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THE MUSIC of JAPAN Year 8 Pupils Have Recently Completed Work On MUSIC: YEAR 8: THE MUSIC OF JAPAN Year 8 pupils have recently completed work on the topic of ‘Electronic Dance Music’ – developments in popular music from the 1970s onwards, which embraced the potential of music technology. They are now moving on to the study of the traditional music of Japan. Pupils should work through the weekly tasks below, completing the project work if they wish as an extension/enrichment task. Work can be completed on paper, or in any electronic form: the most important thing is to keep thinking, listening and learning! Week Beginning In this unit, we are going to explore the traditional music of Japan. 20.4.20 Japanese music is quite different to anything you might have heard before, and so before we start listening we are going to find out about the Background and geography, art, culture and society of Japan. Context to the music of Japan Can you discover the following; Where in the world is Japan? What is the terrain like in Japan? What is the population size of Japan? How does it rank when compared to the rest of the world? Where do most Japanese people live? What are some of the main industries in Japan? Find out an interesting fact about the Japanese language. What is the main religion in Japan? Find out 3 facts about it. Find out 3 interesting facts about Japanese art. Find out 3 interesting facts about Japanese food. Find and describe 3 popular tourist destinations in Japan. Here are some websites which might be useful as a starting point, though there are many more available; https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/japan https://www.lonelyplanet.com/japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e629.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-are-the-biggest-industries-in- japan.html https://www.japancentre.com/en/pages/156-30-must-try-japanese-foods https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2127.html Week Beginning One of the main musical differences between western music and the 27.4.20 traditional music of Japan is timbre: that is, the sounds of the instruments. You are going to find out about some of the most famous Japanese Traditional instruments and also listen to how they sound. Japanese Instruments For each instrument, can you discover the following; What is it made out of? How do you play it? What family of instruments does it belong to? What kind of sound does it make? What size is it, and therefore is its pitch high or low? Here are the instruments with a link to a webpage for each to get you started, but you will need to search more widely for all the information, and to hear each instrument being performed; Shamisen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFqkkt2_QFQ Shakuhachi https://www.britannica.com/art/shakuhachi Koto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K6KpkFXKdM Taiko http://blog.sadlerswells.com/5-things-you-might-not-know-about-taiko- drumming/ Week Beginning Here are two pieces of Japanese traditional music. Listen to each one and 4.5.20 answer the questions below; Listening to Extract 1 Japanese Music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmRPECd9Yig Describe the pitch of this music? Is there a steady beat or is the music in free time? What word could you give to describe the texture? Are the notes mainly long, short or an equal mixture? What mood or atmosphere does this music suggest to you? What western instrument(s) does this instrument remind you of? Extract 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L24Nb4CJzV4 Describe the tempo of this piece. Are the rhythms made up of mainly long or short notes? What mood or atmosphere does this music suggest to you? How would you describe the sound (timbre) of this instrument? Give one word to describe the dynamics of this piece? To which family of instruments does this instrument belong? Week Beginning The music below is a traditional Japanese folk song, ‘Sakura’ (cherry 11.5.20 blossom), for you to learn to play. Here is a recording – the main part of the melody starts at 0.31; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK51LblcEOw Performing Japanese Music If you have a piano/keyboard or other instrument at home then you can use that, otherwise here is a link to a virtual piano that you can use for this task; https://virtualpiano.net/ BASIC: Play the melody with your RH. INTERMEDIATE: Add a drone in your LH (What note/s could you use?). ADVANCED: Play the melody with both hands an octave apart. Add decorations to the RH part. This is a texture called ‘heterophony’. Week Beginning Like the music of the Gamelan that we studied in Year 7, Japanese 18.5.20 traditional music is pentatonic – that is, it uses sets of just 5 notes. Here is a Japanese pentatonic scale (set of notes), the ‘In’ scale. Composing Japanese Music Using your instrument, or the virtual piano, improvise using these notes to create a piece of music in the Japanese style. Here are some tips; Choose a title – Samurai, Temple or Mountain – think about mood. Set a tempo – slow, steady, medium, quick? Remember that repetition is a good thing in music, so use patterns. Think about rhythm – patterns of long and short notes. What about texture – use a chord or drone (long held note)? Perhaps you could record your finished piece? Japanese Music Modern Japanese culture is just as Project vibrant as its ancient equivalent. One internationally renowned cultural form Anime – is the anime film. A studio that has Japanese achieved great success around the animated films world for its anime films is Studio Ghibli. If you can, watch one of these films and as you watch, consider the questions below; Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) The story is set in a fictional kingdom where both magic and technology are prevalent, against the backdrop of a war with another kingdom. The film tells the story of a young, content hat-maker named Sophie who is turned into an old woman by a witch who enters her shop and curses her. She encounters a wizard named Howl, and gets caught up in his resistance to fighting for the king. Spirited Away (2001) Spirited Away tells the story of Chihiro, a 10-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighbourhood, enters the world of Kami (spirits) of Japanese Shinto folklore. After her parents are turned into pigs by the witch Yubaba, Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world. What is distinctive about the character’s faces? What do you notice about the music (this can be anything about the music in any part of the film. Use the musical elements to describe it). Have you heard any music that sounds Japanese or is the music similar to that used in western animation? Describe the scenery in the movie? Is it futuristic or does it look like a particular place or country to you? Pick a character and describe what that person is like? Are they friendly/heroic/nasty? Do they have a piece or style of music that represents them? Do you like anime? What do you like or dislike about it? Why do you think anime is popular all over the world? .
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