Download or read book Tsugaru Shamisen and Modern Japanese Identity written by Gerald Thomas Mcgoldrick and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The shamisen, a Japanese plucked lute dating back to the seventeenth century, began to be played by blind itinerant male performers known as bosama in the late nineteenth century in the Tsugaru region, part of present-day Aomori prefecture in northern Japan. By the early twentieth century it was used by sighted players to accompany local folk songs, and from the 1940s entirely instrumental versions of a few of the folk songs were being performed. In the late 1950s the term Tsugaru shamisen was coined and the genre began to get national attention. This culminated in a revival in the 1970s centred on Takahashi Chikuzan, who had made a living as a bosama in the prewar period. In the wake of the 70s boom a contest began to be held annually in Hirosaki, the cultural capital of the Tsugaru region. This contest nurtured a new generation of young players from all over Japan, eventually spawning other national contests in every corner of the country. Chikuzans death in 1998 was widely reported in the media, and Yoshida Ryichir and Yoshida Kenichi, brothers who had stood out at the contests, were cast as the new face of Tsugaru shamisen. From about 2000 a new Tsugaru shamisen revival was under way, and the music could be heard as background music on Television programs and commercials representing a modern Japan that had not lost its traditions. Through discourse analysis of primary materials, and informed by the authors twenty-five years of direct experience with the Tsugaru shamisen community, this dissertation examines how since the millennial revival the music has come to index a Japanese identity that is modern but still essentially Japanese. It explores ideas developed in the 1930s by thinkers like Watsuji Tetsur and Yanagita Kunio that continue to influence popular conceptions of modernity and tradition in Japan. It traces the one-hundred-year recording history of the music and the proliferation of national contests in recent decades and compares the revivals of the 1970s and the millennium to demonstrate how a genre that previously indexed rural, traditional Japan has come to represent the modern nation.
Download or read book Traditional Folk Song in Modern Japan written by David W. Hughes and published by Global Oriental. This book was released on 2008-01-31 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Japanese say that ‘folk song is the heart’s home town’. Traditional folk songs (min’yo) from the countryside are strongly linked to their places of origin and continue to play a role there. Today, however, they are also taught as a quasi-art music, arranged for stage and television, quoted in Westernized popular songs and so forth.
Download or read book The SAGE Handbook of Modern Japanese Studies written by James D Babb and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2014-12-15 with total page 1373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A welcome addition to any reading list for those interested in contemporary Japanese society. - Roger Goodman, Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Society, University of Oxford "I know no better book for an accessible and up-to-date introduction to this complex subject than The SAGE Handbook of Modern Japan Studies." - Hiroko Takeda, Associate Professor, Organization for Global Japanese Studies, University of Tokyo "Pioneering and nuanced in analysis, yet highly accessible and engaging in style." - Yoshio Sugimoto, Emeritus Professor, La Trobe University The SAGE Handbook of Modern Japanese Studies includes outstanding contributions from a diverse group of leading academics from across the globe. This volume is designed to serve as a major interdisciplinary reference work and a seminal text, both rigorous and accessible, to assist students and scholars in understanding one of the major nations of the world. James D. Babb is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University.
Download or read book Tsugaru written by Nanyan Guo and published by Otago University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tsugaru is located in the north-west corner of Japan's main island, Honshu. With a rugged landscape and challenging weather, it was bypassed by Japan's industrial development after World War Two. As a result, it is rich in culture and diversity, with people of many different dialects and traditions. This book serves both as an introduction and as a study on regional identity in the modern state. The interesting essays examine many aspects of Tsugaru life and culture: some history, the 'Ysugaru shamisen', the region's distinctive lacquerware, sculpture, literature ad the performing arts.
Download or read book Focus Music in Contemporary Japan written by Jennifer Milioto Matsue and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-07-16 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focus: Music in Contemporary Japan explores a diversity of musics performed in Japan today, ranging from folk song to classical music, the songs of geisha to the screaming of underground rock, with a specific look at the increasingly popular world of taiko (ensemble drumming). Discussion of contemporary musical practice is situated within broader frames of musical and sociopolitical history, processes of globalization and cosmopolitanism, and the continued search for Japanese identity through artistic expression. It explores how the Japanese have long negotiated cultural identity through musical practice in three parts: Part I, "Japanese Music and Culture," provides an overview of the key characteristics of Japanese culture that inform musical performance, such as the attitude towards the natural environment, changes in ruling powers, dominant religious forms, and historical processes of cultural exchange. Part II, "Sounding Japan," describes the elements that distinguish traditional Japanese music and then explores how music has changed in the modern era under the influence of Western music and ideology. Part III, "Focusing In: Identity, Meaning and Japanese Drumming in Kyoto," is based on fieldwork with musicians and explores the position of Japanese drumming within Kyoto. It focuses on four case studies that paint a vivid picture of each respective site, the music that is practiced, and the pedagogy and creative processes of each group. The downloadable resources include examples of Japanese music that illustrate specific elements and key genres introduced in the text. A companion website includes additional audio-visual sources discussed in detail in the text. Jennifer Milioto Matsue is an Associate Professor at Union College and specializes in modern Japanese music and culture.
Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Japan written by Hiroko Takeda and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-09-21 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Japan presents a synthesized, interdisciplinary study of contemporary Japan based on up-to-date theoretical models designed to provide readers with a comprehensive and full understanding of the dynamics of contemporary Japan. In order to achieve this, the Handbook is organized into two parts. Part I, ‘Foundations’, clarifies the state of contemporary Japan topic by topic by referring to the latest theoretical developments in the relevant disciplinary fields of politics, international relations, economy, society, culture and the personal. Part II, ‘Issues’, then offers a series of concrete analyses building upon the theoretical discussions introduced in Part I to help undergraduate and postgraduate students learn how to conduct independent analysis. Locating Japan in a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, this Handbook is an essential resource for students and scholars interested in Japanese studies, Asian studies and global studies.
Download or read book Vocal Music and Contemporary Identities written by Christian Utz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking at musical globalization and vocal music, this collection of essays studies the complex relationship between the human voice and cultural identity in 20th- and 21st-century music in both East Asian and Western music. The authors approach musical meaning in specific case studies against the background of general trends of cultural globalization and the construction/deconstruction of identity produced by human (and artificial) voices. The essays proceed from different angles, notably sociocultural and historical contexts, philosophical and literary aesthetics, vocal technique, analysis of vocal microstructures, text/phonetics-music-relationships, historical vocal sources or models for contemporary art and pop music, and areas of conflict between vocalization, "ethnicity," and cultural identity. They pinpoint crucial topical features that have shaped identity-discourses in art and popular musical situations since the1950s, with a special focus on the past two decades. The volume thus offers a unique compilation of texts on the human voice in a period of heightened cultural globalization by utilizing systematic methodological research and firsthand accounts on compositional practice by current Asian and Western authors.
Download or read book Handbook of Japanese Music in the Modern Era written by Henry Johnson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-11-20 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring an array of captivating topics, from hybridized Buddhist music to AI singers, this book introduces Japanese music in the modern era. The twenty-five chapters show how cultural change from the late nineteenth century to the present day has had a profound impact on the Japanese musical landscape, including the recontextualization and transformation of traditional genres, and the widespread adoption of Western musical practices ranging from classical music to hip hop. The contributors offer representative case studies within the themes of Foundations, Heritage, Institutions, and Hybridities, examining both musical styles that originated in earlier times and distinctly localized or Japanized musical forms.
Download or read book Cultural Commodities in Japanese Rural Revitalization written by Anthony Rausch and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-01-11 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fate of local places increasingly rests on their capability to capitalize on their highly specific local cultural resources. Cultural Commodities in Japanese Rural Revitalization: Tsugaru Nuri Lacquerware and Tsugaru Shamisen examines the dynamics of this reality for the Tsugaru District of the Aomori Prefecture, Japan, and its two dominant cultural commodities, a lacquerware and a musical performance. Organized on the basis of policy, production and consumption, the research points to historical trajectory and a combinative conceptual-operational space as the means of identifying cultural and economic potential for a cultural commodity. This analytical approach provides both for assessing the local consciousness and identifying informed policy and industry management for the commodity, making it possible to realize its potential in local revitaliszation.
Download or read book Blind in Early Modern Japan written by Wei Yu Wayne Tan and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2022-09-06 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the blind in Japan that challenges contemporary notions of disability
Download or read book Premodern Japan written by Mikiso Hane and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japanese historian Louis Perez brings Mikiso Hane's rich and beloved account of early Japanese history up-to-date in this thoroughly revised Second Edition of Premodern Japan. The text traces the key developments of Japanese history in the premodern period, including the establishment of the imperial dynasty, early influences from China and Korea, the rise of the samurai class and the establishment of feudalism, the culture and society of the long Tokugawa period, the rise of Confucianism and Shinto nationalism, and finally, the end of Tokugawa rule. While the text provides many political developments through the early modern period, it also integrates the social, cultural, and intellectual aspects of Japanese history as well. Perez's updates to the text provide a comprehensive overview of the major social, political, and religious trends in premodern Japan as well as offering the most current scholarship.
Download or read book The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music written by David W. Hughes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-02-03 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Music is a frequently neglected aspect of Japanese culture. It is in fact a highly problematic area, as the Japanese actively introduced Western music into their modern education system in the Meiji period (1868-1911), creating westernized melodies and instrumental instruction for Japanese children from kindergarten upwards. As a result, most Japanese now have a far greater familiarity with Western (or westernized) music than with traditional Japanese music. Traditional or classical Japanese music has become somewhat ghettoized, often known and practised only by small groups of people in social structures which have survived since the pre-modern era. Such marginalization of Japanese music is one of the less recognized costs of Japan's modernization. On the other hand, music in its westernized and modernized forms has an extremely important place in Japanese culture and society, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for example, being so widely known and performed that it is arguably part of contemporary Japanese popular and mass culture. Japan has become a world leader in the mass production of Western musical instruments and in innovative methodologies of music education (Yamaha and Suzuki). More recently, the Japanese craze of karaoke as a musical entertainment and as musical hardware has made an impact on the leisure and popular culture of many countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas. This is the first book to cover in detail all genres including court music, Buddhist chant, theatre music, chamber ensemble music and folk music, as well as contemporary music and the connections between music and society in various periods. The book is a collaborative effort, involving both Japanese and English speaking authors, and was conceived by the editors to form a balanced approach that comprehensively treats the full range of Japanese musical culture.
Download or read book The Palgrave Handbook of Music and Sound in Japanese Animation written by Marco Pellitteri and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 1107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Japan s New Ruralities written by Wolfram Manzenreiter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-02-07 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeking to challenge negative perceptions within Japanese media and politics on the future of the countryside, the contributors to this book present a counterargument to the inevitable demise of rural society. Contrary to the dominant argument, which holds outmigration and demographic hyper-aging as primarily responsible for rural decline, this book highlights the spatial dimension of power differences behind uneven development in contemporary Japan. Including many fi eldwork-based case studies, the chapters discuss topics such as corporate farming, local energy systems and public healthcare, examining the constraints and possibilities of rural self-determination under the centripetal impact of forces located both in and outside of the country. Focusing on asymmetries of power to explore regional autonomy and heteronomy, it also examines "peripheralization" and the "global countryside," two recent theoretical contributions to the fi eld, as a common framework. Japan’s New Ruralities addresses the complexity of rural decline in the context of debates on globalization and power differences. As such, it will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, anthropology, human geography and politics, as well as Japanese Studies.
Download or read book The Spirit of Tsugaru written by Gerald Groemer and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Listening to Interstitial Identity in Contemporary Japanese Narrative written by Kenia Avendano-Garro and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contemporary era of the late 1980s bubble economy through the post-triple disaster moment of the 2010s in Japan is one that, due to an increased opening of borders and disintegrating of normalized structures, stimulated a turbulent reassessment of Japanese identity politics closely entangled with immigration, intercultural diversity, and marginalization. These issues do not only hold hegemonic systems of discrimination and inequality in direct contention, but also encourage a more complex and nuanced examination of "Japaneseness" against the homogeneous-presenting image that is often pushed to the forefront. Taking a grassroots perspective, this dissertation asks, what does it mean to be at once Japanese and marginal in contemporary Japan? How do real and fictional actors actively negotiate this often invisible interstitiality against notions of homogeneity in contemporary Japanese narrative? And how can an understanding of race-like systems, often shaped solely by visuality, be expanded via habits of listening and social meanings of sound? To offer an answer, I utilize a framework informed by critical race theory and sound studies in which marginalized experiences are understood as working like systems of race that are based on a hierarchy of audible rather than visible racial awareness. Understanding the subaltern as able to speak but lacking a listener, I employ a method of listening to marginal sounds, music, and voice as a way to interrogate fixed dichotomies of categorical distinction upheld by cultural essentialism, such as Japanese and Other, pure and impure, margin and center. I focus on multilingual author Tawada Yōko's in-between language experiments, Watanabe Shin'ichirō's hip-hop-based animated series Samurai Champloo, Kodama Yuki's modern jazz manga series Apollo on the Slope, and the "silent" voices of the dead and survivors of the 3.11 triple disaster in Sakamoto Ryūichi's "Tsunami Piano" and Itō Seikō's Imagination Radio. In so doing, I analyze the ways in which these narratives negotiate marginalized audibility via language, music, and voice to address a new consciousness of Japanese identity embedded in transnationalism and the "liquidizing" of modern structures. The texts analyzed here are case studies which demonstrate a tendency bounded by a type of marginalized trauma and a globally-informed perspective that is negotiated through sound and provides a view of Japanese culture that is more finely tuned. Together, they portray imaginations of "Japaneseness" that are not passively monolithic or mainstream, but are rather intrinsically political, intersect multiple aspects of identity, and push against normative modes of Japanese nation and society.
Download or read book Focus Music in Contemporary Japan written by Jennifer Milioto Matsue and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-07-16 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focus: Music in Contemporary Japan explores a diversity of musics performed in Japan today, ranging from folk song to classical music, the songs of geisha to the screaming of underground rock, with a specific look at the increasingly popular world of taiko (ensemble drumming). Discussion of contemporary musical practice is situated within broader frames of musical and sociopolitical history, processes of globalization and cosmopolitanism, and the continued search for Japanese identity through artistic expression. It explores how the Japanese have long negotiated cultural identity through musical practice in three parts: Part I, "Japanese Music and Culture," provides an overview of the key characteristics of Japanese culture that inform musical performance, such as the attitude towards the natural environment, changes in ruling powers, dominant religious forms, and historical processes of cultural exchange. Part II, "Sounding Japan," describes the elements that distinguish traditional Japanese music and then explores how music has changed in the modern era under the influence of Western music and ideology. Part III, "Focusing In: Identity, Meaning and Japanese Drumming in Kyoto," is based on fieldwork with musicians and explores the position of Japanese drumming within Kyoto. It focuses on four case studies that paint a vivid picture of each respective site, the music that is practiced, and the pedagogy and creative processes of each group. The downloadable resources include examples of Japanese music that illustrate specific elements and key genres introduced in the text. A companion website includes additional audio-visual sources discussed in detail in the text. Jennifer Milioto Matsue is an Associate Professor at Union College and specializes in modern Japanese music and culture.
