A Memoir of Tõru Takemitsu by Asaka TakemitsuToru Takemitsu (1930-1996) was the first Japanese composer to receive international recognition in the field of classical music, and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the late twentieth century. Largely self-taught, Takemitsu created his own unique sound world one that was not bound by convention. In A Memoir of Toru Takemitsu, his wife of forty-two years reveals a candid, behind-the-scenes glimpse into his fascinating life, his legendary music, and his final days. After rising to prominence in 1957 when Igor Stravinsky praised his Requiem for Strings, Takemitsu became best known in the West for his concert music, but was also a master composer of music for film, television, theater, and radio drama. Through six extensive interviews, Asaka Takemitsu reveals previously unknown information regarding the composer's compositional processes and his private life including the difficult period after the war and the subsequent post-war art movement in Japan, his bond with his friends, love of movies, and daily routine. This inspiring memoir shares an unforgettable story of how a young boy without any musical training or affluence used the power of positive thinking to make his dream of becoming a composer come true.
Call Number: ML340 .T354 2010
ISBN: 1450271111
Publication Date: 2010.
Music of Japan Today by E. Michael Richards; Kazuko TanosakiMusic of Japan Today examines cross-cultural confluences in contemporary Japanese art-music through multiple approaches from twenty international composers, performers, and scholars. Like the format of the MOJT symposia (1992-2007) held in the United States, the book is in two parts. In Part I, three award-winning Japanese composers discuss the construction of their compositional techniques and aesthetic orientations. Part II contains nineteen essays by scholars and creative musicians, arranged in a general chronological frame. The first section discusses connections of the music and ideas of Japanese composers during the time surrounding the Second World War to Japan's politics; section two presents recent perspectives on the music and legacy of Japan's most internationally renowned composer, Toru Takemitsu (1930-96). Section three investigates innovative, cross-cultural uses of Japanese and Western instruments (grouped by common instrumental families - voice, flutes, strings), shaped by historical traditions, physical design, and acoustic characteristics and constraints. Section four examines computer music by mid-career composers, and the final section looks at four current Japanese societies, within and "off-shore" Japan, and their music: spirituality and wind band music in Japan, avant-garde sound artists in Tokyo, Japanese composers in the UK, and the role of cell phone ringtones in the Japanese music market.
Call Number: ML340 .M89 2008
ISBN: 9781847185624
Publication Date: 2008
An Introduction to Japanese Folk Performing Arts by Terence A. LancashireJapanese folk performing arts incorporate a body of entertainments that range from the ritual to the secular. They may be the ritual dances at Shinto shrines performed to summon and entertain deities; group dances to drive away disease-bearing spirits; or theatrical mime to portray the tenets of Buddhist teachings. These ritual entertainments can have histories of a thousand years or more and, with such histories, some have served as the inspiration for the urban entertainments of no, kabuki and bunraku puppetry. The flow of that inspiration, however, has not always been one way. Elements taken from these urban forms could also be used to enhance the appeal of ritual dance and drama. And, in time, these urban entertainments too came to be performed in rural or regional settings and today are similarly considered folk performing arts. Professor Terence Lancashire provides a valuable introductory guide to the major performance types as understood by Japanese scholars.
Call Number: GR340 .L36 2011
ISBN: 9781409431336
Publication Date: 2011
Composing for Japanese Instruments by Minoru Miki; Marty Regan (Translator); Philip Flavin (Editor)The unique sounds of the biwa, shamisen, and other traditional instruments from Japan are heard more and more often in works for the concert hall and opera house. Composing for Japanese Instruments is a practical orchestration/instrumentation manual with contextual and relevant historical information for composers who wish to learn how to compose for traditional Japanese instruments. Widely regarded as the authoritative text on the subject in Japan and China, it contains hundreds of musical examples, diagrams, photographs, and fingering charts, and comes complete with two accompanying compact discs of musical examples. Its author, Minoru Miki, is a composer of international renown and is recognized in Japan as a pioneer in writing for Japanese traditional instruments. The book contains valuable appendices, one of works Miki himself has composed using Japanese traditional instruments, and one of works by other composers -- including Toru Takemitsu and Henry Cowell -- using Japanese traditional instruments. Marty Regan is Assistant Professor of Music at Texas A&M University; Philip Flavin is a Research Fellow in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University, Australia.
Call Number: MT58 .M5513 2008
ISBN: 9781580462730
Publication Date: 2008
Yogaku by Luciana Galliano; Martin Mayes (Translator)"This book introduces us to the world of contemporary Japanese music and it guides us towards a better understanding of their world." Luciano Berio Yogaku discusses over a century of musical activity in Japan, detailing, in particular, the music that was inspired by Western music after the Meiji Restoration in the 19th century, and its development through the end of the 20th century. The book not only examines the infiltration of Western music into Japan, but also provides insight into the aesthetic and theoretical aspects of Japanese musical thought. The word yogaku (Western music) is made up of two characters: yo, which means "ocean" (that is, "over the ocean," meaning Western or foreign) andgaku, which means "music." Divided into two parts, the text covers the period preceding World War I as well as the post-war period. The introduction provides a history of music's role in Japanese society, touching upon the differences in the functions of Japanese and Western music. Part One describes the complex process of a new musical world and the European musical ideas that penetrated Japan. Modernization through westernization is explored; the author details the differences between the traditional Japanese music and that composed under Western influence, as well as the French and German impact on Japanese musical compositions. Galliano looks at the appearance of music in schools and the first Japanese musical compositions, as well as nationalism's effect on music through propaganda and censorship. Part Two explores topics such as the post-war avant-garde, the 1960s boom in traditional music, and the closing decades of the 20th century. The next generation of Japanese composers are also considered. Japanese history and music scholars, as well as those interested in Japanese music, will want to include Yogaku in their collection."
Call Number: ML240.5 .G3513 2002
ISBN: 0810843250
Publication Date: 2002.
Traditional Japanese music at a glance : the new edition by Tanaka, Kenji, 1954- author.
Call Number: ML340 .T3613 2016
ISBN: 4870170892
Traditional Japanese Music and Musical Instruments by William P. MalmWhen William Malm published his wide-ranging study of traditional Japanese music in 1959, it was the first time in the twentieth century that such a work had been brought out in a Western language. Malm's book has still not been replaced as the single most interesting and authoritative text on the subject. But until now it was never revised or updated, nor were its illustrations ever changed. With the present publication, however, an extensively improved edition that includes a CD of sample music has been made available. Professor Malm's aim has always been to attract the layman reader as well as the musicologist, which has given this book its strength and durability. The writing is clear, lively, and informed, the scope of his study being broadened by frequent comparisons with other traditions, East and West. Accompanying it all is a generous number of drawings and photographs of the players and their various instruments. The book opens with a brisk and eloquent history of Japan's musical life, then moves on to its religious music, Shinto, Buddhist, and Christian; its court music; the music of the noh drama; and the music of specific instruments: biwa, shakuhachi, koto, and shamisen. After examining the components of kabuki music, it closes with a chapter on folk music, popular musical arts, and the music of other ethnic groups in Japan. For the more technically inclined, there is a detailed appendix on notation systems. Lastly, to put all this in a practical context, a CD is provided, giving nineteen examples of these different genres. Whether your interest is in a particular form of Japanese music-the marvelous sonority of the bamboo flute, the sharp but wistful sound of the shamisen-or just in music in general, Malm's book will more than satisfy your curiosity.
Call Number: ML340 .M3 2000
ISBN: 4770023952
Publication Date: 2001
A history of Japanese koto music and ziuta with two CDs by Kikkawa, Eishi, 1909-2006.
Call Number: ML1015 .K68 K5513 1997
ISBN: 4895831841
Taiko Boom by Shawn BenderWith its thunderous sounds and dazzling choreography, Japanese taiko drumming has captivated audiences in Japan and across the world, making it one of the most successful performing arts to emerge from Japan in the past century. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among taiko groups in Japan, Taiko Boom explores the origins of taiko in the early postwar period and its popularization over the following decades of rapid economic growth in Japan’s cities and countryside. Building on the insights of globalization studies, the book argues that taiko developed within and has come to express new forms of communal association in a Japan increasingly engaged with global cultural flows. While its popularity has created new opportunities for Japanese to participate in community life, this study also reveals how the discourses and practices of taiko drummers dramatize tensions inherent in Japanese conceptions of race, the body, gender, authenticity, and locality.
The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music by Alison McQueen Tokita (Editor); David W. HughesMusic 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.
ISBN: 9780754656999
Publication Date: 2008
A History of Japanese MusicThis study provides a chronological survey of two thousand years of musical activity in Japan. It begins with evidence discovered in prehistoric excavations, and includes discussions of surviving instruments, pictorial evidence, written records of successive periods, and the modern acceptance of Western music. Offering a comprensive view of the changes, developments, and consistencies in Japanese music-making, Harich-Schneider presents the social and political climate of each musical phenomena. An extensive portrayal of ancient and mysterious music, this history will interest musicologists and students of Japanese culture.
Call Number: ML340 .H36
ISBN: 0193162032
Publication Date: 1922
Gagaku and serialism : a portrait of Matsudaira Yoritsune by Benítez, Joaquim M.
Call Number: ML197 .C7514 v.17 pt.4
Publication Date: Harwood Academic, 1998.
Music of One Thousand Autumns: the Tōgaku style of Japanese court music. by Robert Garfias
Kabuki & other traditional music [sound recording] by Nihon Ongaku Shūdan, performer.
Call Number: CD 210-2211 (Library Service Center)
Publication Date: 266108-2 Nonesuch
Tradition and avantgarde in Japan [sound recording] : Japanese music for voice, koto and shamisen : biennale Neue Musik Hannover 1999 by Tani, Sumi, instrumentalist, singer.
Call Number: CD 165-7484 CD
The Japanese koto [sound recording] by Hotta-Lister, Ayako instrumentalist.
Call Number: CD 264-0665
Kodō [sound recording] : heartbeat drummers of Japan by Kodō (Musical group)
Call Number: CD 146-0619 (Library Service Center)
Japanese music for marimba [sound recording] by Van Sice, Robert, instrumentalist.
Call Number: CD 140-1324
Japan [sound recording] : Shomyo Buddhist ritual : Dai hannya ceremony : Shingon sect = Japon : Rituel Bouddhique Shomyo : Cérémonie dai hannya : Secte Shingon
Call Number: CD 157-3472 (Library Service Center)
Breaking heaven : works for Japanese instruments by Womack, Donald R. composer, conductor, producer.
Call Number: CD 292-8188
Innovation in contemporary Japanese composition [sound recording] by Battier, Marc.
Call Number: ML197 .L37 v.5 CD
Publication Date: Leonardo music journal CD series ; v. 5. (Library Service Center)