Japanese Folk Songs

Like many countries in the world today, popular music is heard everywhere in Japan. On a visit, one might hear foreign styles like jazz, country, salsa alongside Japanese pop music like the ballads of enka and Japanese rock called "J-pop." However, folk and traditional music persist in the culture and still hold a special place for many Japanese.

Though many people assume that Japan is a homogenous nation, there are actually three main culture groups: the majority Japanese, the native Ainu of Hokkaido, and the people of the southern Ryukyu Islands. This will focus on the folk songs and traditional music of the Japanese.

Though difficult to generalize, traditional Japanese music tends to be monophonic. Variety is achieved through the use of several different pentatonic scales and microtones. Great emphasis is placed on timbre, and often features free rhythm. Of course, there are many exceptions to these characteristics, in part due to the significant influence of western music.

History

Unlike many cultures, a detailed historical record of music in Japan exists in treatises and song collections preserved since the eighth century A.D. As a result, much is known about the development of music and song through the centuries, including both folk and art musics.

With a highly stratified society isolated from the world for much of the last 2000 years, Japanese music has specialized song forms to a degree seen in few other cultures. Most art songs and ceremonial music are performed by professional musicians who must undergo years of rigorous training in music schools. Art music genres, like that of noh and bugaku theater and the performance styles of shakuhachi and the koto, are still highly respected by the Japanese, much like classical music is in the United States.

Outside of these rigid and highly compartmentalized music forms, Japanese folk music has thrived among non-professionals. In many cases, amateurs adapted art or court music they liked to make it more suitable for informal contexts. At the same time, there are many folk music genres that developed independent of the Japanese art music styles.

Min'yo

Min'yo is a general word used to describe folk songs in Japan that are performed by amateurs as well as on stage by professional folk song singers. Min'yo include work songs, lumberjack songs, traveling songs, songs for celebrations and dances, and many more. In Japan most min'yo are regional, so that songs are recognized by the town name in their title. For example, the popular folk song "Yagi bushi" is the "song (bushi) from Yagi."

Min'yo can be sung unaccompanied (as with work songs) or accompanied by instruments such as the shakuhachi, shamisen, koto, or taiko drum, especially for stage performances. Min'yo generally use a pentatonic scale, and are often in 2/4 or 6/8 meter though many are unmetered.

Children's Songs

There are three main types of children songs in Japan: shoka, doyo, and warabe-uta. While warabe-uta (meaning "children's songs") are technically the only true folk songs of the three, many shoka and doyo are an important part of every Japanese child's musical lives.

Standardized music education for children was introduced in Japan in the 1870s following the opening of the country after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Shoka songs (or "school songs"), which were created largely to introduce Western music and singing to schools, were one aspect of this transformation. After World War I, there was a backlash against the very formal shoka songs, and many prominent Japanese composers and poets such as Suzuki Miekichi, Kitahara Hakushu, and Noguchi Ujo created doyo songs. These were meant to be more appropriate for Japanese children, though they still often used western scales and harmonies.

Warabe-uta are true folk songs that children all over Japan sing. They might be compared to nursery rhymes or play songs in the United States. The range is generally no more than a sixth and they are never harmonized. There are many different types of warabe-uta, including play songs with stones, bean bags, and gestures, counting songs, picture-drawing songs, ball-bouncing songs, jump-rope songs, and hand-clapping songs.

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