Traditional Music of Japan recommendations?

[james]

Here's an area of music I couldn't know less about...I'm not even sure that it's called "traditional japanese music" and I have no frame of reference so please excuse my ignorance.

I was watching something on television or netflix the other day, though I can't recall what it was (but probably something touristy), and I was enjoying the traditional japanese music in the background. My wife came into the room and said that she also liked the music. I thought I'd check out an album or two.

A long shot, but does anyone have any recommendations for a starting point? thank you.

[Hayao Yamaneko]

Someone started a related thread on bang the bore the other day:

http://bangthebore.org/borum/discussion ... tes#Item_2

off the top of my head:

The ocora gagaku cd is great

All the cds of japanese music on World Arbiter I've heard have been great: some taken from old 78s have a fantastic lofi sound quality. The gagaku cd has the most haunting recording of Etenraku I've heard.

The cd Deep Silence has a bunch of modern compositions for sho and accordion by Hosokawa as well as some arrangements of traditional sho material for accordion - that's a great collection.

There's a great koto and shamisen record called Tradition and avantgarde in Japan which again has a nice variety of pieces on it.

Reading wise, if you can find a copy of Music of A Thousand Autumns that's the best book on Gagaku/Togaku I've read. It's the only resource which really details the sho and the system of writing for it. It's online as a PDF somewhere - if you can't find and you're interested pm me.

[james]

excellent! thanks so much. I look forward to digging into all of this over the next few days.

[SqDanceCallingSteve]

The Nonesuch Explorer series has some great titles. These are three I've had and loved for years:

[jon abbey]

I'm sure there are other threads on this in the archives if you search correctly, but on a quick search, I found this one on shakuhachi to start:

http://ihatemusic.noquam.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2581

[james]

The Nonesuch Explorer series has some great titles. These are three I've had and loved for years:

I actually only first heard of that series after following Hayao's World Abriter recommendation. Looks great, thank you.

Jon, thanks. I tried a bunch of searches but I'm unfamiliar with the terminology.

[james]

while looking for MQA-encoded releases, I came across this and am enjoying the samples.

https://www.highresaudio.com/en/album/v ... uda-so-zen

[Seth]

https://youtu.be/U2yq_HiaJns