When two noble persons converse together, the flute, sho (an ancient reed instrument), drum, and samisen are played softly. Rippling sounds convey the merriment of a feast, and excited rhythms are heard as a combat takes place.
For battle there is the confusion made of quick beats of the big drum. To increase the sound of the warlike preparations, a metal gong is struck rapidly, there is a clash of cymbals, and the blowing of a conch shell.
To make more solitary a lonely mountain scene, a horse-driver’s song is sung to the jingle of horse-bells, and when an echo is required two small drums answer each other. Gay and lively festival scenes are accompanied by intricate interweaving of light drum-beats. Crazy persons make their appearance to irregular notes of the samisen, while regular rhythms of the big drum suggest wind. Falling snow is made by soft, muffled, regular drum-beats. Waves are suggested by a vigorous stroke on the big drum, and then a quiet tap, in imitation of the ebb and flow of the tide.
At sunset there is the deep boom of a temple-bell, when lovers are parting, or the approach of some tragic dénouement in deserted temple or country cottage. For harakiri scenes the piercingly sad flute and subdued samisen express the regret of the dying, and for tragedy there are sad little ripples of the samisen in a high tone.
Soft samisen measures accompany melancholy moonlit scenes, and the striking of a wooden gong used in Buddhist worship suggests the appearance of something frightful. Light taps of the big drums make known a sinister motive, and the big drum beaten quickly announces impending evil, while the clatter of the geta, or wooden clogs, on the hanamichi, to the thumping of the samisen and the light tattoo of the small drums, conveys an impression of light-heartedness.
Most of the conventions in regard to make-up have been handed down by word of mouth from one Ichikawa Danjuro to the other, and form a complicated subject. Dead white, with broad black eyebrows, and touches of red to eyes and corners of the mouth, has long been the accepted stage mask for samurai, or persons of high degree. White also forms the established make-up for women. Villains are generally made up with red faces, country people are tanned brown by the sun, and comedians paint their faces with red, white, and blue.
In the exaggerated rôles created by the Ichikawa house, the countenances of these imaginative personages give scope for the most daring attempts. This elaborate design for the face is called kumadori (lit., to-make-borders).
Brave men who have fought a good fight and lost, confront their enemies with an expression of retaliation, broad red lines around the eyes, nose, and chin, with red forks over the forehead. Again, such a character is made up with light pink shading out from the red strokes.
Strong and courageous warriors, undismayed although in the hands of their enemies, have chins of grey, red lips bordered by white, broad upward strokes of red from eyes and cheeks to forehead, and raised eyebrows like the antennæ of some black beetle, the whole giving the impression that the hero is bristling with anger; his hair standing on end.
Benkei, the warrior-priest, loyal to his young master, Yoshitsune, is represented with a grey chin, no eyebrows, two curved lines on forehead, outlined in pink.