Good (your local time of day)
I’ll be attending a wedding next month and there has been discussion about forcing me to play the shamisen at the reception. I’ve been researching japanese wedding music or some songs that would fit the occasion but I’m not finding anything. Anyone here that has some idea?
I’ve gone to both western style and more traditional ceremonies here in Japan.
Western style ceremonies are just that. The music you’d find lines up directly with what you might expect to find in a Western European or American ceremony, including occasional hymnals depending on the participants’ tastes.
Traditional ceremonies use gagaku, see the attached video.
You’d probably do best to speak with the couple and see what they might like to hear vs. what you can produce~
Thanks for the reply Christopher.
It’s my own wedding so the couple have no idea what they want. We’re going for a traditional japanese wedding and my in-laws had the idea of tricking me into playing at the reception so her family can hear it. I’m not totally against the idea but I don’t really know any love songs or others that would fit the occasion so I’m trying to look for either shamisen music that would fit the occasion or some western love song that has already been adapted for the shamisen. I can adapt songs to the shamisen by myself but it takes time to make it sound good, something I don’t have a lot of right now.
Lots of uptempo min’yo can be performed for parties, but if you’re looking for love songs…
You probably want to take a look at the Hauta genre. Like Kouta, most of the pieces are relatively short, tend to be concerned with everyday (edo period) life, and often have themes of love or romance.
A typical example is Ume Wa Saitaka