Transcription of Shakuhachi Music

MUSC726 Topic: Transcription and Analysis

Te-Wei Huang
Instructor: David Garner

Shakuhachi and Aesthetic Concepts

According to Grove dictionary, Shakuhachi was originally exported from China into Japan in

the early 8th century, reappearing around the 15th century in a Japanized form. 1 Shaku is a unit

of length which equals approximately 30 centimeters; Hachi means eight. Hence, Shakuhachi

actually, reflects the length of the instrument. In Japan, Shukuhachi was widely employed by

Japanese monks for religious mendicancy (Figure 1). Two important concepts in Shakuhachi

performance are sawari and Ma. Sawari means “touch,” which expresses the variety of timbres,

for instance, the pitch bend, noise, and breathy sounds. On the other hand, Ma resembles the

intervals or spaces between two unites. Grounded in Zen Buddhist philosophies, Ma stresses

the importance of emptiness, asking the performers to be aware of the silences surrounding the

notes, as much as the notes themselves. 2 Therefore, Ma is a mental activity that allows

performers to contemplate during the absence of sound. As Figure 2 shows, the composer only

indicates the pitches and relative duration, leaving considerable freedom for performers to

1 (2001, January 01). Shakuhachi. Grove Music Online. Ed. Retrieved 11 Nov. 2018, from
http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-
9781561592630-e-0000025572.
2 Jennifer Milioto. Focus: Music in Contemporary Japan. (New York: Routledge, 2015), 69.
interpret the score. Since the duration is proportionally notated, the performers can determine

the length of the notes so that they are able to focus on mental time rather than the precise

duration of the score. Therefore, Western notation is unable to convey the organic duration that

presents the concept of Ma. Thus, proportional notation gives performers more opportunities

to feel their own rhythm and breathing, expanding the distance between notes.

Figure. 1 Figure. 2

Figure.3

http://flutedojo.com/shakuhachi-guides/basic-shakuhachi-note-chart

Challenges of Transcription
The most challenging task in transcribing the piece is capturing the precise rhythm and tempo

of the music. Since the core concept of the music is to present a variety of emotions and

contemplation, the performance varies from person to person so that the rhythmic pattern is

always different and irregular. Therefore, I decided to use proportional notation to represent

the plasticity of the flexibility of time in the music. First of all, traditional Western notation will

make the transcription too complicated, because the flexible duration results in too many

irregular rhythmic patterns, which cannot represent the notion of Japanese music. Most

importantly, in my opinion, performers shouldn’t count the beats while they are performing

Shakuhachi. If they count the beats in their minds, especially during the silent section, the sense

of Ma will be distributed. On the contrary, although the performers still need to count the time

while reading spatial notation, the approximate time indication is visually more flexible than

conventional notational system in Western music. Hence, in my opinion, proportional notation

is more consistent with the original meaning and aesthetic concept of the music. Capturing the

contours of timbres is also problematic. Since the music of Shakuhachi is greatly influenced

by the notion of Sawari, complex timbral variation is an important feature of Shakuhachi music.

In the transcription, I use different noteheads to depict the airy sound, and graphic notation to

present the motions of pitch bends. I decided to transcribe the piece Yamagoe, showed in Figure

4 and 5.
 Bibliography

Jennifer Milioto. Focus: Music in Contemporary Japan. New York: Routledge, 2015

Shakuhachi. Grove Music Online. Ed. Retrieved 11 Nov. 2018, from

http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.00
01/omo-9781561592630-e-0000025572.

http://flutedojo.com/shakuhachi-guides/basic-shakuhachi-note-chart