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"Musical instruments Japan."
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Taiko boom
With its thunderous sounds and dazzling choreography, Japanese taiko drumming has captivated audiences in Japan and across the world, making it one of the most successful performing arts to emerge from Japan in the past century. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among taiko groups in Japan, Taiko Boom explores the origins of taiko in the early postwar period and its popularization over the following decades of rapid economic growth in Japan's cities and countryside. Building on the insights of globalization studies, the book argues that taiko developed within and has come to express new forms of communal association in a Japan increasingly engaged with global cultural flows. While its popularity has created new opportunities for Japanese to participate in community life, this study also reveals how the discourses and practices of taiko drummers dramatize tensions inherent in Japanese conceptions of race, the body, gender, authenticity, and locality.
eBook
The Birth of Yamatogoto Culture: Stringed Instruments and the Formation of Complex Society in Pre- and Protohistoric Japan
Excavated Japanese zithers are likely the oldest surviving stringed instruments in East Asia. This article reviews diachronic changes that occurred in the forms of wood zithers in pre- and protohistoric Japan over approximately two millennia (ca. 1500 b.c.–a.d. 600). It highlights developments such as the addition of resonator boxes, average size increase, and inclusion of figural ornamentation. Results indicate that these formal developments, in addition to the adoption of a seated playing posture as portrayed in Kofun haniwa musician figurines, were driven by the needs of growing communities and their leaders. This analysis suggests that examining changes in musical instruments can be used alongside traditional lines of evidence to research the origins of social complexity and thereby carves out space for a humanistic approach to the study of prehistory.
Journal Article
Playing a musical instrument and the risk of dementia among older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies
Background
Engaging in leisure activities was suggested to protect older adults from dementia. However, the association between playing a musical instrument and the risk of dementia is not well-established. This study aimed to investigate this association in older adults using a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.
Methods
Pooled hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of having dementia for older adults playing a musical instrument were calculated using the random-effects model. We performed the
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2
statistic to detect heterogeneity across studies and the test for funnel plot asymmetry to assess publication bias. The risk of bias assessment was conducted using the modified Newcastle–Ottawa Scale.
Results
A total of three prospective cohort studies were found eligible: two from the U.S. and one from Japan. Playing a musical instrument, in the meta-analysis, was significantly associated with a decreased risk of dementia (HR = 0.64; 95% CI: 0.41, 0.98) among older adults. No signs of significant heterogeneity across studies (
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= 23.3% and p-heterogeneity = 0.27) or publication bias (z= -1.3 and p-publication bias = 0.18) were identified.
Conclusion
Playing a musical instrument was associated with a decreased risk of dementia among older adults. Older adults should be encouraged to engage in leisure activities, especially playing musical instruments.
Journal Article
Exploring factors reflecting Chinese students’ study abroad destination choice
Japan has become the most popular study destination among non-English-speaking countries in Asia. Within the broader literature on students’ personal motivation and parental influence, this study examines how Chinese students construct motivational factors when Japan is chosen as their study destination. In this study, 17 participants at a Japanese university were interviewed via semistructured interviews to collect data. This study employed a three-stage qualitative data analysis process: raw data coding, data categorization, and thematic development. The findings revealed that the push factors identified by the participants included cultural, educational and career development aspects. The pull factors encompass social factors such as a stable society and convenient lifestyle in Japan, as well as natural environmental features, including beautiful landscapes and scenic views. The study concludes that both push and pull factors play significant roles in motivating Chinese students’ desire to study in Japan.
Journal Article
Didgeridoo Health Promotion Method Improves Mood, Mental Stress, and Stability of Autonomic Nervous System
A potential method of health promotion using the traditional wooden brass instrument the didgeridoo was examined, especially in terms of mood, stress, and autonomic nerve stabilization. Twenty Japanese healthy subjects undertook 10 lessons of the Didgeridoo Health Promotion Method (DHPM) and a moods questionnaire, blood pressure, salivary amylase (sAmy) as a stress marker, pulse rate and autonomic balance expressed by Ln[low frequency (LF)/High frequency (HF) were examined twice before the entire lessons and once before and after each lesson. The subjects had improved total mood disturbance (TMD: overall mood disorder degree) as measured by the Japanese version of the Profile of Mood States 2nd Edition (POMS2) as a result of taking the lessons. The pulse of the subjects decreased after the lessons, which correlated with a reduction in sAmy. Additionally, it was found that sAmy decreased after the lessons with increasing age of the subject, subjects with higher TMD before the lessons, or subjects with higher sAmy values before the lessons. With autonomic balance measured by Ln[LF/HF], subjects who had parasympathetic dominance as a result of the lesson were significantly more frequent. Additionally, it has been shown that Ln[LF/HF] decreased over 10 weeks, and it is also clear that the effect is sustained. Health promotion is an important concern for societies as a whole. In this study, it became clear that the DHPM affected mood, stress, and autonomic stability. Future studies should focus on monitoring the effects of continuing the lessons for a longer period of time. Additionally, physical effects such as strength of respiratory muscles should be examined. DHPM may be employed in the work place to promote the mental health of workers as well as in regional neighborhood associations/communities.
Journal Article
Western Music on Commodore Perry’s “Black Ships” in Japan, 1853–1854
Commodore Perry and his “Black Ships” opened Japanese harbors for foreign shipping in 1853 and 1854. Music was important for this Japan Expedition that obtained a treaty between the United States and Japan. Bands and singers performed music for parades, impressive ceremonies, religious services, and entertainment for the sailors and foreign audiences. This article examines the styles of Western music, instrumentation, and performance venues of Perry’s musicians as they traveled to harbors in China, Okinawa, and Japan. Since the large bands from Perry’s ships were impressive with their fancy uniforms, swords, and loud music, the Japanese associated band music with American military power. The performances on Perry’s ships were some of the first performances of Western music in Japan, before the Westernization of the Japanese school music curriculum in the 1880s. Primary sources for this research include contemporary narrative accounts, printed programs, nineteenth-century prints, and songbooks. Secondary sources include websites, articles, and books to put the material in a historical context.
Journal Article
The paraguayan harp
This book discusses the historical and musical development of the diatonic harp in Paraguay, an analysis of the musical contributions by harp composers and performers, a survey of the various traditional genres associated with the instrument, and a discussion of the popular and academic settings where the instrument has been cultivated.
eBook
Shamisen skin on the verge of extinction: musical sustainability and non-scalability of cultural loss
This article explores a cultural preservation project in Japan led by members of the Society for the Preservation of the Sound of Traditional Japanese Musical Instruments for the Next Generation. The project aims to sustain the material culture of the shamisen, a traditional Japanese lute. The raw materials used in the making of this musical instrument today are mostly imported and considered endangered for different reasons. I apply the concept of non-scalability to the discussion of musical sustainability and cultural extinction. Non-scalability can be used as a conceptual tool to determine and reveal problems-for example, layers of disjuncture between perspectives on loss-inherent in a cultural preservation project. It also can help one think critically about the position from which discussions are made on the stakes of different preservation agendas.
Journal Article
Drumming to One’s Own Beat: Japanese Taiko and the Challenge to Genre
Taiko groups throughout the world are perceived as performing an established style of ensemble drumming grounded in an imagined Japanese tradition (Bender 2012; De Ferranti 2006). Since its inception, however, taiko has been a cosmopolitan musical movement in constant flux, combining diverse sources in innovative ways (Pachter 2013). Review of scholarly debates on genre, Japanese music, and the flexibility of taiko, reference to globally renowned performers, and ethnographic research with contemporary groups in Kyoto reveals that the complicated nature of taiko may defy any categorization, in turn challenging established understandings of genre itself (Holt 2007), while affirming that we nonetheless rely on such systems of organization to make sense of musical worlds.
Journal Article