Panel 8 - Workshop - The Tone-color Melodies of the Japanese Shakuhachi - Bruno Deschênes, Independent researcher
Track:
CSTM
When:
11:30 AM, Sunday 26 May 2019
(2 hours)
Where:
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) -
DS-1525
How:
[ CHAIR:
Bruno Deschênes, Independent Researcher ]
The solo pieces for shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute originally
played by the monks of a Zen Buddhist sect during Japan’s Edo period
(1603-1868), are considered by today’s Japanese shakuhachi masters to be tone-colour
melodies, not melodies of tones. These monks considered this flute a spiritual
tool, not a musical instrument. The music they composed has no common measure
with folk music or the music of the entertainment world of the Edo period with
clearly defined melodic lines. This presentation will show how the phrases and
the tones of the solo pieces for shakuhachi composed by these monks are based
on tone-colours, not on pitch or notes. Examples will be performed on the
shakuhachi, while their notated versions will be projected on a screen, both in
Japanese and Western notations. The traditional notation for shakuhachi uses
Japanese characters (from the katakana syllabary); they do not refer to pitches
but to fingerings. Some tones can then be produced with different fingerings or
with head movements, thus allowing to produce them with distinctive
tone-colours. Particular stylistic characteristics of the playing of the
shakuhachi that make extensive use of tone-colors will be presented. I will end
by performing a short piece on the shakuhachi.
