Preferred Shamisen Piece/Song length

General
#1

Hi fellow Bachidoers,

I’m considering making a piece out of a little melody I’ve been playing around with when practicing. Before I start thinking something up I need to know the song structure and for that I need to decide on how long it should be.

So my question to you all is if you feel that there is a sweet spot when it comes to the length of shamisen music. Should it be short and powerful or should it be long with varying types of parts.

The piece I’m going to make will be kind of happy sounding, so please consider that too. I’m not making a Jonkara Bushi, but rather something that has a distinct melody.

#2

Ooh! This is intriguing! :slight_smile:

Good question! From doing blogcasts and such, my opinion is that a song can be as long/short as you want… as long as it remains captivating.

For example, if you have enough dynamic material to make two minutes of creative composition, make it two minutes. If it’s captivating for 10 minutes, make it ten minutes. :slight_smile: But as we can guess, trying to stretch 2 minutes of tight material into 4 minutes just for making it longer? Ehh… I think its like watering down a drink. :slight_smile: Likewise for a 10 minute song, if it’s captivating from beginning to end, why trim it?

One of the tracks on the next MoS album is only 50 seconds, but it is such an intense song. Originally, I thought the track length was just too short to be taken seriously, so considered trying to stretch it out. However, as I thought about it, I realized that the way the song was, making it longer really wouldn’t make it any better. It literally was ‘perfect’ as is.

In summary, if you have a vision of what you want to compose, length doesn’t matter. :slight_smile:

#3

My answer to you Karl is “Short and Powerful!” but I have to be honest this answer is based entirely 100% on intuition. I have no evidence to back this up because I have obviously not heard any of the content yet. So I am just simply imagining Karl Hedlund with some kind of Jongara inspired creation and what comes to mind is “Short and Powerful!”

Btw Kyle… What tune was 50 seconds ? I’m trying to recall but maybe it was something added later? You can always PM me if you don’t want to spill the beans etc.! …just wondering!

#4

Interesting!

My personal opinion is that long shamisen pieces are in 99% too long. It’s very hard to maintain something interesting with a shamisen only. It’s another matter when you start adding singing and shakuhachi or any other instrument. Due to the three strings of the shamisen the pieces tend to be quite repetitive and without any bass line you don’t get a feeling for where you are in the song really.

It’s nice to know that you guys think that songs around 1 minute can still be enough. If it’s that short I think starting with the chorus can be the way to go. Unfortunately since it will only be one shamisen for this composition I can’t add more and more instruments for each chorus that is played, but maybe I can simulate that by adding more notes into each chorus instead.

#5

Interesting topic.
The adage "how long is a piece of string? " springs to mind.
I generally feel that the composition itself will tell you how long it’s going to be.
It’s a lot like writting a speech in that, in some cases, you maybe able to make your point in a few succinct sentences and in other cases you may need to elaborate to make your point.
The key maybe to avoid unnecessary repetition so as not to labor the point.
In a piece that I recently composed, I was fairly satisfied with the form until I played back the scratch recording. I then felt that I had repeated a couple of riffs too many times and it felt a bit labored so I worked on streamlining things a bit. Obviously, this shortened the piece slightly but I wasnt really considering the time factor rather I was focusing on saying what I wanted to say without waffling too much (unlike my post here!)
In short…
I wouldn’t worry about sticking to a formulated time frame. Say what you want to say and take as much or as little time as you need to make your point.

#6

I see your point Dave, and I think it depends on what type of music you make. I usually divide music into three main types.

1: Music that captures you and you focus solely on the music where you are actively wondering where it will take you next. Listening to a Jonkara Bushi would be in this category.

2: Music that work both as background music and music that you concentrate on. You often switch between the two when listening to these. I have a hard time selecting a shamisen song right now, but take any popular rock song like Living on a prayer with Bon Jovi. For those who like that song, they will always be sucked into the chorus.

3: Background music that simply gets you in a mood. Trance and other electronic music usually work for this. Call it an ambient sound that affects your mood.

When you make something in the first type you will most likely have to have something to tell, be it a musical journey or spoken words.

The second type does not require this, but could have it. The thing is that you can get away with music that just sounds good without having any real meaning.

So I think your advice applies to when you have something meaningful to say. Right now I don’t have anything meaningful to say in the song, it just sounds good in my ears. But perhaps it’s like art? People finding random meaning in random strokes of paint :slight_smile:

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