Shamisen
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Image:KitagawaUtamaro FlowersOfEdo.jpg Image:Man playing shamisen.jpg A shamisen or samisen (Japanese: 三味線, literally "three taste strings"), also called sangen (literally "three strings") is a three-stringed musical instrument played with a plectrum. It came from the sanshin (a close ancestor from the southernmost Japanese prefecture of Okinawa and one of the primary instruments used in that area), which in turn evolved from the Chinese sanxian, itself deriving ultimately from Central Asian instruments. The pronunciation in Japanese is usually "shamisen" (rarely "sa") but sometimes "jamisen" when used as a suffix (e.g. Tsugaru-jamisen - for the style played in the Aomori region).
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Construction
The shamisen is similar in length to a guitar, but its neck is much slimmer and without frets. The skin is usually from a dog or cat. On the skin of some of the best shamisens, the position of the cat's nipples can be seen.
The three strings are traditionally made of silk, or, more recently, nylon. The lowest passes over a small hump at the "nut" end so that it buzzes, creating a characteristic sound known as sawari (This is a little like the "buzzing" of a sitar, which is called jawari). The upper part of the dou is often protected by a cover known as a dou kake, and players often wear a little glove on their left hand, to facilitate sliding up and down the neck. This glove is known as a yubi kake. There may also be a cover on the "head" of the instrument.
Playing
The shamisen is played with a large weighted plectrum called a "bachi", which was traditionally made with ivory or tortoise shell but which now is usually wooden, and which is in the shape of a ginkgo leaf. The sound of a shamisen is similar in some respects to that of the American banjo, in that the drum-like skin-covered body, known as a "dou", amplifies the sound of the strings. As in the clawhammer style of American banjo playing, the bachi is often used to strike both string and skin, creating a highly percussive sound.
History and genres
The shamisen can be played solo or with other shamisen, in ensembles with other Japanese instruments, with singing such as nagauta, or as an accompaniment to drama, notably kabuki and bunraku. Both men and women traditionally played the shamisen.
The earliest known form of shamisen music is Naniwa-Bushi, played in the Saka area (which was then known as Naniwa). This style developed from biwa music and hence developed a strong narrative tradition known as joruri, as well as being popular as celebratory music for large public gatherings. As shamisen music evolved, it generally split into two distinct styles: narrative traditions (katarimono) and lyrical music (utaimono). Sekkyo-Bushi, an early form of Buddhist ballad drama, became a popular usage for the shamisen while jiuta was one of the most popular lyrical forms. The many different styles of shamisen music that soon developed were extremely distinct, often requiring a shamisen of a particular size, shape and design.
The most famous and perhaps most demanding of the narrative styles is gidayu, named after Takemoto Gidayu (1651-1714), who was heavily involved in the bunraku puppet-theater tradition in Osaka. The gidayu shamisen and its plectrum are the largest of the shamisen family, and the singer-narrator is required to speak the roles of the play, as well as to sing all the commentaries on the action. The singer-narrator role is often so vocally taxing that the performers are changed halfway through a scene. There is little notated in the books (maruhon) of the tradition except the words and the names of certain appropriate generic shamisen responses. The shamisen player must know the entire work perfectly in order to respond effectively to the interpretations of the text by the singer-narrator. In the 19th century a school of female performers known as onna-joruri carried on this concert tradition.
In the early part of the 20th Century, a blind musician named Chikuzan Takahashi evolved a new style of playing, based on traditional folk songs ("min'yō") but involving much improvisation and flashy fingerwork. This style - now known as Tsugaru-jamisen, after Takahashi's home region in the north of Honshu - is very popular in Japan. The virtuosic Tsugaru-jamisen style is sometimes compared to bluegrass banjo.
