Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The biwa (Japanese: 琵琶) is a Japanese short-necked wooden lute traditionally used in narrative storytelling. The biwa is a plucked string instrument that first gained popularity in China before spreading throughout East Asia, eventually reaching Japan sometime during the Nara period (710–794).
Women playing the Shamisen, Tsuzumi, and Taiko in Meiji-era Japan. Traditional Japanese musical instruments, known as wagakki (和楽器) in Japanese, are musical instruments used in the traditional folk music of Japan. They comprise a range of string, wind, and percussion instruments.
The biwa (琵琶 - Chinese: pipa), a form of short-necked lute, was played by a group of itinerant performers (biwa hōshi). The root of Biwa music was The Tale of the Heike. [7] Biwa hōshi organized into a guild-like association. The biwa is Japan's traditional instrument. [citation needed]
In conservatoria across the country, even students of traditional instruments were always required to learn the piano. [20] Takemitsu, 1961. From the early 1960s, Takemitsu began to make use of traditional Japanese instruments in his music, and even took up playing the biwa—an instrument he used in his score for the film Seppuku (1962). [2]
The Biwa in History, Its Origins and Development in Japan. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1967. Groemer, Gerald. The Spirit of Tsugaru: Blind Musicians, Tsugaru-jamisen, and the Folk Music of Northern Japan, with the Autobiography of Takahashi Chikuzan. Sterling Heights: Harmonie Park Press, 1999. History of Japanese Traditional Music ...
Other film soundtracks in which Takemitsu used traditional instruments include Shinoda's Assassination and Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan (both 1964). Takemitsu's first concert composition for traditional Japanese musical instruments was Eclipse (1966) for the biwa performer, Kinshi Tsuruta, and the shakuhachi player, Katsuya Yokoyama. [3]
You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work; to remix – to adapt the work; Under the following conditions: attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.
Tsuruta specialized in the ancient pear-shaped plucked lute called the biwa, [1] and also sang. She developed her own form of the Satsuma biwa, [ 2 ] which is sometimes referred to as Tsuruta biwa. This biwa differs from the traditional Satsuma biwa in the number of frets, construction of the head, and occasionally a doubled 4th string.