![]() ![]() ![]() He asked Shima sensei (husband and wife) to come live with him, and he studied with them for three years. He realized that he really should better understand koto and shamisen as instruments, and he started koto and shamisen study himself. It was humbling for him to play with the beautifully developed voices of the Tokyo string masters. He finished school in Meiji 43 (1911) and went to Tokyo, visiting various famous sensei. He started playing gaikyoku (ensemble music) and by the time he left high school he had played and memorized 60-70 gaikyoku pieces, from Kurokami to Yaegoromo. The repertoire was usually played on a 2.0 flute, but sometimes other lengths too.Īs a young man Jin heard that in Tokyo, shakuhachi players were playing with koto and shamisen, a revelation to him. There were 10 pieces in all, each played in five different tunings: hon-choshi, akebono choshi, kumoi-choshi, yugure-choshi, taikyoku choshi. Training was often done during cold nights, a common practice back then. Teaching shakuhachi wasn’t a profession in those days. Jin’s first teacher was Sasamori Tatetoshi. In Meiji 35 (1903), there were many accomplished master players in Nezasaha. ![]() Training was strict and many good players came out of this tradition. The local Lord himself blew shakuhachi and recommended all his subordinates to do the same. This shakuhachi genre and its study, was treated as one of the important training regimes of samurai. Tsugaru was the home of the Nezasaha fuke-shu koten honkyoku, introduced about 300 years ago to the region. His father was a samurai of the Tsugaru fief. Jin started playing shakuhachi at about age 14. Hirosaki City was an old castle town where young boys would have heard shakuhachi sound coming from the old samurai quarters. Jin Nyodō was born on May 10, in Meiji 24 (1892) in Aomori prefecture, in the Tsugaru region of Northern Japan. This essay is for other shakuhachi enthusiasts to enjoy as an historical story about a great player. It is not my intention to add to, interpret or ascribe value to any particular Japanese source material that I used. This essay assumes a basic prior knowledge of the history of shakuhachi. I have left romanized Japanese words in regular type to make it easier on the eyes. Some of the koten honkyoku names are not self-evident to a non-scholarly translator and may be translated differently (and correctly) to what is written here. Pertinent Japanese words have been romanized with a degree of casualness as to correct vowel length and pronunciation etc. David Sawyer’s note: much of the information contained in this short essay comes from the biographical essays about Jin Nyodō in the book "Koten Honkyoku no Shåutaisei-sha Jin Nyodô no shakuhachi" Ed. ![]()
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