| ISBN | 0195144872 |
| ISBN | 0195144880 (pbk.) |