History Of Togaku Music

Gagaku is the traditional court music of Japan. The word gagaku originates from the literal Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters for the term “elegant music” (Britannica). The origins of gagaku trace back to mainland China where it was first developed as music for the imperial court of the Tang Dynasty. This music then spread east to Korea where it was adopted as the music of the imperial Korean court. During the 5th century, musicians from the the Korean imperial court travelled to Japan to perform at the funeral of a recently passed emperor, spreading along the Chinese-influenced musical tradition. This is the first time that gagaku music was introduced into Japan. In the centuries afterward, trade along the East Asian countries …show more content…
As the national instrument of Japan, the koto has had a long history with the country. Initially introduced from China in the 7th and 8th century, the koto was modeled after the Chinese guzheng. The koto is a chordophone consisting of a curved wooden board with thirteen silk strings strewn taught across its span. Sound is produced when the musician plucks the strings with three bamboo picks, each positioned on the player’s thumb, index finger, and middle finger. Another string instrument found in togaku music is the biwa.
The biwa is the Japanese equivalent of the western lute. While there are a variety of biwas used in Japanese music across the different genres, the biwas used in gagaku music will either be the gogen-biwa or the gagaku-biwa, with the gogen-biwa having five strings and the gagaku-biwa with four strings. Different than western uses of the lute, in gagaku, the biwa is used only to mark time and rhythmically support the melody, not to create any accompanying harmony. This true with the Koto as well. The stringed instruments play short, fixed patterns in precise …show more content…
The sho takes its nickname from the instrument being constructed from a series of seventeen bamboo tubes, with each tube being cut a different length as well as having a small hole drilled into the side. Each tube is then hollowed out to a predetermined length on the inside. This creates the different pitches the sho is capable of playing as well as preserving the aesthetic of the pipe’s exterior and allowing the instrument to resemble a phoenix once assembled. Inside each pipe is a small metal reed that vibrates when air is passed through. Each of the seventeen pipes is attached to a mouthpiece where the musician can produce a sound by either inhaling or exhaling, similar to a harmonica. The player controls which pitches he wants to play by closing the hole on the side of each pipe, allowing the air to be funneled through the pipe’s opening and causing the reed to vibrate. The sho’s construction of several pipes joined together through a common mouthpiece has both its advantages and disadvantages. Because sound is produced by exhaling as well as inhaling, the musician can play continuous passages without the sound being interrupted by pauses to take a breath. The drawback of this design is that water will eventually accumulate onto the metal reed after a prolonged period of playing and will cause the reed to stop vibrating. To prevent this, the player must occasionally hold the sho over