For this post, I’d like to talk about the shamisen player in a Bunraku performance. These people are able to give themselves up to a higher power to follow the rhythm of the words being spoken by the chanters, who are the narrators of the story. The chanters follow a rhythm and give themselves up to it in order to give power to their words. The shamisen player is able to follow this rhythm and add power to it because the shamisen player provides melody to the words from the chanter. They must become one with the rhythm in order to help create the story along with the chanters and the actors. These three elements must be as one in order to participate in the idea of world making. Let’s look at a particular play called the Lion Dance.
The actors performing this story have to put on the mask of a character who is putting on the mask of the lion deity. This makes the performance even more interesting because the character that they are becoming one with is also an actor who is trying to become one with his character, which happens to be a god. The actors in this play have to, in a sense, give their themselves up to a higher power twice. They transcend themselves in order to become one with the character. Once they have become one with the character, then as that character, they must become one with the lion god. The shamisen player must study the text just like the actors and know how to become one with a god in order to play the appropriate music for a god. A musical instrument can be one’s way of connecting to another world just like actors can connect to another world by putting on the mask that makes them lose their own consciousness. The shamisen players have to let the rhythm take over their bodies so that they may play music that is suitable for an important like the lion god.
The lion god is usually invoked for many reason involving agriculture and harvesting, but he can also be invoked to ward off evil spirits. This god is usually playful, as can be seen in the play and the god is usually associated with children too because it can bestow intelligence upon them if he bites them on the head. For adults, he can bestow good luck for those he bites. The music of the shamisen player must reflect this and in order to do that, the shamisen player must become one with the rhythm of the lion god.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
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