Hello all, I seeketh the wordings to as many Minyou as possible, as well as any kind of resources to learn to sing them correctly. I’m trying to learn the words to Yasaburo bushi from random youtube videos, I feel like I have the timing down, but I have no idea what some of the words are.
Any Minyou singers, or minyou singers/players like Toshi, or Masa who would be willing to help would be greatly appreciated!
I’d definitely send Shishido a message. When we played Yasaburo Bushi at Dan Dan (to be shown in a future blogcast!), Shishido was reading the lyrics on his iPhone. So he can certainly send them to you.
Good luck anyhow! If anyone could sing and play shamisen at the same time, it’d surely be you.
i have a book i ordered…the tab is waaaay to hard for me but i think it has the lyrics etc. i can try digging it out for you. also i have a small collection of records that i need to make into mp3 that i’ve been told (i think) are minyo.
Please excuse the fuzziness, i’m high on cold pills XD
Yes! If anyone can do it it’s you Travis! That’s why I’ve played In a band with you for the last five years (or was it ten?) . Anyway next year I’ll be expecting some harmonies to our hit song …“Agree to have…”
Hi Travis,
Here’s a site that has a bunch of min’yō lyrics from different prefectures to get you started:
http://www.benben.jp/minyo/index.htm
There are lots of books available in Japanese with lyrics for the top 200 or so min’yō, and they are pretty cheap compared to every other aspect of learning shamisen.
Singing min’yō by itself can be challenging, and singing while playing is quite a bit harder. Singing Tsugaru songs while simultaneously playing is maybe the hardest thing to attempt – I think Takahashi Chukuzan II is the only person I’ve seen do this in performance. So my advice would be to work up to that. Start with singing easy min’yō (like tanko bushi, or hanagasa ondo, or dompan bushi) and work up to singing and playing together. And listen as much as you can – the basic melody is the bare skeleton, but timbre and embellishments are what make min’yō interesting to listen to, so be mindful of those things. There are a lot of performances on youtube, and watching them is a great way to see how the music is embodied (watch the singer’s mouth, how he moves his head, his posture, etc – all of this goes into making the ‘best’ sound).
One other thing is that min’yō don’t have a fixed set of lyrics. Usually everyone sings the first verse of a given song with the same lyrics, but after that, there might be 30 or more verses to choose from. I studied this pretty thoroughly in the 90s, using about 10 different songbooks and compiling the lyrics for each song from each book. I was surprised how little overlap there was. So what I’m getting at is that after that first verse, you might not have the lyrics that you are hearing on the recording. After some practice, though, you should be able to read a lyric and basically guess how it will be sung.
If you are looking specifically for Tsugaru songs, send me a message and I’ll send you some scans.
Gion Kouta looks interesting, anyone got notation for that one?
still would like nota ion but i found a few youtube links with lyrics and music and dance if you’re interested:
Some lyrics translated: http://vampirefreaks.com/journal_comment.php?entry=6811564
Lyrics, translation, dance on this page: https://sites.google.com/site/kayukailessons/kyomai-lesson-1-jenny/kyomail-lesson-3-gion-kouta-part-one
i don’t know if this is any help to anyone, -shrugs-
Hi Amanda, I have the tab for GIon kouta, if I can work out how to scan and attach it I’ll send it in a PM.