Table Of ContentTSUGARU SHAMISEN AND MODERN JAPANESE IDENTITY
GERALD T. McGOLDRICK
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN MUSIC
YORK UNIVERSITY
TORONTO, ONTARIO
MARCH 2017
© Gerry McGoldrick, 2017
ABSTRACT
The shamisen, a Japanese plucked lute dating back to the seventeenth century, began to be
played by blind itinerant male performers known as bosama in the late nineteenth century in the
Tsugaru region, part of present-day Aomori prefecture in northern Japan. By the early twentieth
century it was used by sighted players to accompany local folk songs, and from the 1940s
entirely instrumental versions of a few of the folk songs were being performed. In the late 1950s
the term Tsugaru shamisen was coined and the genre began to get national attention. This
culminated in a revival in the 1970s centred on Takahashi Chikuzan, who had made a living as a
bosama in the prewar period. In the wake of the 70s boom a contest began to be held annually in
Hirosaki, the cultural capital of the Tsugaru region. This contest nurtured a new generation of
young players from all over Japan, eventually spawning other national contests in every corner
of the country. Chikuzan’s death in 1998 was widely reported in the media, and Yoshida
Ryōichirō and Yoshida Kenichi, brothers who had stood out at the contests, were cast as the new
face of Tsugaru shamisen. From about 2000 a new Tsugaru shamisen revival was under way, and
the music could be heard as background music on Television programs and commercials
representing a modern Japan that had not lost its traditions.
Through discourse analysis of primary materials, and informed by the author’s twenty-five
years of direct experience with the Tsugaru shamisen community, this dissertation examines how
since the millennial revival the music has come to index a Japanese identity that is modern but
still essentially Japanese. It explores ideas developed in the 1930s by thinkers like Watsuji
Tetsurō and Yanagita Kunio that continue to influence popular conceptions of modernity and
tradition in Japan. It traces the one-hundred-year recording history of the music and the
proliferation of national contests in recent decades and compares the revivals of the 1970s and
the millennium to demonstrate how a genre that previously indexed rural, traditional Japan has
come to represent the modern nation.
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ACKNLOWLEDGMENTS
I want to begin by thanking my shamisen teachers Nishimura Makoto, Nishikawa Shinobu,
Nishikawa Misao, and Hayashi Kimiko for being so generous with their time and knowledge
through the years. I am thankful to so many people in the Tsugaru shamisen world that I cannot
individually thank here, but would like to mention a few of them at least. I appreciate the time
given to me by Takahashi Yūjirō and Yamada Chisato, from the generation of players who have
since passed on, and by members of the next generation like Oyama Mitsugu, Takahashi
Chikuzan II, and Sato Michihiro. I am grateful to the players at folksong bars like Yamauta and
Aiya in Hirosaki, and Oiwake in Tokyo, that continue to make such virtuosic and moving music,
and who have taken time to share their thoughts on this music over the years, in particular
Nagamine Kenichi, Shibutani Kazuo, Gareth Burns, Abe Kinzaburou, and Abe Ginzaburou. I
want to thank all of the people involved in the contests, organizers, judges, participants and
audience members for their insights into that part of the Tsugaru shamisen world, including
Sasaki Kenichi, Ito Kazuhiro, Yamaya Takumi, Shusui Enomoto III, Kametani Eimei, Yamamoto
Dai, Patrick Conway, and Steven Ryan. I am also grateful to shamisen craftsmen like Isono Sen,
as well as everyone as Shamisen Katoh. Various scholars and writers who have inspired me in
both their work and in person include David Hughes, Gerald Groemer, Sasamori Takefusa,
Anthony Rausch, James Westerhoven, Christopher Yohmei Blasdel, and Oda Mayusa. I’d like to
thank longtime Aomori resident and Tsugaru shamisen virtuoso Kevin Kmetz for his hospitality
and generosity, and the players that he inspired in California, including Mike Penny, Grant
Reimer, and Kyle Abbott. Kyle Abbott’s website, Bachido.com, has also been a great source for
monitoring the development of the international shamisen community over the last few years.
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Several people at York University went above and beyond the call of duty to help me in the
overly-long process of bringing my dissertation to completion. I am extremely grateful to my
supervisor Rob Simms for scholarly and moral support, and for committee members Louise
Wrazen and Michael Coghlan for their work on the document and the process. I also want to
thank examining committee members Sherry Johnson, Jay Goulding, and Jay Keister for their
comments and advice that helped make the final work stronger. Tere Tilban-Rios has helped
hundreds of students navigate the dissertation process, and has been a lifeline for me many times
in my own journey.
Lastly, I would like to thank my family for their unstinting support through all of this.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ii
Acknowledgments iii
Table of Contents v
List of Figures x
List of Illustrations xi
Chapter One: Introduction 1
Opening 1
Aims 2
Personal Perspective 3
Methods and Theories 4
Literature Review 6
The Tsugaru region 6
Tsugaru shamisen 6
Modernity and national identity 10
Music revivals 11
Traditional music competitions 12
The Tsugaru Region 13
Tsugaru Shamisen 15
History 15
Musical Parameters 20
Chapter Summary 23
Chapter Two: Modernity in Japan 25
Introduction 25
General Concepts 25
Modernity 25
Nationalism and the Rise of the Nation-state 26
Tradition 29
Nostalgia 30
Other Modernities 32
Japan's Modernity 33
Modernity in Japan 34
Nationalism in Japan 35
Defining documents of modern Japan 36
The Overcoming Modernity Symposium 37
Nihonjinron, the discourse of Japanese uniqueness 39
Natsukashisa, Japanese nostalgia 45
Rural tradition and urban modernity 46
Tradition, Modernity and Tsugaru Shamisen 50
Conclusion 53
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Chapter Three: The Recording History of Tsugaru Shamisen 54
Introduction 54
Early History 55
Earliest Japanese Recordings 55
Recording Companies in Japan 56
Early Min'yō Recordings 58
Two Eras of Tsugaru Shamisen Recordings 61
Early Tsugaru Shamisen Players 63
The players 63
The recordings 65
The Repertoire 66
Discographies 68
Takahashi Chikuzan's recording history 68
King records 70
Victor, Nippon Columbia, and Nippon Crown 71
Sony 72
Disques Jean-Jean, Canyon Records, RAB,
and Tsugaru Shobō 73
Unofficial and unlicensed releases 75
Shirakawa Gumpachirō's recording history 75
King records, Nippon Columbia, and Tsugaru
st
Min’yō 21 Century Heritage Association 76
Compilations 78
The Present Era 79
Before the Yoshida Brothers 79
Takahashi Chikuzan II 79
Sato Michihiro 81
Contest recordings 81
The Yoshida Brothers 82
In the Wake of the Yoshida Brothers 87
Online sources 89
Conclusion 90
Chapter Four: National Tsugaru Shamisen Contests 92
Introduction 92
th
I. Experiencing Hirosaki's 34 Annual Tsugaru Shamisen International Contest 95
The Contest Programme 97
The Contest 99
Day one: greetings 100
Junior C-level 101
Senior C-level 102
Groups 103
B-groups (five to ten members) 105
A-groups (more than ten members) 106
vi
Middle C-level (40-59), youth C-level 107
Day two: greetings 107
B-level 108
Song accompaniment 109
Women's A-level 110
Men's A-level 111
Attractions 112
Awards ceremony 112
II. Surveying the National Tsugaru Shamisen Contests 114
Min'yō Contests 114
1. Hirosaki's Tsugaru Shamisen International Contest 116
Yamada Chisato 116
History 117
Funding 119
Adjudication 120
Categories 121
Criteria 123
Participants 125
Awards 126
Winners 127
Distinguishing Features 127
Prestige 129
2. The Tsugaru shamisen All-Japan Kanagi Contest 130
Daijō Kazuo 131
History 133
Satozukuri 134
Funding 134
Adjudication 135
Categories 136
Criteria 137
Participants 138
Awards 138
Winners 139
Distinguishing Features 140
Prestige 140
3. Tokyo's Tsugaru Shamisen Concours National Contest 141
History 141
Funding 142
Adjudication 143
Categories 143
Schedule 144
Criteria 145
Participants 145
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Awards 145
Winners 146
Reason for Existing 147
Distinguishing Features 147
Prestige 148
Controversy 149
4. The National Tsugaru Shamisen Concours Osaka Contest 150
History 150
Funding 151
Adjudication, Categories, Criteria, Participants 151
Awards, Winners, Distinguishing Features, Prestige 152
5. The Tsugaru Shamisen National Contest in Kobe (2004 to 2014) 154
History 154
Funding 155
Adjudication, Categories, Criteria, Participants 156
Awards, Winners, Distinguishing Features, Prestige 157
6. Aomori's Tsugaru Shamisen Japan Number One Deciding Battle 158
History 158
Funding, Sponsors 160
Adjudication, Categories, Criteria, Participants 161
Awards, Winners, Distinguishing Features, Prestige 163
7. All-Japan Tsugaru Shamisen Competition: Nagoya Contest 167
Funding 167
Adjudication, Categories, Criteria, Participants 168
Awards, Winners, Distinguishing Features, Prestige 169
8. Other Contests 170
III. Discussion 172
The Spread of the National Tsugaru Shamisen Contests 172
Funding 175
Adjudication 176
Categories 177
Criteria 179
Participants 181
Awards 182
Winners 183
Distinguishing Features 184
Prestige 184
Gender 185
Stylistic Change 187
Conclusion 189
Chapter Five: Tsugaru Shamisen Revival and Recontextualization 190
Introduction 190
The History of Tsugaru Shamisen Revivals 191
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Music Revivals: Six Themes 200
One: Motivations 200
Two: The Selective Use of History 203
Three: Recontextualization and Transformation 208
Four: Authenticity, Authority, and Legitimacy 224
Five: Transmission, Dissemination, and Promotion 233
Six: The Post-revival Turn: Revival Legacies 237
Conclusion 241
Chapter Six: Conclusion 242
Overview of Study 242
Principal Conclusions Reached 245
Summary and Directions for Future Research 250
Appendices
Appendix A: Selected Tsugaru Shamisen Player Chronology 254
Appendix B: Recorded Repertoire of Early Players 256
Appendix C: Recorded Repertoire of Recent Representative Players 257
Appendix D: Early Tsugaru Shamisen Player Recordings and Ranking Charts 258
Appendix E: Map of National Tsugaru Shamisen Contests 259
Appendix F: National Tsugaru Shamisen Contest Winners History 260
Appendix G: Transcriptions 263
References 266
Discography 286
ix
List of Figures
Figure 1.01: Tsugaru shamisen modes 21
x
