The beauty of these instruments appears to me to be in the minimalism, again another domain (i.e. musical instruments of kabuki) of Japanese culture where it seems to me Zen-Buddhism is somewhat instantiated. In western classical music instruments generally have such a variety of sounds and you can easily focus on the melody of one instrument, then switch to listening to the other, and so on, and so forth; sure, the composition is a lovely whole, but intuitively you focus on one instrument at a time. Here, however, the sounds that can be produced by the otsuzumi, kotsuzumi or taiko are quite simple and don't have that much variety, much like a vibraslap in western music e.g., yet together in such an ensemble it forms the most captivating and enchanting whole; an ambience is created, the listener is captured and enjoys the beautiful whole, where it's relatively difficult to focus on and hear the individual instruments and intuitively you focus on the whole. The fact that such a beautifully mesmerising ambience results based on, of themselves, instruments with little variety in sound is where I think again we see how minimalism can lead to incredible beauty - in the ensemble as a whole it's just right, kanpeki, tamashii, nan to iu. Also, an incredible performance, the amount of practicing and concentration, every hit on the otsuzumi is perfectly performed. Finally, a fun fact, I actually got interested in music in kabuki/noh by the intro in episodes of the anime Kurozuka. If I'm not mistaken that intro is inspired by both kabuki and noh music/performance and blends the two forms of theatre.
I have a channel about premodern Japanese history and culture. Would it be okay if I use part of the audio from this video in the intro to my videos? I would link the original video and provide the channel name in the description when I use it. If you want something else, I would be open to what you think proper crediting would be. Thank you.
I have a channel about premodern Japanese history and culture. Would it be okay if I use part of the audio from this video in the intro to my videos? I would link the original video and provide the channel name in the description when I use it. If you want something else, I would be open to what you think proper crediting would be. Thank you.
