Biwa - Use in Modern Music

Use in Modern Music

Biwa usage in Japan has declined greatly since the Heian period. Outside influence, internal pressures, and socio-political turmoil redefined biwa patronage and biwa image; for example, the Onin War during the Muromachi period (1338–1573) and the subsequent Warring States period (15th-17th centuries) disrupted the cycle of tutelage for heikyoku performers. As a result, younger musicians turned to other instruments and interest in biwa music decreased. Even the biwa hoshi transitioned to other instruments such as the shamisen (a three stringed lute) .

Interest in the biwa revived during the Edo period (1600–1868) when Tokugawa Ieyasu unified Japan and established the Tokugawa Shogunate. Ieyasu favored biwa music and became a major patron. He helped strengthen biwa guilds (called Todo) by financing them and allowing them special privileges (142). Shamisen players and other musicians found it financially beneficial to switch to the biwa, and, as they crossed over, they brought new styles. The Edo period proved to be one of the most prolific and artistically creative periods for the biwa in its long history in Japan (143).

In 1868, the Tokugawa Shogunate collapsed, giving way to the Meiji period and the Meiji Restoration. In Meiji, the samurai class was abolished, and the Todo lost their patronage. Biwa players no longer enjoyed special privileges and were forced to support themselves. At the beginning of Meiji (1868), it was estimated that there were at least one hundred traditional court musicians in Tokyo. Yet, by the 1930s, there were only forty-six traditional court musicians in Tokyo. A quarter of these musicians died in the war. Life in Post-war Japan was difficult, and many musicians abandoned their music in favor of more sustainable livelihoods .

While many styles of biwa flourished in the early 1900s (e.g., Kindai-biwa from the 1900s-1930s), the cycle of tutelage was broken yet again. Currently, there are no direct means of studying biwa in many biwa traditions . Even higo-biwa players, who were quite popular in the early 20th century, may no longer have a direct means of studying oral composition, as the bearers of the tradition have either died or are no longer able to play. Kindai biwa still retains a significant number of professional and amateur practitioners, but zato, heike, and moso-biwa styles have all but died out .

As biwa music declined in post-Pacific War Japan, many Japanese composers and musicians found ways to revitalize interest in it. They recognized that studies in music theory and music composition in Japan almost entirely consisted in Western theory and instruction. Beginning in the late 1960s, these musicians and composers began to incorporate Japanese music and Japanese instruments into their compositions; for example, one composer, Toru Takemitsu, collaborated with Western composers and compositions to include the distinctly Asian biwa. His well-received compositions such as November Steps, which incorporates biwa heikyoku with western orchestral performance, revitalized interest in the biwa and sparked a series of collaborative efforts by other musician in genres ranging from jpop and enza to shin-hougaku and gendaigaku .

Other musicians, such as Yamashika Yoshiyuki, who is considered by most ethnomusicologists to be the last of the biwa hoshi, preserved scores of songs that were almost lost forever. Yamashika, born in the late Meiji, continued the biwa hoshi tradition until his death in 1996. Beginning in the late sixties to the late eighties, composers and historians from all over the world visited Yamashika and recorded many of his songs. Up to that time, the biwa hoshi tradition of songs was completely an oral tradition. When Yamashika died in 1996, the era of the biwa hoshi tutelage died with him, but the music and genius of that era continues thanks to his recordings .