Hello peeps,
I don’t know if this is of interest or not but figured I might just put a little post about my Aomori Shamisen trip. If you’ve seen some of Kevin’s recent videos you might have noticed me playing in a couple.
Basically this is my last month in Japan, and having lived in the south for 2 years, I really wanted to explore up north, and specifically do a bit of a shamisen themed tour - trying to meet as many shamisen people as possible and learn anything I can get out of it.
So far I’ve had the chance to play with Kevin, my teacher’s teacher called Yamagami Susumu, and another shamisen master called Tada Atsushi. I’ve also been bumming around in Aomori, Hirosaki and Misawa.
I don’t really know whats of interest to others but one thing I have done is checked out the live playing scene in the area. So maybe a little bit of a review is in order.
Firstly if you come here, there is shamisen performances Everywhere by all kinds of people so it’s worth doing a bit of research. Big hotels will have shows in their lobbies sometimes, and department stores and tourist information offices too.
Aomori:
ASPAM building アスパム - A giant tourist information building that exhibits food and crafts from Aomori, and that also has a shamisen show. There’s two shows a day, i THINK at 11;30 and 14;30. They are free. The performance I saw was one lady playing and was good but lacking a bit of feeling/かんじ It was more of a demonstration to tourists.
Hotel Aomori - My teacher’s teacher was playing here in the lobby for 4 days straight, 2 shows in the afternoon. While this isnt an everyday thing, I guess I’m mentioning it here, so people know it’s worth enquiring about venues you wouldn’t think of. Yamagami sensei isn’t very Famous outside of the area I guess but he is definitely a top class act and so I’m saying just cause it’s in a Hotel Lobby, doesn’t mean it’s not going to be good shamisen.
AUGA building. I’ve been told there are shows here but i didnt check it out
The Black fountain in the street in front of AUGA building. I have known there to been a gaijin or two playing in front of AUGA, The show might not be the most traditional of shamisen but it’s definitely a bit of a laugh. Those gaijin may or may not have made about 2000 yen ish busking. This could be you! Although you might have to fight the other gaijins off with pepper spray and nebuta drum sticks.
Taka kyu たか久 There are a bunch of shamisen live house izakaya’s in Aomori, but this is the only one I went to. I saw Yamagami Sensei again. It was pretty awesome. Lots of friendly comedy atmosphere. THe owners run through some Nebuta traditions (getting customers to dance the traditional dance) and they dress up as some of the Deities of the festival. THey seem to have a rotating stable of players. The food was also really good, although eat Hoya (sea pinapple) at your own risk(hoya tempura is ok though).
I’ve definitely seen a bunch of shamisen videos on youtube filmed here
like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3p5lwKjVeE
Hirosaki
Yamauta. The first night I was in hirosaki at the recommendation of my teacher I went to Yamauta 山唄, probably one of the most famous of Shamisen izakaya, with a long (relatively) history of delivering a shamisen live experience. It also happened to be one of the worst ones : ( 少し失礼します. Basically the Yamauta peak has long and truly gone. THe original owner and master shamisen player passed away in 2004 i think, and you can feel that the whole atmosphere is old and tired and slightly neglected. Part of the charm of this place is that all the staff in the restaurant are also shamisen players or apprentices. But they just weren’t genki, and you could tell it from the way they couldnt be bothered about serving food, to the way the shamisen performance didn’t seem personal at all. It was quite robotic and running through a script and was actually my biggest dissapointment in the trip. Especially since it made my teacher’s recommendation look bad to the people i was with, but basically she’s working on information that’s 10 years out of date. HOWEVER, of the positive things, was one of the singers. This was the only place with actual tsugaru singing to accompany the shamisen and drum and that was actually really interesting, and compensated for the shamisen playing being wooden and robotic. I also really liked this experience because it provided a good contrast to the good shamisen performances i saw. Without it, I don’t think I would how good the good ones were, and also with self reflection in mind, it also helped me think about things I should be careful about in my own playing.
Neputa Mura. Another tourist information type area near hirosaki castle. They also run shamisen shows every day, I think pretty much every hour. At the show I saw were two ojisans playing. It was so so. Actually i think they were from Yamauta which made me and my friend a bit nervous. They had some interesting patterns, but again, it lacked a bit of feeling.
On an amusing side note, I have been staying in a dorm room ,so every day i take my improtant possessions with me, aka my shamisen, so I had it in the soft case in the show. The compare/mc noticed it (well…he noticed the Gaijin, and then the strange black case) and asked me what it was, was it a banjo? and I replied it was a shamisen. and (not)thanks to my friend who said I can play, i basically got dragged onto the stage to play after the two guys. I was too nervous to play any jongara, and i figured that even if i did, it might seem as some sort of rude affront or challenge, so I just played (attempted…damn those mistakes) ringo bushi. So yeah that too can happen to you.
Anzu 杏 http://anzu.tsugarushamisen.jp/
Between Anzu and Taka Kyu, it`s really hard to decide which is the best, but they both provided the absolute shamisen highlight of my trip so far. Both are top class shamisen places, but they have very different atmospheres. Anzu is a very fancy small izakaya and is very…adult in a fancy dinner kind of way. It is run by an awesome old man, who you could pull out of any anime featuring awesome old men with beards. The food is amazing in this place (quite expensive) and then the shamisen playing is just awesome. If I understand correctly this place features exclusively Tada Atushi’s deshi (apprentices), and on the night I went, it had Tada Atsushi, his 2 kids, and 3 apprentices. The show was sublime. It was a super intimate place, with probably less than 20 customers in total. You need to book! seriously. we only just made it in, because I was studying with Tada sensei in the morning and he helped us out.
So yeah, thats my thoughts on the area and my current experiences. Oh a quick note on accomodation, it’s kinda expensive. much more so than down south in japan. The youth hostel i stayed at in Hirosaki was 3040 yen for a dorm room AFTER you have the YH membership, and it doesnt even have internet!! wtf!? Although I now know there’s a hotel for about 3500 yen also in the area. And then in Aomori the cheapest place I found was the Weekly Inn Chitose which goes down to 1900yen which is actually quite good, but those rooms get snatched up fast. And watch out for Obon. It’s the first day of Obon and the youth hostel closed on me, so I have to panic and rush to get alternative accomodation.
Hope this was of interest to you guys…I’m killing time till the rain ebbs away, and I can run to my new hotel and maybe practice in the room.
Cheers,
Shmoolik