A summary of shamisen traditions

General
#1

I can see that shamisen traditions can be a touchy subject and is full of personal interpretation, but just for fun I took the risk of fluffing some feathers and stepping on some toes, and made a little summary graph. Just to make sense out of it all, this lists key musical traditions (primarily, what kind of music the practitioners were playing) and some notable performers (sorry to anyone whom I’ve forgotten!).

Traditions in italics are “legacy” traditions. This may be a hard to define concept, but one criterion could be that there are no original compositions being added to the key repertoaire of the tradition.

This is just the first sketch. Any errors or omissions should be attributed rather to my weakness of knowledge rather than strength of opinion. There is very little science behind this. I haven’t done any additional research or studying for the graph, it’s just my personal impressions and recollection of the things I’ve read and heard in the last month or two.

Some notes & discussion:

Influence of rock is prevalent. There is also a strong connection to contemporary music on nagauta shamisen, but the arrow is forgotten here. I’m not very familiar with contemporary japanese music, so here japanese rock & metal & pop was seen just as a part of the western rock tradition.

The other mainline of contemporary western music, tekno, doesn’t seem to be represented in shamisen. No surprise as they have not really used any acoustic instruments.

Has minyou had a notable influence on shamisen fusion? Is shamisen fusion something that’s possible to define as a distinct genre?

Are there any significant traditions behind contemporary shamisen that I missed in the picture?

#2

Think I promised to bump this for Kevin in the Shamicamp so here we go.

I’d also list Aki Takahashi under “Western adoption”, but other than that I’m not sure if I’ve gained major insight in the last 6 months or so.

Other than that “classical” japanese styles should perhaps be listed with their western influences.

Oh, and I’ve seen occasional titles from electronic music such as dubstep (Skillrex) and Kraftwerk performed on shamisen.

Wondering if there however are deep similarities between say nagauta from the 18th century and tekno from the 1990s due to the shared ancestors (classical western composers).

#3

Hi Yatagarasu!!

dont forget that the first japanese group that started with the metal, rock and shamisen fusion was “Musashi”,

#4

http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/六三四/3540316360

#5

and in the 60’s and 70’s where some japanese surf rock musicians that mixed theyre Mosrite and Yamaha guitars with shamisen!

#6

The most famous was Takeshi Terauchi!

#7

The most famous was Takeshi Terauchi!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0S6k70O1Oto

Thanks, I checked them out and it’s awesome stuff!

Looking at what I already have in my playlists, it seems these guys have influenced modern day shamisen players.

#8

Now this piece reminds you of God of Shamisen to an uncanny degree…!

Musical traditions don’t pop into existence without forebears.

To get the whole picture, I suppose one should get knowledgeable on the japanese scene and how shamisen is used in contemporary japanese (fusion?) music. Then there is the question what the interaction between western and japanese shamisen scenes can bring - if any such is going to happen and if the western scene in the end has any significance at all. Will japanese imitators of Kevin Kmetz start popping up? Will there be a direct western descendant for Mary Ouno’s work etc etc

© 2020 Kyle Abbott