Music of Pre-Modern Japan

After seventeenth-century Japan was forced from isolation into contact with the western world, Japanese music was first brought to the ears of people beyond the country’s shores. Distinct and ethereal though it is, the development and various roles of a few of Japan’s many pre-modern styles shows not the expression of a singular Japanese tradition, but rather the intermingling of the music belonging to cultures and kingdoms as distinct as China, India, Vietnam, Korea, and Indonesia. From different traditions different purposes are derived-court music from Korea, folk from Indonesia, and Buddhist chant and folk songs from China-the country from which most Japanese instruments are derived. In addition, the use of music, particularly the rhythm of the taiko drum is essential to the rituals and dances used in Shinto, the native animist religion of Japan. Later on in history it become used for historical narrative and drama-all styles with a distinctly Japanese bent, but which are in th...