What is Japanese music?

I don't know if I want modern Japanese music

or traditional

Seeing that you asked about historical background

I guess it's traditional music 1. Japanese music has its roots in an ancient tradition that has its origins in folk music as well as influences from the music of the Tang Dynasty in China, which have been passed down through history. Japanese music divides an octave into twelve semitones, but the various types of music and instruments do not use a uniform pitch and scale pattern. In koto and shamisen music, two pentatonic scales are used, the yin and the yang, the former being D

Eb

G

A

Bb and the latter D

E

G

G

G

Bb. p> G

A

B. The Japanese have a taste for a wider range of timbral variations, especially in music, and attach great importance to many timbres that do not have a specific pitch. For example, in playing the shakuhachi, the beginning air note, which represents the sound of the wind blowing the leaves and swaying them, is very well thought out. Sakuhachi, koto, Shamisen, and Biwa are the most important traditional musical instruments in Japan. The sakuhachi (shakuhachi) is a vertical instrument made of bamboo tubes with five holes. The sakuhachi was widely played by a group of monks during the Tokugawa period, and it is called Zen blowing because it is combined with the spirit of Zen Buddhism in order to achieve the effect of enlightenment. This is called Zen blowing. Therefore, when playing the instrument, the sound is released through the instrument either by inhaling or blowing, and it is interpreted with the utmost spirit. Koto is a large 13-stringed koto played in a kneeling position with the first three fingers of the right hand, and the body of the koto lies flat in front of the player. The Shamisen is a three-stringed instrument derived from the banjo and is played with large tortoise-shell shrapnel. Its performance is related to the kabuti, a traditional Japanese kabuki, and is based on a part of the Nagauta, a traditional ballad from the Shodo period, and is therefore not very long, only about two and a half minutes. The Biwa is a Japanese lute with five strings plucked by wooden plectrums, and is very musical in style and character, and the origin of the music is closely related to a legendary fan dance. The history of Japanese traditional music, which had its beginnings in the second century before Christ, is characterized by five main periods: the prehistoric, the old-fashioned, the medieval, the modern and the contemporary. The specific musical forms and styles that developed in each era have lasted until today. ************************************* 2&3. Characteristics and styles of Japanese music? Japanese Noh Music - Origin and Sources Noh originally meant "art ability" and was used as a shortened form of Sarugaku Noh. "Noh" is a masked dance theater established in the middle of the Muromachi period (1394-1573 CE). "Noh" has a history of nearly 600 years and was once called "Noh Sarugaku" or "Noh Kyogen", but is now simply called "Noh" or "Kyogen". The evolution of the art of Noh has gone through several stages, from Sagaku in the Nara Period to Nogaku in the Muromachi Period. From Sagaku to Nogaku As early as the eighth century, Sagaku, which was used as music to accompany acrobatics and magic tricks, was introduced to Japan from China, and had a great influence on the medieval popular performing arts of Tanakaku and Sarugaku. The medieval dengaku originated from the folk songs and dances performed by peasants to pray for a good harvest when planting rice seedlings, but when it was introduced to the upper classes, it gradually incorporated the musical elements of sangaku, and the performance techniques of sangaku became more complex, and there were dengaku priests who specialized in the art of dengaku. At the same time, another folk art called Sarugaku, which is a corruption of Sagaku, was created, which is a kind of glissando parody or question-and-answer dialogue with simple acting skills, in which the performers wear distinctive costumes and masks. In the Kamakura and the Northern and Southern Dynasties (13th to 14th centuries), the performance of the tengaku became more dramatic and developed into a dance drama, and the Sarugaku, which was performed by one or two people and was mainly an imitation of movement, developed into the Sarugaku Noh, which was a more sexualized form of Sarugaku, with the increase of drama. In the Muromachi period, Kanno Aya and Sai Aya, who specialized in performing Sarugaku, created Nogaku, a comprehensive song, dance, and theater art, by absorbing the song and dance elements of Tanegaku noh and eliminating the comical elements of Sarugaku noh. Music of Noh The three elements of Noh performance are "yuki" (vocal music), "kazuko" (instrumental music), and "shoujo" (physical movements). "The music of Noh consists of various combinations of melody and rhythm, with the melody coming from the musical structure of the "ballad", the rhythm being more complex and consisting of fixed and free rhythmic ballads and dances, and, most importantly, the rhythmic element of the "mashiko". In order to understand the combination of melody and rhythm, it is necessary to understand the musical structure of the ballad and the musical structure of the instrumental parts. ************************************* Yagaku is a Japanese classical music, a noble and elegant court art. The name means "court music, dignified and elegant music". Based on the ancient songs and dances of Asia and traditional Japanese songs and dances that were brought to Japan from China and the Korean Peninsula, Yagaku, which consists of dances and music, has been passed down in its traditional form for more than 1,000 years, and it is the oldest Japanese performing art passed down in the Imperial Court, and it is also the earliest form of symphonic orchestra considered to be in the world today. According to historical records, as early as 453 A.D., during the funeral of Emperor Yunkyo, the King of Silla sent more than 80 musicians to Japan to play the funeral music; in 554 A.D., during the reign of Emperor Chimkyung, Baekje of Korea sent another group of musicians to Japan; during the regency of Prince Sung Toku, he dispatched envoys to Tang on nineteen occasions to learn Tang music from China and bring it back to Japan; in 701 A.D., a special organization was set up in the Ministry of Governance of Japan to perform the music of Tang. By 701 CE, a specialized agency was set up within the Japanese Ministry of Governance to take charge of foreign music, and yagaku was initially a generic term for foreign music. In the second year of Dabao (703), according to the Dabao Ruling, Japan set up the Yagura Ryoraku, which was used to train professional musicians and musicians and served only the court, making Yagura move towards the path of specialization and elegance, and its influence gradually grew. At the beginning of the 20th century, the "Yale Comrades Association" was established in Japan, which began the popularization of Yale; in the 1960s, the "Japan Yale Society" was founded, which further pushed the popularization of Yale to a new stage. However, the strict tradition followed by this section makes it the most orthodox representative of Japanese Yagura performance. ************************************* The representative instrument of Japan, the shamisen, is the shamisen of the Yuan Dynasty in China, whose barrel is covered with the skin of a brocade snake, and which is often used not only in performances but also in folk music dramas. The shamisen of the Yuan Dynasty was introduced to Okinawa at the end of the 14th century, and in the 16th century there appeared a famous person, Akaneko, who made this instrument the representative instrument of the Ryukyus. The shamisen came to Osaka, Japan, where it was adapted by the native Japanese (it is now made from cat skin) and became the present shamisen in the Kan-ei period (1624-43). It also began to be played with a plectrum. There are three types of shamisen in this collection: thin, medium, and thick. The thin pole is often used for long songs, duan songs, and small songs. Medium: Used more often for local ballads, shinai, and chingwon, with a more subdued feel and emotional character. Thick pole: Yoshitae's representative work, its sound is lower pitched, and its staccato is very obvious. ************************************* Among the many percussion instruments, "Taiko" is one of the most favorite instruments in Japan. In the past 40 to 50 years, Taiko has changed a lot in Japan, it has been transformed from a simple traditional entertainment performance to a world-renowned drum troupe performance with a variety of different percussion methods, which is performed by groups and individuals who are shocked by their drumming skills and other techniques. The astonishing drumming skills of groups and individuals, combined with other unique arts, have resulted in a unique way of performing today, and these various taiko groups have been performing all over the world under the name of "x x taiko" with magnificent and lively performances. ************************************* Japan's Jogakuin Rap Music. Japanese joruri rap music, which consists of three genres: Jobanjin, Kiyomoto, and Gitafu, each with its own section. It is a music of blessing, and its contents are related to daily activities. ************************************* Kinshi Tsuruta is one of the most representative performers of the Satsuma Biwa in Japan, and one of the few musicians in Japan to have performed alongside renowned conductor Seiji Ozawa, shakuhachi player Katsuya Yokoyama, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. "Satsuma" is the ancient name of Kagoshima, the southernmost prefecture in Kyushu. Satsuma Biwa is one of the four major schools of biwa in Japan, along with Blind Monk Biwa, Heike Biwa, and Chikuzen Biwa. The "blind monk's lute," which appeared around the 10th century, was used by blind monks to accompany temple raps at festivals, and was later used to accompany the Heike Monogatari (The Tale of the Heike), and the Heike lute, which was also played by blind monks, was formed around the 13th century. In the 16th century, Jisinsai Shimazu, the lord of the Satsuma clan, wrote poems and ballads to encourage the samurai and their subjects, and the blind monks of Satsuma added musical accompaniments to the music, resulting in the Satsuma Biwa, a more percussive, masculine, and powerful form of rap music, which was passed down only among the samurai of the Satsuma clan during the Edo period, and which is a folkloric art. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was popularized nationwide when Yoshi Nishiko, a famous Satsuma lute player, played it in front of the Meiji Emperor. When the Meiji Restoration abolished the system of blind monks, the Chikuzen blind monks absorbed the Satsuma lute and created a new genre, combining it with shamisen music to develop a more lyrical and melodic lute, the Chikuzen lute, which became popular in Japan at the same time as the Satsuma lute. The present-day Satsuma biwa*** has five strings, of which the fourth and fifth strings have the same pitch, and the tuning depends on the player's vocal range, and it is mainly used for playing melodies. After the Second World War, Japanese local music declined for a while, but in the 1960s, the composer Toru Takemitsu wrote a double concerto for satsuma biwa, shakuhachi, and Western orchestra called "November's Footsteps" (also translated as "November's Stairs", or "November's Riffs", or "November's Footsteps"), which brought the satsuma biwa to the attention of the international music world. The double concerto, "November Steps," "November Passage," or "November Footsteps," has brought the Satsuma lute to the attention of the international music world, and the performer, Kinsumi Tsuruta, has become a great master of the instrument with his mastery. ************************************* 4. Is there a song that you can recognize as Japanese music? Can you tell us the name of the song and why?

Japanese music from the 90s to the present is very different from what it was 20 or 30 years ago.