Shō in New Music: Perspectives on Japanese Instruments from Academia

This article has been translated from the original Japanese publication dated January 15, 2021, on Gagaku Dayori Vol. 64.

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  In recent years, Western art music composers around the world are spending more time in institutions of higher education. An artistic process is and should be essentially unrelated to an academic degree, however, we can see in many composer biographies that many have at least a master’s degree. One factor contributing to the composers spending more time in universities is the fact that it is crucial for them to acquire hands-on, extremely niche area of expertise, such as notation, compositional techniques, orchestration, and programming. Furthermore, an environment where one is able to receive aesthetical and compositional guidance by a respectable composer is extremely attractive to young composers. It is also worth mentioning that, with the exception of large cities and in certain areas of Europe, universities maintain and support the community function of contemporary music, however this goes beyond the scope of this article.

 

  The spread of music schools, or conservatories, as higher education institutions goes back to 19th Century Europe. Consequently, music schools of today did not exist during the lives of Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Handel. The term conservatory derives from the Italian conservatorio, referring to an orphanage in Naples, which began training children to sing in 1537. In 1795, the Conservatoire National de Musique et d’Art Dramatique (CNSMDP) was established in Paris, France, with the fundamental purpose to train skilled orchestral musicians for national events.  Thereafter, conservatories, such as Conservatorio di Milano (1807), Pražská konzervatoř (1808), Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien (1817), Royal Academy of Music (1822), Hochschule für Musik Leipzig (1843), and Oberlin Conservatory of Music (1865), were established throughout Europe and the United States, following the French model.

 

  Until the end of World War II, conservatories focused mainly on instructing young musicians in the fields of opera, chamber, and orchestral music. While world music (ethnomusicology) was taught and researched in universities from the early 20th Century, it is after the 1960s that this subject was included in the curriculum of conservatories. Students are often exposed to shō and gagaku music in the framework of world music curricula.

 

  The term world music is, generally speaking, used to describe a study of music and musical cultures outside of Western art music. Terminologies such as comparative musicology and ethnomusicology has also been used, however, these terminologies have been of lengthy debate in many respects, including the ‘insider/outsider epistemology’, as well as criticisms of fixating Western European music at the top of the hierarchy of values. As far as comparative musicology, the terminology is no longer employed in academia today. However, some argue that world music, too, has a tendency to cover colossally disparate musical cultures as a singular reference, frozen in time. The term world music is, “at this moment, perhaps the least objectionable term to refer collectively to music from various cultures” (Huib Schippers) and is passively employed by process of elimination.

 

  While minor differences in the curriculum and pedagogical methods can be seen in between conservatories, a significant percentage of students of Western art music compositions are trained in the basic Western music theories, such as harmony and counterpoint. In addition, students experience hands-on instructions on instrumentation and compositional techniques, understanding the relationships between conventional and unconventional performance technique and the characteristics of sounds produced. However, since conservatories around the world continue to function as a training institution for Western art music performers and composers, experiential learning resources and materials for world music are overwhelmingly insufficient. I have been conducting lectures and workshops on the compositional approaches on shō in universities in Europe and the United States over the past four years. Through my experiences, I have noticed that, while many students are aware of the instrument shō and its’ characteristics, it was the first time the majority of the students had an opportunity to listen to the sounds of the instrument in person.

 

  There are, however, exceptional cases. Although not a conservatory, a paltry number of universities in the United States, such as Columbia University and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UH Mānoa), offers training opportunities for gagaku instrumentalists in its’ ensemble courses. While the courses have no direct association with the composition department, composition students have a chance to learn hands-on about the characteristics of the gagaku instruments, as well as both conventional and non-conventional techniques.

 

  In the case of UH Mānoa, the music department takes advantage of modern Hawaiʻi’s distinctiveness, as the islands lie halfway in between mainland United States and East Asia, both in terms of geography and culture. “Typically, if you would like to learn how to compose for Japanese instruments, then you should study in Tokyo. In case of Korean instruments, you should go to Seoul. If you want to study the notation and composition techniques of Chinese instruments, then it would make sense to go to Beijing, Shanghai, or maybe Hong Kong. However, the place where you can systematically learn all of them is actually here in Hawaiʻi”, says Dr. Donald Reid Womack, Professor of Composition and Theory at UH Mānoa.

 

  “Back in the 80’s, when I was an undergraduate student at Furman University in South Carolina, I remember taking an introductory music history course. In the course, there was just one day dedicated to non-Western music. That very brief and oversimplified overview was my first introduction to Japanese instruments. It’s been close to thirty-five years since then, but I think the situation hasn’t changed much.” Currently, Womack offers a course named “Intercultural Composition” for graduate composition students. In his course, he teaches practical composition techniques by using books such as “Composing for Japanese Instruments” by Miki Minoru (trans. Marty Regan), and also discusses the importance of ethical standards when borrowing elements from outside of one’s own culture. UH Mānoa continues to function as a base for a cross-cultural practice of diverse musical cultures, not only in the framework of musicology or world music, but also the ways in which composers are able to implement these techniques into their works.