Shamisen

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Shamisen 三味線





Here is a full set of things from my friend Ishino.








The shamisen or samisen (literally "three flavor strings"),
also called sangen (literally "three strings") is a three-stringed musical instrument played with a plectrum called bachi.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !


Tsugarujamisen 津軽三味線
Okinawa no "sanshin 三線" 沖縄の三味線


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Listen to Chikuzan Jongara bushi

source : www.youtube.com


The student of Chikuzan, Tanaka Chikuzen, was a welcome visitor to my home, GokuRakuAn, when he still lived in the area nearby.
He and his friend Danjo san had sessions of singing and playing and sutra chanting.


quote
Finding inner silence in the shamisen
When Catriona Sturton first arrived in Japan in August 2000, she knew very little about Japan or its culture. Little did the 24-year-old assistant language teacher know that she would become a skilled shamisen player. But that is exactly what happened -- her musical performances were recently broadcast on television in Hiroshima Prefecture and featured in an Asahi Shimbun article.


Water is an important element of the music played by (from left)
Chikuzen Tanaka, Catriona Sturton and Soken Danjo.

"It all started with Yoshio Watanabe, the English teacher at my high school here in Fukuyama, [Hiroshima Pref.]" Sturton says. "He invited me to get involved in a local old-houses restoration project. It was through this group that I met Danjo-san and Tanaka-san."

Buddhist priest Soken Danjo and local shamisen master Chikuzen Tanaka were producing a nonprofit CD recording of traditional Japanese healing music, for distribution to hospice programs around Japan. When he heard that Sturton had been a member of a popular indie rock band in her college days, Danjo invited her to join the chorus featured on the CD recording.

"That was the first time I visited a Buddhist temple," says Sturton. "It was a cold winter night, and the room was dark and mysterious. People involved in the recording were huddled around stoves, and when I heard Tanaka-san playing the shamisen for the first time, the experience left a profound impression on me."

It took another eight months for Sturton to pick up the three-stringed Japanese instrument for the first time.

"At the time I was busy playing bass guitar with a punk rock band in Fukuyama," says Sturton. "I was also jamming regularly with local country music, reggae and blues groups. Because I couldn't speak Japanese, I thought it would be too difficult to learn the shamisen. But when I heard a young performer at a local festival the following summer, I knew I wanted to give it a try. As a bass player, what I found really powerful was the lower tone of the shamisen."

Danjo, a skilled guitarist, sometimes invited Sturton to join blues sessions at his home. He suggested Sturton talk with Tanaka, who offered her a good deal on a used shamisen and began to give her lessons in the Tsugaru-jamisen tradition.

"A Japanese friend had warned me about studying shamisen," Sturton says. "They said most teachers were strict and expected their students to be serious. I was worried about that, but my teacher later told me that the relationship between teacher and student is like that of a mafia boss and his underlings. He suggested I watch yakuza movies to understand this. When we were not practicing, his wife and he were very lighthearted. They have a good sense of humor."
- snip -
How has the shamisen influenced Sturton?
"It's pretty difficult to describe how I feel when I play. In Japanese there is a word, mushin, that means 'nothing heart.' It's a kind of inner calm that I experience when I play the shamisen. As for studying with my teacher, anytime you meet somebody who is doing what they love for a living, I think that it is a great positive influence. It reminds you that there are so many paths to choose in life. After finishing the JET program, I'd like to study with him full time for at least six months and then create the opportunity for us to go on concert tour around Canada."
source : www.japantimes.co.jp



cold winter night -
remembering friends
with a warm heart

Gabi Greve, January 2012


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kigo for all spring



. shamisengusa 三味線草（しゃみせんぐさ）
"Shamisen plant"
Sheperd's purse, nazuna 薺
It reminds us of the plectrum of the shamisen player.






三味線の音のこぼれきて薄暑かな
shamisen no oto no kobore-kite bakusho kana

the faint sound
of a shamisen -
early summer weather
Tr. Gabi Greve

quote
http://weekly-haiku.blogspot.com/2007/07/40.html


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小乞食の唄三絃や夏の月
ko kojiki no uta sangen ya natsu no tsuki

a beggar child
sings to the shamisen -
summer moon

Kobayashi Issa


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