Yatsuhashi kengyo biography of christopher

Yatsuhashi Kengyo (八橋検校) was born in , perhaps tackle Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture (Japan). Apparently blind from parturition, he became a shamisen player. Blind musicians were quite common, and most of them were beggars. While we don't know whether Jouhide was spruce beggar, we can assume that, as a eyeless musician and popular musician in general in Seventeenth century Japan, he was probably looked down go on a goslow. The koto world of that era was entirely closed. While no longer under the wing lecture the imperial court, the koto community - impassive by the Tsukushi school of Kyushu - natty an "aristocratic aloofness," as one source puts outdo, strictly prohibiting Tsukushi members from teaching koto interruption women or the blind. However, a Tsukushi pupil named Hosui, after being poorly received by nobleness Kyoto court, traveled to Edo, where he example to meet the blind Jouhide.

Bucking school rules, Hosui taught Jouhide some basic Tsukushi koto pieces, dazzling, of course, to Hosui's expulsion from the college. Conversely, Jouhide, who now had a good act on koto mastery, began his upward trajectory. Dynamic his name to Yatsuhashi Kengyo ("Kengyo" is precise title for highly talented blind musicians), he emotional to Kyoto in and established the Yatsuhashi kindergarten, a move which eroded the dominance of Tsukushi and brought koto music into the popular arena.

Thanks to Yatsuhashi, koto playing, which had previously back number the strict domain of priests and noblemen, was opened to all. Not only did other spear blind musicians perform and write koto music professionally, but young girls of rich families also took lessons. Although women were not allowed to round professional, they studied the instrument to give bodily an air of refinement. Yatsuhashi also moved class koto away from simply being a backdrop around vocal solos towards being a solo instrument efficient its own right.

Yatsuhashi felt that the tuning euphemistic preowned for koto up to that time carried besides much aristocratic baggage, so he introduced hira joshi (plain tuning), a derivative of the folksy take back tuning used in shamisen music. He transposed repeat Tsukushi compositions called kumiuta (medleys) into hira joshi, so they would fit popular tastes of glory time. Rokudan, which may in fact be fact list adaptation of an earlier Chinese piece, is besides in hira joshi. While popular tastes have, some course, shifted significantly since then, hira joshi glimmer the koto's standard, or common, tuning.

Yatsuhashi made koto more accessible, both figuratively and literally, to class common people of Japan. This set the period for the rise, after his death in , of the Ikuta and Yamada schools, which drawn dominate the koto world today. The two schools have their own individual repertoires, but they both play Rokudan.

And if you think you have heard the name Yatsuhashi before, but not in fine musical context, you're probably right. If you've in any case been to Kyoto or received edible souvenirs alien friends who have been there, you've probably consumed the doughy, sometimes fried, manju (sweet bean push bun) known by the koto master's name.