Bachido Blogcast E10

Blog Blogcast
#1

Following a song’s melody (whether by notation, or listening to an artist) is very beneficial in the beginning, as it builds confidence in what you play. As you play the song more, you will naturally start to see the song’s “skeleton” underneath the “skin” of notes. When you feel the time is right, keep the skeleton and add your own skin! (Hopefully that makes sense)

Note to beginners: Above all, imitate and copy a player/song as long as you need, because mimicry is very, very important to learning an instrument/art. This point of this episode is to express encouragement to add in your own flavor whenever you feel like it. Know that it’s purely your decision. If you feel a yearning to add some of your own ideas into the piece, that’s great. If you prefer to play the piece exactly how the notation reads, that’s great too. :slight_smile:

Extra notes on this episode:

I had a recent email correspondence with a Bachido member about notation, which got me thinking about how different tsugaru style is from nagauta or jiuta style.

Unlike nagauta or jiuta pieces, which hardly/never differ because the pieces are played from notation, there is an expectation for tsugaru players to incorporate their own feeling into the tsugaru pieces, while keeping a feeling for the song’s structure.

Originally, I got into tsugaru shamisen because I was tired of “half-learning” songs from CDs (or just following the shakuhachi part), and wanted to take a few lessons with Kevin to learn songs note-for-note.

Years later, after playing the songs note for note for years, I think I’m getting an internal comprehension for the song’s structure, and can start to incorporate my own feeling into the song (which means changing the melody to fit the way I feel) while keeping the song’s structure.

#2

Nice episode Kyle! I especially liked how you changed the subject from testicles to me, really smooth transition.

I think some people do not want to differ from the melody. While I implore everyone to improvise to make the piece unique, I still have respect for people who don’t want to do that. I just want to state that no player here should feel intimidated by the “don’t be a monkey” part, its basic message is just to get you motivated to try out your own stuff if you want it.

My personal algorithm for playing songs is the following:

  1. Learn the song note by note
  2. Get bored of playing the song over and over again because you know what will happen with your fingers for the next couple of minutes.
  3. Start changing stuff, usually incorporating smaller parts of other songs.

If you don’t get bored then just continue playing.

#3

good episode and comment by Karl too . . . a clarification or concept that can be beneficial to have in mind for sure . . .

#4

Karl: I’m never been the best at segways. :wink:

Oh snap! Good point. That’s something I should have stressed. Yeah, it’s just a direction to lean in, but not meant to be taken literally, or as a strict rule. I’d hate for it to turn into a whole “power from the arm” misunderstanding, which we talked about in the “Interview with Liam Morgan!” thread.

I think I’ll add an annotation to encourage people to read the description, which I’ll change a little bit to stress that imitation is very important part of learning in the beginning.

#5

Alrighty, I just redid the description and edited the first post. Let me know what you think :slight_smile:

#6

After playing a song a hundred times over, I naturally start to make gradual changes in structure and technique. This can sometimes happen even when I’m not really aware of it.

Good episode, good looking avocados, and keep the beard Kyle. It looks nice on you.

#7

Cool! Yeah, I believe those changes happen naturally when the body/muscles are ready to accept them (in a way), as what is happening for you. In a way, you can’t be truly “taught” something until you know it inside.

For example, when starting karate, I was always told to do hip rotation/vibration in every session. I could do the motions, but it wasn’t until a year or two later when my body actually understood what to do. Then it became natural feeling and my form changed. (Actually, same for bachi technique)

Thanks! Will do. :slight_smile: It actually took a while to build confidence for the hige. Guess I can’t go back now!

#8

Hahaha! Hige man! Hige man!
Looks good on you Kyle. great episode too.

#9

Yays! I haven’t trained for a while… but next time i do i will be giving thoughts about this

#10

There’s a lot to be said about learning/how to learn/studying the songs.
In my experience, there is no way to acutally “learn the song” from notation.
This is not to say that you won’t be playing the song if you memorize tabs, or you learn it note-for-note by ear, it’s just that you are always going to be performing the style of the person who wrote the song: ie. their version.

The only reliable way to learn these songs (Aiya bushi, Ringo bushi, Yasaburo bushi, etc) in a way where they will be universally understood, is to look back to the minyou, and learn to play them from the melody of the singing. Using the tabs, notation, etc, as a guide. Most of the time you can actually omit half of the notes and still be playing the basic singing melody (and that’s where the improvisation and personal flavor kick in).

Over the years, I have learned most of, if not all of my classic tsugaru pieces from Kevin. This being said, I figured I had a pretty good understanding of how they were played.
However, many times after learning them, I found myself hanging out with Kyle, trying to play a song like Aiya Bushi, and myself not being able to follow along with him. And what I realized is that Kyle was in many cases actually learning these songs from the classic recordings and tapes of the Masters he had available, where as I was learning the newer kind of “rock and roll” style that was more of Kevin’s flavor.

And again, in Japan, with Masahiro Nitta, his father (who plays Tsugaru), and his mother (who sings minyou), would have me play a simple song with them, like Yasaburo bushi. I went into it thinking I knew the song, but when I played along with the whole family, including the minyou, my timing was off, I was adding extra notes, and I didn’t know any of the subtle changes or shifts in the song that were included purely as instrumental ornamentation.

So for me, it’s been an interesting process of trying to learn these pieces almost backwards; looking for the heart of the tsugaru folk songs from the more flavored and modern style that I am familiar with.

But yeah… uh…

  1. start basic
  2. get comfortable with the rhythm and feeling
  3. listen to recordings (and minyou of course)
  4. pay attention to different players’ versions
  5. improvise/throw in your personal style! (and steal others’ as well)
#11

Oh yeah, and love the blogcasts!
Kyle, you should know better about the espersso… for shame.

#12

Damn bro, we gotta get a Bachido Articles section up for you. :wink:

Re: Espresso. I do it for the lulz.

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