Minyou shamisen

General
#1

It appears I am a minyou shamisen player.

But i would like to know who else has my type of shamisen and know a few famous musicians who also play this style please :slight_smile:
I havent been able to find much, and ive been playing this like tsugaru usually… probably not good for the cat skin lol

i havent been able to find much but like i said in a previous post i have noticed my sao has the hatomune kinda like a nagauta

Cant find many pics of my type of shamisen

Any help please?

#2

I think I have posted this one before but here it is anyway :stuck_out_tongue:
The player is using the same type of shamisen that you have, well if if it’s a chuuzao.
I went to watch a shamisen player in may called tokiwazu moujibei, I was convinced that his was a nagauta style one just because the hatomune was curved but he said it was a chuuzao, so much variation lol

#3

seeing as min’you is a folk style, it can’t hurt to play tsugaru style on it… (as long as you’re careful)
http://www.cis.doshisha.ac.jp/kkitao/library/student/04/practicum/kawamoto36.htm#various
has some info

I’d personally say any folk song would sound right on it

#4

hmm trues
this definately looks like mine…
how to tell the difference between them all though? theres only a difference in itomaki and the hatomune visablly and size i cant really gauge…

#5

seeing as min’you is a folk style, it can’t hurt to play tsugaru style on it… (as long as you’re careful)
http://www.cis.doshisha.ac.jp/kkitao/library/student/04/practicum/kawamoto36.htm#various
has some info

I’d personally say any folk song would sound right on it

saw this one, wish it had pics of each type for comparisons though <3

#6

Liam,

That video is actually really interesting in the sense that shes playing on a Jiuta instrument (chuzao) since Jiuta is her main style, but she is using Nagauta bachi and koma. I am pretty sure the piece is fairly contemporary, so she must’ve changed the koma and bachi to fit the style of the music.

Tokiwazu (Tokiwazu Mojibei—Super jealous you got to see him perform!!!) and Kiyomoto (the two are sibling styles) both use shamisen with the hosozao style hatomune. I dont really know the complete reason for it, but these styles do indeed use a chuzao size neck, larger bachi and larger koma. I believe that because of the use of a larger koma, the strings are farther apart and require the larger surface area of the chuzao neck.

My teacher has told me (and I have found to be true) that nowadays even Nagauta shamisen are not really hosozao. If you look at old hosozao shamisen, the necks are a good bit thinner. I think its because the other styles were getting envious of Tsugaru shamisen and its popularity, so everyone wanted their shamisen to be bigger. (Freud must be so proud).

Cana,

Your shami doesnt have the nagauta hatomune. Check out my profile picture and compare it to your shami. Chuzao hatomune “swoop” downwards, but not until it gets fairly close to the dou. Hosozao (and Kiyomoto and Tokiwazu shami’s) have a gradual slide.

Here is a video of a minyou teacher playing for her students… Maybe you’ve seen it? There are more minyou videos on that users channel as well :slight_smile:

There are probably a lot of minyou teachers in Japan that have websites, so maybe google the kanji and see what comes up?

Also if you are interested: there are scores for minyou if you want to learn folk songs. The most popular are the books in red and the books in orange. You can get them from Kameya, but I’m sure Kyle can get them too!

I hope you can find more information on minyou soon! :slight_smile:

Joe

#7

ooo thankyou joe! :slight_smile:
never heard her play before
shes a nice player, will browse around for more info, the tune she is playing is quite happy the way she plays it, would you happen to know the piece ?
Its very soulful ^^

ill try an find a way to type kanji… i do have a Japanese keyboard…

#8

cana,
if you use google, you can do a translated search to look for websites, if you have trouble let me know, but i’m sure you’re capable enough XD

ps love that video joseph!

#9

lolz i hate google translate tho x.x its horrible
will do it later xD packing now

#10

Joseph - ah interesting, nobody wants an actual hosozao anymore. That’s Kool that you have heard of tokiwazu, I had never heard of him but I didn’t know anything about his style, he did one performance and then a second talk with some music students that I gingerly sneaked into lol, they were pretty grossed out when he told them it was cat skin

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