The samisen is early taught. Girls of seven or thereabouts are made to learn it while their fingers are still very pliant. But the lessons are hard to learn as the tunes have to be committed to memory, for there are no scores to refer to. There is no popular method of notation; the marks which are sometimes to be seen in song-books are too few to be of use to any but skilled musicians. The lighter samisen does not require much exertion to play; women can thrum it for hours on end; and they make slight indentations on the nails of the middle and ring fingers of the left hand for catching the strings when those fingers are moved up and down the neck to stop them. But with the heavier kind the indentations are deeper, and the constant friction of the strings hardens the finger-tips and often breaks the nails, while still worse is the condition of the right hand which holds the plectrum. The plectrum, the striking end of which is flat as in the one for the slender-necked samisen, is heavily leaded and weighs from twelve ounces to a pound when used by professionals; and the handle, which is square, is held between the ring and little fingers for leverage and worked with the thumb and the forefinger. At first the pressure of the corners upon the second joint of the little finger is very painful; but the skin becomes in time indurated and insensible to pain. It requires both strength and dexterity to strike the thick, hard-drawn strings with such a heavy plectrum.
The peculiar scale on which it is based has prevented Japanese music from being appreciated by foreigners. That it is crude is undeniable; indeed, no other Japanese art has been left so undeveloped. In most other arts we have stamped our national individuality upon what we borrowed from others; but in music we can hardly say that there is anything characteristically Japanese about the slow tunes of the thirteen-stringed koto or the quicker jangle of the three-stringed samisen. They have of course changed in our hands from their original forms; but the alteration is not something that we can attribute to our national genius as we should in the case of our pictorial, glyptic, or ceramic art. Moreover, music has never, like the other arts, had munificent patrons. We read often enough of a great daimyo or lord in the old days surrounding himself with famed painters, sculptors, makers of lacquered ware or swords, but never of one taking under his protection a musician of note. What musicians enjoyed his favour were those employed for the performance of music at sacred rites; and none won the daimyo’s patronage by the charm or power of his music. No encouragement was then held out to music; and even the musicians whose names are known to posterity earned their living, precarious at best, by catering to the general public.
Samisen-music cannot in truth be said to appeal emotionally even to those Japanese who enjoy it. They admire a samisen-player for his execution, for the lightness and rapidity of his touch and the rich resonance of the strings under it; but of the expression, the emotional quality of music, neither he nor his audience know anything and probably care as little. And it must be admitted that the samisen can never charm and enthrall us like the deep-sounding cathedral organ; and its want of volume deprives it of any power to make a cumulative impression upon us. In short, our samisen-music is mainly a matter of dexterity, with a modicum of taste and judgment. We do not look to it to sway our passions—to move us to tears or laughter, to stir up in us anger, awe, pity, or wonder, or to fire us into bursts of patriotic enthusiasm.
CHAPTER XX.
PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS.
Pleasures—No-performance—Playgoing—The theatre—Japanese dramas—Gidayu-plays—Actors—A new school of actors—Actresses—Wrestling—Wrestlers—The wrestling booth—The wrestler’s apparel—The Ekoin matches—The umpire—The rules of the ring—The match-days—The story-tellers’ hall—Entertainment at the hall.
WE Japanese do not take our pleasures sadly; for when upon pleasure bent, we give ourselves to it heart and soul and forget for the nonce the cares and troubles that may at other times weigh upon our minds. And foreign observers, from seeing us in our hours of relaxation, taunted us, at least until our war with Russia showed us in another light, with frivolity and pronounced us a nation incapable of taking things seriously. Nothing could have been further from the truth than to suppose that we lead a butterfly existence, for we are as a nation serious, indeed, if anything, too serious. The abandon with which we throw ourselves into the gaieties of the moment is attributable rather to the rarity of our opportunities. Our women, in particular, have very little leisure, and if they wander with childish delight in avenues of cherry-blossoms or sit with quiet content on the verandah under the harvest-moon, it is because they are glad to snatch a few hours of innocent enjoyment from their round of almost ceaseless household work. The simplicity of our pleasures is but the natural outcome of the simplicity of our lives; and if we have not the comforts and conveniences of European homes, neither do we suffer from the feverish stress and strain of European social life.
Of the various forms of public entertainment in Japan, the oldest and peculiarly Japanese is the no-dance. It is a posture-dance performed to the accompaniment of flutes and drums, while a ballad is sung at the same time to explain the movements. It was developed from the ancient religious dances and first came into vogue in the sixteenth century. The ballad, which is known as utai, is written in a mixture of the Chinese and old Japanese styles and cannot be readily comprehended by those who are not versed in these styles. The dance is slow and stately, though sometimes there are quick movements in it; it is performed by men with masks and in robes which were worn in ancient times; the actors on the stage at a time are few; and the stage itself has, except in rare cases, little setting. It is not, therefore, everybody that can appreciate a no-performance; indeed, the fact that it is caviare to the general and its superiority in point of refinement to the common dances of the people have won for it great popularity among the upper and middle classes; and the performances are largely attended. Many people also practise singing the utai; it has the advantage over other ballads, when it is unaccompanied by a dance, of being sung without any musical instrument. The utai ballads are comparatively short, and in a single performance several of them are sung and danced.
