photo
by Ziga Koritnik
Available on Tzadik Website Ryu Nashi/No School TZ 7267 on the New Japan Series
Ned Rothenberg
Ryu Nashi/No School - New Music for Shakuhachi
1. Emergent Vessel
(5:19) Ned Rothenberg, shakuhachi (2.4)
2. Naki Tokoro Nite.. (Where There is Neither..) (12:26) -
Yoko Hiraoka, jiuta
shamisen/voice, Ralph
Samuelson, shakuhachi (1.8)
3. Dan no Tabi (Journey on a Staircase) (22:42) - Stephanie
Griffin, viola, Riley
Lee, shakuhachi (2.7, 2.4, 1.8)
4. Shadow Detail (5:47) - Ned Rothenberg, shakuhachi (1.9)
5. Cloud Hands ( 8:40) - Riley
Lee and Ned Rothenberg, shakuhachi (2.4)
Yoko Hiraoka and Ralph Samuelson, Riley Lee and Stephanie Griffin (Riley Lee photo by Rudi Van Starrex)
After a 30 year romance with the shakuhachi, this is my first release exclusively
devoted to compositions for the instrument. Why so long? When I say ‘romance’,
I mean the word in its full literary compass, love and hate, ardor and betrayal.
The root attraction has always been its depths of sound, capable of tonal colorings
unsurpassed in the flute world, which can create musical expressions of great
weight. The darker side? It is maddeningly difficult; compared to my beloved
saxophone, it is a most fickle partner. On good days the breath and the sound
are one, on bad ones, one flounders about searching for the illusive center,
blowing no Zen, just hot air.
As a musical and cultural outsider, this duality is also a reflection of my
relationship with Japan itself. This recording represents my embrace of that
outsider status and the perspective it affords. I have had the opportunity to
study with 2 of the preeminent masters of the instrument, the late ‘living
national treasure’ Yamaguchi Goro and an artist whose power and dynamism
has made him a true legend, Yokoyama Katsuya. I believe, because of cultural
factors, there are no native Japanese who have been able to do this. This is
because the traditional music world there is rigidly divided into schools, each
of which demands allegiance. Different schools focus more or less on particular
aspects of the instrument. Musical approaches with various relationships to
phrasing, vibrato, pitch and tone color, become the guarded property of the
various factions. The positive result is a wealth of varied style but the negative
is a system of rules, which can sometimes be quite arbitrary.
My writing for shakuhachi seeks to lead from the instrument’s strengths,
those special aspects, which are owned by no particular school. At the same
time, I have no interest in ‘westernizing’ the instrument. I am
a multi-instrumentalist and if I want the fleet angular, capabilities of a flute
or a clarinet, I will play those instruments, not an ungainly end-blown bamboo
flute with just 5 holes. The result is that listeners who are only a bit familiar
with shakuhachi will think that this music sounds very Japanese, quite ‘traditional’.
It draws largely on the aesthetic of honkyoku, the zen-based solo music that
Yokoyama-sensei’s teacher, Watazumido, described as a kind of breathing
meditation, rather that music. But musical it is, and the 2 solo pieces on this
cd and Cloud Hands, the shakuhachi duo, arise from this domain. However, all
the phrases are of my own invention and do not follow the rules of any particular
school. For instance, a central element in honkyoku is the nayashi, a note which
is started flat and bent up to pitch. In Yokoyma’s school, this bent interval
is always a whole step, followers of Yamaguchi and other Kinko school teachers
play a half step. Cloud Hands uses as one of its central themes side-by-side
nayashi of a half and whole step. Thus, listeners who are well acquainted with
Japanese traditional music will hear that these compositions constantly try
to stretch traditional constrictions on the instrument.
Naki Tokoro Nite (Where there is neither).. uses the traditional pairing of
shakuhachi and jiuta shamisen, central instruments in the sankyoku tradition
of Japanese classical music. Again, the music is in some ways traditional, and
I am pleased to have my original shakuhachi teacher, Ralph Samuelson performing,
as I have always deeply admired his way with this music. Here I have tried to
retain sankyoku’s aesthetic profile while combining it with the more complex
contrapuntal and rhythmic designs I utilize in my works for western instruments.
Most notably, I frankly have long found the endless 2/4 meter of most Japanese
traditional music quite tiresome. Japanese poetry, on the other hand, such as
haiku and tanka are based on phrases of odd lengths. This piece utilizes the
meter of tanka poetry, 5-7-5-7-7, for much of its rhythmic structure. The opening
and closing tanka, beautifully sung by Yoko Hiraoka, expresses the frustrations
of the poet, Toki Zenmaro, with the pitfalls of the Japanese language:
It’s hazardous
To live in Japan and say
In the language
of the Japanese people
What’s on my mind
(written 1912 (!))
(Suffice it to say that the composer shares the poets feelings!)
There are other elements, like canonic and contrary motion, in Naki Tokoro Nite
and Dan no Tabi (Journey on a Staircase) which are mainstream compositional
devices in the west but foreign to traditional Japanese music. So it might be
fair to say I am doing some ‘westernizing’ of the compositional
approach to shakuhachi but always while trying to maintain its core sonic strengths.
photo
by Scott Irvine