Proposed Dissertation
Artful Encounters with Nature:
Ecological and Spiritual Dimensions of Music Learning
Koji Matsunobu
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Artful Encounters with Nature
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Literature Review
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Nature and Arts Education
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Spirituality and Arts Education
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Spiritual Traditions of Japanese Arts
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Japanese Folk Pedagogy of Music
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Japanese Music in International Contexts
3. Methodologies
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Informants and Data Generation
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More About Data Sources
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The Researcher
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Getting Into the Field
Notes
References
1
Artful Encounters with Nature
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A flute player remarks:
When I practice music in nature, I would face one constraint when a breeze hinders
my blowing. My choice of a handmade instrument that is less processed and far
closer to its natural state gives me another constraint because of these unprocessed,
naturalistic features. Rather than using a processed instrument to eliminate
constraints, I strive to blow into this natural bamboo instrument in order to explore
the possibilities of the medium for richer expression.
John Dewey (1934/1980) explains the experience that applies to this flute player:
Since the artist cares in a peculiar way for the phase of experience in which union
is achieved, he does not shun moments of resistance and tension. He rather
cultivates them, not for their own sake but because of their potentialities, bringing
to living consciousness an experience that is unified and total. (p. 15)
Bare, natural materials (such as bamboo or clay) do not easily allow human beings to do
what they would like simple, unprocessed objects made from these materials to do. But
when the resistance is overcome, a deep experience follows. Dewey observes that this is
how artists create new forms of meanings around works of art.
The flute player continues:
In fact, the ideal expression of this unprocessed bamboo instrument is a wind-like
tone that embraces sounds in the environment. It resonates well with birds, water
sounds, and wind. As I continue playing, the earth energy circulates inside and
outside of my body. A moment of being oneness with nature is achieved….
This flute player comes from a culture wherein nature is a source of aesthetic expression
and spiritual experience. Playing a flute for him is to experience bamboo itself. He sees
each bamboo as already bearing its own sound. He lets the spirit of a bamboo vibrate by
blowing into it.
From the same culture comes Matsuo Basho (1644-94). He reads,
Of what a pine tree is, learn from the pine.
Of what bamboo is, learn from bamboo
Today, we assume that a pine tree does not speak by itself, nor does a piece of bamboo
seem to hear utterances of human beings. We apply scientific reasoning and deductive
thinking to understand (and dominate) nature. We seem to have lost an intuitive approach
to nature—so common to all human beings long ago—by which people tune into the mode
of nature and experience it as it is.
However, people are increasing aware of the ecological interdependence of all beings. Art
educator Peter London (2003) suggests:
Nature speaks. The pivotal act of drawing closer to Nature is to learn how to listen.
(p. 86)
How can educators think of a pedagogy that is tailored for encountering nature in
ecologically meaningful ways? How can we learn how to make music close to nature like
this flute player does?
Artful Encounters with Nature
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INTRODUCTION
This dissertation work aims at drawing on and learning from native styles of music
making. Close observation of indigenous traditions reveals that engaging in the arts is not
merely an expression of beauty or elaboration of one’s inner feeling but a way of turning
into the environment and being part of nature.
People in East Asia have traditionally portrayed humans and the environment as a
harmonious unity of mutual respect through works of art. For example, experiencing the
arts becomes ecological and spiritual through realizing the flow of qi, autonomous flows of
energy that control all the happenings in the universe (Maebayashi, Sato, & Kobayashi,
2000; Parkes, 2003). Tuning into qi through engaging with the arts is a state or process of
being and becoming eco-spiritual, the purpose of which is “to balance the flow of the qi,
such that environs and body are productively continuous one with the other” (Hall & Ames,
p. 862). Similar ideas as qi are found in native traditions around the world; an example is
the wind in Native American traditions as a source of life, thought, wisdom, inspiration,
guidance, enlightenment, and creativity (Cajete, 1994). Native Americans traditionally see
natural forms and forces as expressions of spirits whose qualities also interpenetrate the
process of human spirituality. They experience nature as a part of themselves and
themselves as a part of nature.
Regardless of differences of philosophical underpinning, being in oneness with
nature is incorporated into the process of music making in native cultures and traditions. A
metaphor is a drawing of a tree, with the roots labeled “spiritual ecology” and the leaves,
“artistic expressions” (Cajete, 1994). Various native traditions represent multiple paths by
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which people seek fulfillment through the arts and experience eco-spiritual realities of life.
These examples from East Asian and Native American traditions are but two of many
traditions in which artistic expression and creativity emanate from the intersection of
aesthetics, ecology, and spirituality.
A starting point of my inquiry is to think of a broad question: What can we learn
from these native traditions? In what ways and to what extent can we incorporate “organic”
activities in today’s education that is detached from the process of life? First of all, is it
possible to learn from foreign traditions that are not part of our own? If so, how can we
approach ecological and spiritual aspects of music making through our own cultural
framework? By exploring cases of Japanese music and experiences of its practitioners in
various parts of the world, this dissertation sheds light on the nature of their organic
learning experiences. The task is not simply to reveal what “foreign others” are doing in
distant places but to question human-centered assumptions of education deeply ingrained in
our thinking of teaching and learning.
Research Prospectus
Indigenous knowledge is preserved, practiced, and passed down in a variety of ways
in contemporary Japan. One example from the pre-modern musical realm is the shakuhachi,
a type of bamboo flute that has recently experienced a new wave of attention both inside
and outside Japan.1 In this dissertation, I propose to examine how contemporary music
practitioners/educators interpret, appropriate, and practice the tradition of “Japanese music”
Artful Encounters with Nature
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both inside and outside Japan, focusing on how they reframe and embody what I identify as
indigenous cultural values in today’s educational settings.
Although the shakuhachi is traditionally understood to be a form of Zen meditation
(Gutzwiller, 1984), I suggest that it can also be understood as a representation of
indigenous ecology—a point often overlooked in the intellectual realm and thus a focus of
my dissertation project. The idea of indigenous ecology relates to the very origin of each
individual shakuhachi qua instrument: because each instrument is made out of a natural
element (a single piece of bamboo), each product has different musical qualities (timbre,
pitch, playability) that depend on the nature of the bamboo and the artist–practitioner who
has fashioned it into a shakuhachi (Shimura, 2002; Tukitani, Seyama, Simura, & Lee,
1994). The result is an instrument that is individualized and rooted in a particular location
and time, and to a particular maker and player. Shakuhachi music is a form of Japanese
music that is performed and appreciated in line with, not opposed to, the experience of
nature (Kikkawa, 1984). Spirituality and ecology are two key aspects that are crucial to
understanding such musical traditions in Japan.
Today, however, the shakuhachi is understood and appreciated not only within
detached, meditative spaces. Additional contemporary modes of shakuhachi practice
combine and reinterpret the instrument and its music, often resulting in musical-cultural
hybrids and multiple approaches to its spiritual and ecological aspects. In fact, practice of
the shakuhachi in its individualized form is often appropriated by individuals in search of
spiritual enlightenment (Keister, 2004). At the same time, quite a number of people
approach the shakuhachi in a naturalistic manner: They are actively digging and harvesting
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bamboo, making instruments out of nature, and maintaining an ecological attitude of
preserving and appreciating nature inherent to each bamboo piece. Their instruments are
much less processed and resemble closely to the natural state of each bamboo. This type of
organic activities through music—hardly introduced and practiced in the educational
realm—are observed both inside and outside of Japan where the integrated role of
harvester/maker/player still remains. Among many forms of indigenous and folk music that
is practiced and appreciated in the West, the shakuhachi is worth a close investigation
because of its practitioners’ involvement in the instrument making process.2
These organic activities are conventionally regarded as a purview of research on
indigenous people (see, for instance, Posey, 1999). The underlying assumptions about
native cultures are that native cultures (a) have significant knowledge about the ecology of
the ecosystems in their homelands; (b) practice an economy which uses their land and
resources sustainably; (c) promote the conservation of their natural environments; and (d)
are effectively guided in these and other matters by a profound spirituality in which the
environment is respected and treated as sacred (Sponsel, 2001). It is also assumed that
native traditions inherit ecological practices of music making. Bowers (1995) observes that
creative expression in traditional cultures has been “a means of renewing the spiritual
ecology which, in turn, serves as the basis of a cultural group’s sense of moral order that
defines the human’s responsibility to plants, animals, and other sources of life” (Bowers,
1995, p. 71).3 I hypothesize that these values may also be maintained in a renewed form
through the arts and cultivated through education in contemporary settings.
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In this ethnographic project, I explore groups of shakuhachi practitioners in Tokyo
(Japan) and Vancouver (Canada) as well as individual practitioners whose approach to the
shakuhachi is nature-oriented in order to investigate how the shakuhachi is used to
strengthen ecological and spiritual aspects of musical practice. These practitioners in two
cities are situated in contemporary contexts living modern lives. In other words, they are
foreign to the very context of old shakuhachi tradition that has been inherited in Zen
temples across Japan and practiced in inhomogeneous ways in a local, close system.
When this placed-based and human connection-based tradition is pursued in modern lives,
how would spiritual and ecological aspects of the shakuhachi be approached, appropriated,
and appreciated?
Guiding research questions for this study include: (a) In what ways do the
shakuhachi practitioners experience nature? What are the characteristics of their
experience? In what ways would they feel their “organic” activities are constricted in
today’s educational settings? (b) How do the shakuhachi practitioners negotiate between
“traditional” and “contemporary” values? More specifically, how do they perceive and
appreciate the continuity between art and nature as well as the relationship between
spiritual and aesthetic values? (c) How—and to what extent—do the shakuhachi
practitioners transmit traditional values; and how do they verbalize and conceptualize these
traditional values in educational settings? And (d) what does it mean to understand a
foreign culture and tradition? In what way is cultural transmission and transformation
possible (or impossible) in non-traditional contexts? What aspects of the tradition are
reinforced and disregarded in those contexts?
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These questions lead the inquiry itself to more educational issues by submitting an
alternative perspective of education; for example, a view of instrument making as part of
music education. Currently, instrument making is not considered as consisting of the music
education curriculum, reflecting the modern demarcation of instrument makers and players.
Observing the world of the shakuhachi, British composer Frank Denyer (1994) laments that
creativity and musical decisions of musicians, especially composers, hardly go beyond the
constraints of available instruments and the identical set of shared assumptions about
music.4 I argue that music education starts with making instruments.
Another argument is related to the use of plastic instruments as substitutes of real
folk instruments in music classroom, an issue that has generally been unquestioned in
music education. In the case of Japan, music education leaders offer workshops about
shakuhachi (and other flutes) making tailored for school teaching. However, in most cases
plastic materials are used, reflecting anthropocentric assumptions about music and
instruments. Naturalistic shakuhachi players in this study submit a contested view about
these assumptions. Findings will lead themselves to the ongoing discussion in music and
arts education, holistic education, and “place-based” education in particular—an emerging
area of investigation in education—which aims for reclaiming the significance of the local
in the global age (Gruenewald, 2007; Upitis, 2007). Insights gained from the naturalistic
shakuhachi pedagogy help to localize, historicize, and personalize our teaching and
learning of music.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
Because this dissertation is interdisciplinary in approach, its potential contribution
includes supporting knowledge production in various fields in ecology, spirituality, and
aesthetics within or beyond education. Thus, in this chapter, I review literature in these
fields in terms of its relevance to arts education and clarify what has been revealed as well
as what needs to be explored in order to understand ecological and spiritual realms of music
learning. Later, studies on Japanese music are reviewed, first, with emphasis on its spiritual
traditions in Japan and, second, its ramifications in international contexts.
Nature and Arts Education
The history of Western cultural thought is viewed as a process of rendering nature
as objects of scientific, deductive analysis. The demarcation of nature and art, though
originated in Greek era, was strengthened throughout Enlightenment, resulting in the
production of anthropocentric view of nature (Ikeda, 2003). Modernist approaches to arts
education research have been confined within the dualistic, anthropocentric paradigm
where humans and the environment are seen as separate and opposite entities. Nature is
separated from, and opposite to, culture; the former is attributed to wildness, rawness, and
instinct, and the latter to control, refinement, and reason (Ellen, 1996). Its presumption is
that unless nature is transformed into works of art, nature remains as natural objects.
Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to review entire literature of modern art
theories, a cursory glance of influential modern literature in arts education may explain the
point.
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For example, Eduard Hanslick (1891/1974) posits that the relation of the arts to
nature is most intimately identified in terms of subject-matter, but not in the process or
principle of music making. He claims that “there is nothing beautiful in Nature as far as
music is concerned” because “art should not slavishly copy Nature, but remodel it” (p. 154).
Harry Broudy (1972/1994) echoes: “One may hesitate to speak of nature as the Great
Artist” (p. 32). Perhaps this anthropocentric view is best represented by Igor Stravinsky
(1942/1970) in the following statement:
The murmur of the breeze in the trees, the rippling of a brook, the song of a bird.…
These natural sounds suggest music to us, but are not yet themselves music.… They
are promises of music; it takes a human being to keep them.… In his hands all that I
have considered as not being music will become music. (p. 29)
For these thinkers, the literal portraiture of nature is rather science demarcated from the
purview of arts education. The basic framework of today’s arts education is strongly
influenced by, and indeed based on, their rendering of nature in aesthetics.
Although many attempts to overcome the dualistic view of art and nature have been
made,5 the split is still existent underneath the dominant discourse of aesthetics. Lintott
(2004) explains that “the paradigm of aesthetic appreciation today, in both everyday life
and in educative contexts, is the appreciation of art, which explains why we tend to try to
understand what makes aesthetic appreciation appropriate in terms of what makes art
appreciation appropriate” (p. 52). In a similar spirit, Diffey (2001) questions which is
aesthetically superior, art or nature, to make an argument against the priority of art in
aesthetic appreciation.
In contrast, artists in native traditions would see the dualistic view of art and nature
as a nonexistent dichotomy. From their perspectives, nature is not out there, waiting to be
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perceived as an object of appreciation, but a basic condition of experience. Anthropologist
and ethnomusicologists have revealed the close relationship between nature and culture
(Ellen & Fukui, 1996; Yamada, 1997, 2000). This is illustrated, for instance, through
Steven Feld’s (1982, 1996, 2001) description of how the Kaluli people of Bosavi in Papua
New Guinea sing together with the sounds of locusts and make music along with the
sounds of waterfalls. Feld reveals that, in a rainforest, multilayered, dense sounds are
constantly heard and man-made sounds are acoustically tuned to natural sounds, forming an
“echophony.” The vocabulary and terms that are imbedded in the Kaluli’s expression of
musical ideas are often metaphors representing nature. More specifically, musical terms are
often metaphors representing water motion and sounds for the Kaluli. Steven Feld (1982)
reports that the Kaluli conveyed their musical ideas through such expressions as “Your
waterfall ledge is too long before the water drops”; “There is not enough flow after the
fall”; and “The water stays in the pool too long” (p. 164).
Feld (1982) also reveals that the arts serve for the Kaluli as a way of communicating
with spirits. For instance, birds are perceived and experienced by the Kaluli not only as
living in place, time, season, and weather, but also as the spiritual reflections of deceased
people. Birds thus become active participants in the construction of aesthetic, personal, and
social experiences: Song is inspired by thinking about birds; it is sung in a bird voice; men
wear bird feathers to make themselves beautiful and evocative; and dance is patterned as
bird movement. When people are moved to tears by the performance, they are said to have
heard “the voice of someone who has become a bird.” As Feld (1996) aptly puts it, for the
Kaluli, “the music of nature is heard as the nature of music” (p. 62).
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Similarly, musical demands and expressions in Japanese music have many terms of
natural phenomena. For example, amadare, which literally means “rain drop,” signifies a
waterfall motion when used as a shakuhachi expression. Fusei, which literally means the
“voice of the wind,” is a shakuhachi expression that means to play with higher, piercing
sounds: Indeed, the ideal beauty of the shakuhachi is attained through wind-like
expressions. These nature-oriented traditions testify that the principle of art making
corroborates with that of nature experiencing.
Similar principle of music making is identified in Tuvan throat singing in which
music duplicates natural sounds such as gurgling water and swishing winds (Levin &
Edgerton, 1999). According to Tuvan animism, the spirituality of nature is manifested
through the sounds it produces and experienced through synchronization. Levin and
Edgerton (1999) portrayal of Tuva’s musical expression deserves a quote, despites its
length:
Ringed by mountains, far from major trade routes and overwhelmingly rural, Tuva
is like a musical Olduvai Gorge--a living record of a protomusical world, where
natural and human-made sounds blend. Among the many ways the pastoralists
interact with and represent their aural environment, one stands out for its sheer
ingenuity: a remarkable singing technique in which a single vocalist produces two
distinct tones simultaneously. One tone is a low, sustained fundamental pitch,
similar to the drone of a bagpipe. The second is a series of flutelike harmonics,
which resonate high above the drone and may be musically stylized to represent
such sounds as the whistle of a bird, the syncopated rhythms of a mountain stream
or the lilt of a cantering horse.… Such music is at once a part of an expressive
culture and an artifact of the acoustics of the human voice…. According to Tuvan
animism, the spirituality of mountains and rivers is manifested not only through
their physical shape and location but also through the sounds they produce or can be
made to produce by human agency. The echo off a cliff, for example, may be
imbued with spiritual significance. Animals, too, are said to express spiritual power
sonically. Humans can assimilate this power by imitating their sounds. (p. 81)
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The aesthetic continuity between art and nature in experience has been discussed
and articulated by non-Western artists and scholars. Bashō, the poet introduced at the
beginning, is one of them. Another prominent artist from Japan is Motokiyo Zeami (1364–
1443), a founder of Japanese noh theater, noh actor, playwright, and choreographer, who
identified commonalities between art and nature as both leading to a fulfillment. Zeami
viewed fulfillment as being born out of an intensified experience, similar to Dewey’s “an
experience,” which bears three sequential components: jo, ha, and kyū. According to Zeami,
each respectively signifies the slow, the breaking, and the rapid. Jo–ha–kyū is typically
identified in the way noh or musical performance is structured and experienced: A noh play,
for instance, begins slowly, breaks into a faster pace, and proceeds to a rapid conclusion.
Zeami held that the rhythm of jo–ha–kyū penetrates all things, including human
experiences and natural phenomena. Zeami noted:
Thinking over the matter carefully, it may be said that all things in the universe,
good and bad, large and small, with life and without, all partake of the process of jo,
ha, and kyū. From the chirp of the birds to the buzzing of the insects, all sing
according to an appointed order, and this order consists of jo, ha, and kyū. (Indeed,
their music surpasses any question of mere skill and represents an unconscious
Fulfillment.) Their singing creates a pleasing musical sensation and gives rise to
feelings of a Melancholy Elegance. (Zeami, trans. 1984, pp. 137–138)
Zeami believed that those who do not appreciate the aesthetic quality of nature (e.g., voices
of birds and insects) could not be as good artists as those who do. In order to understand the
highly sophisticated art of noh, actors were expected to observe the rhythm and order of
nature, find the jo–ha–kyū quality in it, and reveal its beauty through their entire bodies.
Zeami clearly identified the continuity between art and nature in aesthetic appreciation and
embodiment.6
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Indigenous musical expressions identified as communication with nature and with
spirits are reported in numerous studies in ethnomusicology, including Yamada’s (1997)
work on Waxei’s music making in Papua New Guinea, Shimeda’s work on Penan’s view of
forests and gods in Borneo, Sawada’s (1998) work on Balese’s rendering of the dead
through chorus in central Africa, and Takeo’s report of soundscape of Northwest Amazon.
Some of these works are reported and compiled in a monograph edited by Yamada, (2000),
an effort to publish a series of eleven books on the theme of “human beings and the
environment” and to hold a symposium on “the environment and music.” Among the
contributors and participants in the symposium included Steven Feld and Marina Rosenman.
The above-mentioned traditions explored by ethnomusicologists and
anthropologists exemplify the aesthetic continuity between art and nature in experience.
Clearly, nature is experienced not only in terms of “subject-matter” but also in the process
or principle of art making. People are engaged in the arts in ways to maximize their
experiences of nature. Because of this intimate relationship between art and nature in
human experience, prolific artists in some native traditions are considered as expert
zoologists (Feld, 1996) or environmental researchers. Feld suggests that art making in
native traditions manifests “the naturalization of music as an ecologically modeled system
and the culturalization of nature as an aesthetic system” (p. 71). Ultimately, art reveals the
unity between the artificial and the natural.
Critical awareness of these findings leads to an affirmation that traditional aesthetic
theories generally ignored the ecological dimension of aesthetic experience. There is thus a
need for exploring music practitioners’ interactions with nature. Such practices, typically
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found in native traditions of music, posit that music is a process of human beings’ attentive
encounters with, negotiations with, and immersions in nature. Nature is experienced
therefore through the very practice and making of music. In light of this, music making can
be viewed as an embodied experience of the cosmos. Many composers, ethnomusicologists,
and pragmatist scholars have entered the discussion with ecological concerns in music
making, positing that nature constructs music and music manifests the cosmos.
In the field of education, John Dewey (1934/1980) was a prominent thinker whose
vision of education developed around the interaction of humans in the environment. Dewey
posits that the environment is not a set of static objects but conditions of experience in
which a subjective relationship with an object naturally occurs, develops, and even initiates
conflict in a way to generate tension from which an expression is born. Dewey sees
expression as manifesting a process of negotiation between the desires of the individual and
the constraints of the environment. In other words, expression is grounded and draws on
ecological self. Thus, expression for Dewey starts with embodying the soil, air, moisture,
smells of nature, or in Dewey’s words, “germs and roots in matters of experience that we
do not currently consider as esthetic” (p. 12). When resistance is overcome, a deep
experience follows.
However, Dewey’s vision of education shows another aspect. Dewey’s emphasis on
a scientific method that calls for reflective intelligence can be interpreted as leading
students more toward an acceptance of active intervention and modification of the
environment than toward an awareness and fulfillment of holistic relationships of human
beings with nature. Drawing on Dewey’s Democracy and Education (1916) rather than Art
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as Experience (1934), John Miller (1996) argues that the inquiry of pragmatism, epitomized
in Dewey’s scientific method, encourages students to solve problems in original ways,
question knowledge that has not personally been tested, and construct their own knowledge.
In this situation, the environment serves as a set of tools for intellectual operations rather
than as the respective entity. Its potential danger is identified in its human-centered focus
that “bases learning on the relevance of the child’s own interests and experiences, as
reinforcing the anthropocentric cultural beliefs” (Riley-Taylor, 2002, p. 14). Miller
observes that what is missing in Dewey’s theory of aesthetics may be “a sense of awe and
mystery” that brings about a heightened awareness of the wholeness of existence and
respect toward nature (Miller, 1996, p. 29).7
The anthropocentric attitude to human inquiry has been questioned in many fields
including, but not limited to, environmental philosophy (Bowers, 1995; Bruun & Kalland,
1995; Callicott & Ames, 1989; Ellen, Parkers, & Bicker, 2000), social science (Catton &
Dunlap, 1980), aesthetics (Leuthold, 1998; Gradle, 2007), ecofeminism (Kronlid, 2003;
Riley-Taylor, 2002), anthropology (Ellen & Fukui, 1996; Posey, 1999), ethnomusicology
(Feld, 1996; Yamada, 1997, 2000), and education (Miller, 1996, 2000; Nakagawa, 2000;
Noddings, 2003; Riley-Taylor, 2002). The emerging ecological worldview posits that
human activities, not excluding music making, are part of the processes of nature.8 This
acknowledgement, in turn, calls for an alternative pedagogical approach that promotes
relational knowing rather than isolated, objective analyses of the world (Bowers, 1995;
Riley-Taylor, 2002). Riley-Taylor (2002) argues that traditional educational models in the
20th century have long relied on a reductionist way of thinking that has promoted a
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compartmentalization of human experience, a deterioration of eco-spiritual sensitivities,
and an alienation of individuals from the larger community and ecological world. She
proposes an alternative curriculum theory to overcome the Western cultural thought that
divides mind and body, individual and community, human beings and the natural world.
Alternative pedagogy for her is to promote relational knowing and awakening—awakening
that humans are relational beings and all exist within an interconnected web of life.
Such relational understandings of human nature may question anthropocentric
approaches to knowledge production in many areas, including music education. In the field
of music education, anthropocentric approaches to music and instrument making have been
the norm since, at least, the time of progressive education. For example, progressive music
educator Satis Coleman (1927, 1928, 1931) investigated creative music units in which
learning began with making folk instruments and developed into such activities as
composition, singing, listening, and, later, involved the study of art, folklore, physics, and
language. Her educational aim was to encourage students to follow the phylogenetic
evolution of music through an ontogenetic approach. Coleman (1927) stated that “if a child
lives the art of music from its primitive beginnings, makes his own instruments and plays
upon them, and discovers for himself each stage in the development of musical instruments,
how can he help being musical?” (p. 19). Although she acknowledged the creative power of
instrument making that may lead students to their own music making and improvisation,
she posited that instrument making is rather a preliminary activity prior to the study of the
“real art of music.” According to Coleman, instrument making for students was only a
means to explore the dimension of musical life of “primitive” people. Most importantly, her
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use of natural elements for musical instruments was geared primarily toward
experimentation, rather than conservation, in order to stimulate students’ own interests and
creativity. Its goal was more to do with testing a variety of materials to gain a creative joy
than with developing ecological sensitivity.
Coleman’s vision of instrument and music making makes perfect sense in the
context of her time, for the Western musical system in which she was immersed placed
greater priority on complete orchestral instruments over primitive folk instruments. In light
of this, her attempt of initiating instrument making in her teaching was of great significance
and contribution to music education, especially the point that she highlighted the intimate
relationship between “hands and mind” in music learning deserves further consideration. Yet,
from the ecological worldview, her practice is seen as promoting a human-centered view.9
Educators can now access an array of information and materials documenting the
diversity of music traditions in the world that underscore spirituality and ecology on the
basis of human musical expression. Despite the available information and the promotion of
world music or multicultural music education in music classrooms, the underlying
assumption of teaching continues to be based on the 19th century European model of
aesthetics that excludes nature out of the course of learning. In fact, there has been a
negative view of nature as significant part of music and musical experience within music
education theories. The Broudian view of aesthetics that centers music learning on a series
of art works has influenced major music education philosophies and policies. An example
is Bennett Reimer’s (1970, 1989) philosophy of music education—“the only music
education philosophy” until early 1990’s (according to a music education professor
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at Indiana University). David Elliott’s (1995) view, though he claims his philosophy is the
alternative to Reimer, is not so different from his counterpart in this regard. Elliott argues
that John Cage’s and Murray Schaffer’s renderings of natural and environmental sounds as
music and the idea of “music in the ear of the beholder” are too exclusive of a host of
characteristics central to (his) music (such as organized structures and spaces for human
improvisation). The importance of the environment as an integrative context—as explicated
by Dewey—is yet to be fully realized in these theories. The course of learning in music
program today is contrasting to what Dewey and Coleman anticipated: Works of music are
presented a priori, learned through methods and conceptual approaches, which enforces the
students to conform their sensitivities to established works of music, rather than having
them to explore “germs and roots in matters of experience.” Ethnomusicologists have
revealed the latter way of music making in native traditions across the world, highlighting
the natural environment as habituated human condition and music making as an
embodiment of nature and native cosmology.
Spirituality and Arts Education
The term “spirituality” should be distinguished from “religion.” This is what most
thinkers in the field carefully (and repeatedly) do in fear that the discussion of spirituality
may violate the rules on the teaching of religion in schools. Spirituality is still a
controversial word for many people who associate the teaching of spirituality with any
form of indoctrination or cultivation of religious feeling (and the denial of science).
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20
The critical point of differentiation between spirituality and religion is that the
former is a destination of experience and the latter is a path. One metaphor that turns up
repeatedly is a drawing of a tree, with the roots labeled “spirituality” and the leaves
“religion” (Hay & Nye, 1998). Various theological traditions represent different paths by
which people seek fulfillment and experience the deepest realities of life. But being
religious is not necessarily a condition for being spiritual. Spirituality can be discussed
without any reference to religion or God. This is very true in a society where people do not
refer to “spirituality” and “religion” as interchangeable terms.
The arts have been the most powerful media for human beings to express and
experience their reflections on spirituality (Hay & Nye, 1998; London, 1989, 2003; Miller,
2000; Noddings, 2003; Van Ness, 1996). Some observe that aesthetics is a modern
rendition of spirituality. For example, British music educationist June Boyce-Tillman
observes that music is the last remaining ubiquitous spiritual experience in many
secularized Western cultures. Music and aesthetics have become the highest expression of
human achievement (Boyce-Tillman, 2000). In the area of spirituality, “notions of the
aesthetic have replaced God, and notions of healing were replaced by notions of personal
individualized enlightenment and amelioration” (Boyce-Tillman, 2004, p. 114). In fact,
experience with the arts is often seen as the only venue in the public domain in which the
exploration of spirituality is accepted. Oftentimes with this connection to the arts, the word
“spirituality” is used in a more “innocuous” way (Hay & Nye, 1998, p. 8). This is because
spirituality has been significant part of artistic expression and experience; it serves to
awaken people’s higher levels of consciousness, reaffirms the covenants between human
Artful Encounters with Nature
21
kind and nature, and connects people in different (or the same) times and places. In a
modern society, however, the role of the arts became manifold. Not a few people feel that,
“the arts are reduced to being a commodity providing diversion or entertainment, and their
spiritual power is diluted or lost” (Hay & Nye, 1998, p. 35). Spirituality is often used to
question the meaning of life and art.
In a society where spirituality and religion are inextricably intertwined, the
challenge of dealing with spirituality seems to begin with opening up spaces in which
spiritual conversations may occur without preaching religious beliefs or proselytizing. In
order to explore a framework for such conversations, scholars have investigated a secular
quest of everyday spirituality (Noddings, 2003; Van Ness, 1996)—the sort that can be
sought after in schools without violating any rules on the teaching of religion.
The 22nd volume of World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious
Quest features secular spirituality. Van Ness (1996), the editor, states that
being spiritual is an attribute of the way one experiences the world and lives one’s
life. It is much like what John Dewey called “the religious attitude” and signifies
what one attends to and acts upon in daily experience. It is analogous to moral
seriousness as a trait of people who act in conscious relation to the sentiments of
the community to which they belong, and aesthetic sensitivity as a trait of persons
who knowingly relate perceptions of nature and craft to larger frameworks of
sensuous experience. (p. 2)
For Dewey, aesthetic experience is not separate from other kinds of experiences; rather all
experience becomes aesthetic when it comes to genuine fulfillment. This continuity
between aesthetic and ordinary experiences, and everyday formation of intensified
experience, is the key to Dewey’s notion of art that promotes a transformation of taken-forgranted perception and engagement of the self with the world (Dewey, 1934/1980).
Artful Encounters with Nature
22
Extrapolating from Dewey’s formulation, Van Ness claims that the spiritual aspect of
human existence is hypothesized to have an outer and an inner complexion and that both
sides are interdependent:
Facing outward, human existence is spiritual insofar as one engages reality as a
maximally inclusive whole and makes the cosmos an intentional object of thought
and feeling. Facing inward, life has a spiritual dimension to the extent that it is
apprehended as a project of people’s most enduring and vital selves and is
structured by experiences of sudden self-transformation and subsequent gradual
development. The spiritual dimension of life is the embodied task of realizing
one’s truest self in the context of reality apprehended as a cosmic totality. It is the
quest for attaining an optimal relationship between what one truly is and
everything that is; it is a quest that can be furthered by adopting appropriate
spiritual practices and by participating in relevant communal rituals. (p. 5)
The secular quest for everyday spirituality embraced by Van Ness includes forms of artistic
inquiry, scientific inquiry, environmental activities, games, sports, arts, and holistic
medicine, which all correspond to Dewey’s conceptualization of aesthetics as sources of an
intensified experience. All of these inquires may have the potential to connect practitioners
to the cosmic whole at the existential level and thereby enhance and transform the
meanings of actions.
Education philosopher Nel Noddings sees spirituality as a significant constituent
of happiness—happiness not in the sense of financial success or salvation but as subjective
well-being (Noddings, 2003). She uses the term “everyday spirituality” to distinguish the
concept from a limited scope of spirituality that refers only to institutional spirituality. She
identifies that sources of spiritual awareness and experience are everywhere in our living
environments. Acknowledging that we do so little in schools to promote spiritual wellbeing, Noddings questions why: (a) “Do we suggest to our students that the soul rises with
the sun, that it is worth the effort to drag one’ weary body out occasionally to lift the
Artful Encounters with Nature
23
soul?”; (b) “do we invite students to look at their houses and ask how many objects have
been “registered officially” as members of the human household?”; (c) “do we encourage
reflection on interspecies affection as we pursue politically correct lessons on
environmentalism?”; (d) “do we acknowledge the uneasiness and fear that often arise at
night?”; and (e) “do we help students to memorize poetry, not for official performances or
grades, but to build a repertoire of spiritual exercises? If we do not, why don’t we?” (pp.
172–173)
Noddings is clear that “enhanced awareness of certain features in everyday life can
contribute significantly to spiritual life and to happiness” (p. 168). Noddings finds milieus
for spiritual moments at home and in nature, in a similar way as McCreery does. McCreery
identifies events for spiritual awareness, such as in the home (birth, death, love, trust, joy,
sadness, special occasions, religion), at school (nature studies, stories, danger, failure,
reward, companionship, success; also activities such as painting, drawing, sorting,
matching, playing, storytelling, singing) and on television (cultural difference, violence,
death, social taboos, nobility, despicable behavior, suffering, charity) (Hay & Nye, 1998,
pp. 54–55). However, Noddings is more concerned about humans’ direct encounters and
first-hand experiences of awe, wonder, and beauty than events themselves. For her, such
experience involves an awakening of the ecological interdependence of species in the
cosmos and the caring love of home, land, and nature.
One possible way to incorporate a spiritual dimension of life into current practices
of arts education is to frame the discussion of spirituality within the paradigm of holistic
education. John Miller explains that
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24
holistic education attempts to nurture the development of the whole person. This
includes the intellectual, emotional, physical, social, aesthetic, and spiritual. Perhaps
the defining aspect of holistic education is the spiritual. Progressive education and
humanistic education dealt with the first five factors but generally ignored the
spiritual dimension. (2005, p. 2)
Criticizing reductionist (logic-based) and pragmatist (experiment-based) approaches to
education, Miller underscores the wholeness of human being in need of spiritual fulfillment
as an agency of learning. He sees human growth as embracing the development of
spirituality. Miller (1996) sees progressive education as promoting a human-centric
approach to education by subscribing to experimentalism.10 For Miller, as discussed earlier,
Dewey’s philosophy of education—an epitomization of pragmatist rendering of
education—is aligned with pragmatism that places great emphasis on human’s intellectual
power. Equally problematic is humanistic education. For Miller, it puts human beings at the
center of the universe above other species. According to Miller, holistic education is framed
within the paradigm of holism that subscribes to the integration of all aspects of life and of
all beings. When music is taught, its purpose is not simply to develop musical skills but
contribute to the formation of a whole person responsible for the earth.
Holistic educators believe that not only the spiritual dimension but also the
ecological dimension are also the defining aspects of holistic education because spiritual
awareness of human lives often attends to human beings’ ecological interdependence on
lands, nature, and the cosmos (Nakagawa, 2000; Noddings, 2003; Miller, 1996; RileyTaylor, 2002). Holistic educators see human lives as connected to each other and as
dependent on the entire ecological system. They also see human lives as needing balance in
the way the yin-yang are recognized. Miller says “generally our education has been
Artful Encounters with Nature
25
dominated by yang energies such as a focus on rationality and individual competition, and
has ignored yin energies such as fostering intuition and cooperative approaches to learning”
(pp. 2–3).
Nakgawa (2000) observes that the rise of concern with spirituality in education
makes it possible to realize an integration of Eastern perspectives on spirituality into the
discussion. As a matter of fact, within the paradigm of holistic education, Eastern
perspectives have been of great importance. The holistic paradigm may also serve to
enlarge the framework of arts education by recognizing the importance of the spiritual and
ecological dimensions in the arts and the contribution of Eastern traditions.
Nonetheless, music educators have paid little attention to ways spiritual awareness
is encouraged throughout the process of making music and to its educational ramification
on students. Traditionally, emphasis of teaching is placed upon aspects of music that
transcend here-and-now propositions, such as universal concepts, techniques, creativity,
and beauty, rather than lived experiences of students. The result is the meticulous practice
of technique (typically found in method books of music) and the mastery of empty form
that features universal structures of works of art (typically observed in a Composition 101
class).
Anthony Palmer (1994) observes that this kind of practice is a reflection of the
formalist view of aesthetics, promoted by Eduard Hanslick and Igor Stranvinsky to name a
few, who claim the sole value of an object (e.g., music) is intrinsic to the features of that
object. The result of this view is an unbalanced inclination toward teaching “about” music
and teaching something “cognitive and abstract” in music classrooms (p. 43). Drawing on
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26
Zeami’s (1363–1443) philosophy and theory of noh performance, Palmer emphasizes the
importance of direct experience with music that helps “the young person’s experience with
music to mature, deepen, and become enriched as his or her experiences in life change and
mature” (p. 44). Zeami views beauty as worldly, impermanent, changeable, transient, and
here-and-now rather than as existing at the metaphysical level.
Peter London (2003) follows Anthony Palmer when he says, “No more
secondhand art,” by which he means a secondhand art that is devoid of direct engagement
with life. London (1989) suggests that arts educators should give away their obsession to
the beautiful, the creative, and the original. Three killing notions about art, identified by
London, are that art is about beauty, that technique and a dexterous eye are necessary to be
artists, and that there are certain cannons of good form that bring about beautiful things (p.
14). These things “cut off from the only authentic source of art, that is, firsthand
conversation between the self and the world” (London, 2003, pp. 76). London believes,
“Nature speaks. The pivotal act of drawing closer to Nature is to learn how to listen” (p. 86).
If we fail to listen, nature becomes silent. Rudolf Steiner (1961/1994) echoes London’s
claim when he remarks,
as we learn to do so [merging with the being that made the sound], a new faculty
takes root in the world of feeling and thought. All of nature beings to whisper its
secrets to us through its sounds. Sounds that were previously incomprehensible to
our soul now become the meaningful language of nature. Where we had heard only
noise in the sounds produced by inanimate objects, we now learn a new language
of the soul. As this cultivation of our feelings continues, we become aware that we
can hear things we never conceived of before; indeed, we begin to hear with our
souls. (pp. 45–46)
Artful Encounters with Nature
27
These scholars suggest that tuning into nature in every process of art making is an
important area of exploration in arts education, as it leads to a realization of the close
relationship between human beings and nature.
In sum, scholars promoting spirituality in the public domain see spirituality as
entailing the potential to promote a realization of the most profound realities of one’s world
and a consciousness of the self in the fullest sense. They believe that educators should not
devalue its potential in favor of objective, detached, public matters of teaching. Education
for them is to lead youngsters to an awakening of the holistic nature of existence and the
integrative dynamics of body-mind-spirit. From their viewpoint, the history of human
development is seen as a process of excluding nature and eliminating awe, wonder, and
beauty out of humans’ lives. The result of that development is the assumption that music
learning happens in music rooms that are cut off from the outside world. We almost forget
that musicians who sought after sources of their musical inspiration in nature have had a
kind of spiritual moment while strolling through the woods, admiring a constellation of
stars, or listening to the silence of night. Composers have been in search of ways to get over
the walls of concert halls to make music closer to nature. Such activities—sources of
aesthetic experience—are somehow missing in music classes.
Spiritual Traditions of Japanese Arts
Studies on Japanese spirituality and aesthetics are scant, due in part to the fact that
the concept of spirituality has not provided an accessible way for Japanese people to
explain their spiritual experiences (Nishiwaki, 2004). Japanese scholars find it difficult to
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28
translate the term “spirituality” into Japanese, acknowledging that the word needs many
explanations for most people to understand what spirituality means on their own terms
(Nishihira, 2003). However, this should not lead to the conclusion that there is no aesthetic
philosophy or spiritual frame of reference in Japan. Arts already exist, as they do
throughout the world; the practice of art reflects people’s aesthetic sensitivities and captures
their spiritual experiences. It may thus be helpful here to have a contextual understanding
of what spirituality means to Japanese ways of being.
One notable feature of Japanese spirituality is that it is assumed to bear little
religious meaning without the absolute existence of a transcendental god. Tazaki, Matsuda,
and Nakane (2001) investigate Japanese notions of spirituality from an international
perspective using the WHO’s proposal of health and spirituality. The results of their focus
group interviews indicate that, while individual variations are reported, key characteristics
of Japanese spirituality include: (a) an insignificance of human existence in contrast with
the natural environment; (b) a feeling of awe toward nature; (c) a connectedness with
ancestors; (d) a reference to individuals’ inner strength; and (e) a sense of absolute power
without reference to a particular religion. Similarly, Nishiwaki (2004) reports that while
precollege students show a strong aversion to religion, they tend to refer to “animals and
plants striving for life” when it comes to their spiritual worldviews. These studies suggest
that Japanese spiritual experience often derives from one’s interactions with nature, even
though it is impossible to reduce these experiences to such simple terms.
Nature has been an important driving force for aesthetic expression in Japan.
Tremendous efforts have been paid to capturing and describing a variety of natural
Artful Encounters with Nature
29
phenomena through the arts so that people could identify themselves through nature
(Hosaka, 2003). In fact, one of the major philosophical and aesthetic concerns among
Japanese intellectuals has been the phenomenal world and ontological experience of nature
(Nakamura, 1997; Shaner, 1989). Because nature is considered to be ontologically equal to
human beings, humans are not set apart in any other way from the processes of nature.
Nature is thus a site or source of spiritual experience, and aesthetic expression is considered
to be a manifestation of one’s encounter with, immersion in, and experience of nature. As
such, works of art (literature, visual art, music, poetry, etc.) are filled with descriptions of
the environment, showing people’s inclinations toward nature (Nakamura, 1997; Saito,
1985; Shimosako, 2002). My investigation in this review therefore focuses on aesthetic
practices in Japan that highlight spiritual experiences relating to nature.
The above-mentioned outlook on nature was part of, and was influenced by,
traditional Japanese religions. In Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan, spirits are viewed
as residing in all things. In ancient days people considered all non-human spirits to be
divine ancestral gods (Nakamura, 1997). Later, under the influences of Buddhism, this
animistic view was elevated to the idea that plants as well as human beings hold the
potential to attain enlightenment (Hagiyama, 1992; LaFleur, 1989; Shaner, 1989). As the
thirteenth-century Zen priest Dogen declared, “The ocean speaks and mountains have
tongues—that is the everyday speech of Buddha.… If you can speak and hear such words
you will be one who truly comprehends the entire universe” (Dogen, trans. 1975, Chap. 23,
“Jippo,” Para. 8). Spiritual fulfillment is found in and through nature. Thus, “an image of
Buddha is formed from nature…and the voice of Buddha is heard in the wind flowing
Artful Encounters with Nature
30
through pine trees” (Shimosako, 2002, p. 548). This sensitivity became widespread
throughout medieval times and influenced Japanese arts and intellectual discourse
(Hagiyama, 1992). This view is suitably found in a dozen plays in the noh (or no) repertoire
that feature a flower or tree that achieves enlightenment or manifests itself as the
incarnation of a bodhisattva or Buddha (Poulton, 1997).
Enlightenment Through Sound
The experience of the here-and-now is a heightened realization of the world that
will contribute to spiritual cultivation. An example is illustrated:
A man travelling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him.
Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself
down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man
looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the
vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to
gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the
vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted.
(Hay & Nye, 1998, pp. 61–62)
Here-and-now awareness generally takes form of aesthetic experience, as it involves an
intensified perception of the world (Dewey, 1934/1980). The traveler in Hay and Nye’s
example transcended the otherwise frightening conditions of his here-and-now experience
and was able to enjoy the wild strawberry. Artists have long been trying to capture hereand-now moments of beauty, phenomena of suddenness and transience, and experiences of
their own spiritual awakening.
Here-and-now awareness has been major part of a meditation practice in the East as
well as the West: The practitioner learns to maintain a highly disciplined attention to the
here-and-now, by observing as carefully as possible either the act of breathing while sitting
or the body’s movements in walking (Hay & Nye, 1998). This “single-pointed” awareness
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31
is of central importance in a certain form of Japanese music practices, which I have
described as the aesthetics of a single sound (Matsunobu, 2007). Two concepts that are
relevant to single-pointed awareness through music are otodamaho and ichion-jobutsu.
The concept of otodamaho is a method of purifying the body and mind through the
esoteric power of sound. A Japanese animist belief that was traditionally shared by people
in ancient Japan explains that spiritual power resides in all sounds, including natural sound
and spoken words (Makimoto, 2001; Shaner, 1989; Toyoda, 1985). Otodamaho suggests
that spiritual practitioners become engaged in a meditative process through the appreciation
and embodiment of natural sounds, situating themselves in nature to become part of the
universe. Yoshisane Tomokiyo (1888–1952), an institutor of a new sect of Shinto,
elaborates on the theory of spiritual sound based on the concept of otodamaho as follows:
“Nothing is more magical than the spirit of sound. All things in this universe are caused by
the spirit of sound. All lives flow with the spirit of sound” (Tomokiyo, 1972, p. 135). To
grasp this perspective, Tomokiyo recommends that one should
simply listen to a “sound.” Simply listen to a certain sound quietly and calm down.
That’s all…. You do not have to listen to music. Listen to a certain unchangeable
sound: the sound of a waterfall, the murmur of a brook, [the] sound of rain, the
sound of waves, anything you like. (Shimosako, 2002, pp. 549–550)
Throughout this process, practitioners strive to assimilate themselves to the sound, become
part of the cosmos, and achieve a state of unity with all things. Spiritual cultivation through
sound, it is believed, may be attained through otodamaho by “diluting” one’s self and
blending the body and mind in the universe (Kamata, 1987).
The second concept relevant to single-pointed awareness is the notion of ichionjobutsu, the attainment of enlightenment through perfecting a single tone. This idea has
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32
been traditionally sought after by practitioners in the Fuke sect of Japanese Zen who play
the shakuhachi (a Japanese bamboo flute) for meditation practice, called suizen (blowing
meditation). The chief goal of ichion-jobutsu is not to experience aesthetic pleasure but to
achieve personal and spiritual maturity through the realization of the “ultimate tone” (called
tettei-on). For “in the single tones of the shakuhachi, the whole of nature can be heard
whispering its secrets” (Blasdel, 1985, p. 16).
Drawing upon the essays of Fuyo Hisamatsu (1790–1845), Gutzwiller (1974,
1984) notes that the practice of Fuke shakuhachi is a spiritual exercise of breathing through
which a state of freedom from the rational mind is achieved. If the shakuhachi is used as an
instrument of spiritual exercise, then aesthetic values are reversed: A fine tone is not the
goal of shakuhachi practice. “Mere musical pleasantry or technical brilliance in the absence
of a concomitant spiritual cultivation is devalued as empty mechanical wizardry” (Peak,
1998, p. 364). The quest to produce an ultimate tone or the true sound of the bamboo
assumes a function similar to that of Zen sitting. When playing the Fuke shakuhachi, the
practitioner is to experience a meditative process through the sound, similar to the aims of
otodamaho, by concentrating purely on the sound through spiritual breathing so as to
become detached from the dichotomized state of body and mind, subject and object.11
The above-mentioned spiritual exercises through music are two of the most
extreme examples that are rarely encountered. Of central importance to these exercises is
that they are tailored to facilitate single-pointed awareness through limiting the possible
scope of expression. The idea is that we can attain deeper experiences through simple
media. “Less is more,” as the saying goes. In this context, creativity means the ability to
Artful Encounters with Nature
33
reduce the hindrance of direct experience of the world, not the ability to create objects. This
idea penetrates the Japanese tea ceremony, for instance. Tea masters discover the beauty of
objects through the interactions with their utensils.12 They do not try to create new objects
but seek to create artful minds, bodies, and spirits through heightened perceptions that bring
about holistic, intuitive views of the objects (Yanagi, 1989). In a similar vein, traditional
shakuhachi players are specially trained to perform only repetitions of the entire cycle of 36
musical pieces, the ultimate aim of which is to strive toward spiritual maturity. Fuyo
Hisamatsu (trans. 1985) goes so far as to say that “39 pieces lie within 36 pieces. 36 pieces
lie within 18 pieces. 18 pieces lie within 3 pieces. 3 pieces lie within one piece. One piece
lies within no piece. [No piece lies within a spiritual breath.] A [spiritual] breath lies within
emptiness and nothingness” (p. 44). The practice of the arts as spiritual exercise promotes
the art of impression over the art of expression, which contrasts with the dominant practice
of the arts.
Embodiment of Nature
Hay and Nye (1998) relate that feeling “at one” with nature is an illumination of
tuning into the world of the sacred, which is often reported by Western researchers as a
form of childhood spiritual experience.13 Not only by children but also by adults is the
experience of oneness with nature experienced widely and considered as spiritual in East
Asian traditions, as the concept of ki (qi or ch’i in Chinese) suggests. Ki is a philosophy of
cosmology that explains the genesis, development, and demise of life (Hall & Ames, 1998;
Maebayashi, Sato, & Kobayashi, 2000).14 Ki refers to autonomous flows of energy that
control all the happenings in the universe. The confluence of ki, consisting of both passive
Artful Encounters with Nature
34
and active currents (yin and yang), gives form to life. All living creatures, including trees,
insects, animals, and human beings, are regarded as products of self-directed natural
movements of ki. According to the concept of ki, “there are no separable things among the
physical and spiritual; there is only the energy field and its focal manifestations” (Hall &
Ames, p. 862). Stated differently, all creatures live in the sea of ki, and in it, human life is
part of the whole universe governed by the flow of ki.15 Tuning into ki is a state or process
of being and becoming spiritual.
The principle of ki penetrates Asian practices of medicine (e.g., Chinese medicine,
acupuncture, moxibustion treatment), martial arts (e.g., tai chi, aikido), and aesthetics (e.g.,
calligraphy, painting, poetry, literature, music). The purpose of such practices is “to balance
the flow of the qi [ki], such that environs and body are productively continuous one with
the other” (Hall & Ames, 1998, p. 862). In music, ki was traditionally considered a source
of energy from which practitioners gained inspirations and within which basic conditions
for artistic expression aimed at the demonstration of the yin–yang relationship were created.
Tuning into ki through music was explained, for example, by Taoist philosopher Chuang
Tzu (fl. 4th C BCE), who identified the existence of the driving force that causes all sounds,
including those of human beings and the earth, which he called the “piping of Heaven.” He
envisioned music as embracing the power to unify the cosmos (trans. 1968, Chap. 2,
“Discussion on Making All Things Equal”). Perfect music, he assumed, must “respond to
the needs of man [sic], accord with the reason of Heaven . . . , and blend with spontaneity;
only then can it bring order to the four seasons and bestow a final harmony upon the ten
thousand things” (Chap. 14, “The Turning of Heaven,” para. 5).
Artful Encounters with Nature
35
Engaging music through nature is integrated on each level of making instruments,
performing, and listening to music in Japan. Making instruments close to nature is
exemplified through the making of traditional shakuhachi instrument (called, jinashi). As
mentioned earlier, the instrument is made out of a natural bamboo piece with minimal
artificial modification. The original shape, length, and thickness of the bamboo remain. The
result is an instrument that is much less processed and far closer to its natural state. Indeed,
the beauty of the product is judged largely on the level of the naturalness that remains. Thus,
each product has different musical qualities (timbre, pitch, playability), depending on the
nature of each segment of bamboo and who has made it. Each product becomes
individualized and is rooted in a particular location and time, belonging to each maker and
player. Contrasting to this idea of instrument-making is the universal model of instrumentmaking. When making a recorder, for instance, high-quality wood is chosen and processed
according to the formulized model of recorder-making so that anyone with decent skills can
produce right (and relatively similar) tones. The idea of preserving naturalness in the
process of instrument-making (as a way of sounding nature) is also found not only in the
making of the shakuhachi but also in the making of the nokan and the biwa, two other
traditional Japanese instruments. A brief illustration of each instrument is as follows.
The nokan is a bamboo flute used mostly in noh drama. Its intensified sound is
produced through the unique structure of the instrument, characterized by a thin tube, called
a nodo (literally “throat”), between the lip hole and the first finger hole, that brings about
the alternation of sound (Ando, 1989). Because of its narrowed structure and thus strong air
pressure flowing through the tube, the instrument creates a variety of overblown notes as
Artful Encounters with Nature
36
well as a great deal of windy noise. Hearing the natural overtones is unlikely, for one tone
consists of a series of intervals from an octave to a minor seventh (Malm, 2000). Even the
piercing sound of a nokan brought by a forceful attack of breath is considered of unique
aesthetic import.
The biwa, too, is constructed with the sole purpose of creating beautiful noise
called sawari. Indeed, the term sawari designates a specific part of the neck of the
instrument where four or five strings are stretched over a recess. When a long elastic string
is stretched downward and plucked, a variety of sounds is produced and transmitted. Yet
when sawari is referred to purely as a sound character, it means a “twangy” sound, much
like that of a rubber band (Malm, 2000, p. 156). Since there are only five frets on the
instrument, it is difficult to produce a variety of definite tones. Still, the loosely stretched
strings make it possible to generate a large range of intervals between the widely fretted
tones (Ando, 1989). This feature parallels the unusually wide finger holes of the nokan in
that it also facilitates the execution of portamento. While this feature is impractical, if not
clumsy, when it comes to performing musically complex passages, the important quality of
the biwa (as well as the nokan and the shakuhachi) is to be found in the delicate resonance
of a single tone, its shifting tensions, and the resulting shades of sound. For such an
expression, a “twangy” sound is deemed appropriate.
These Japanese instruments are intentionally “retrograded” (Imada, 2003, p. 71).
Indeed, the term sawari literally means “touch” and “obstacle,” indicating that the sawari is
the “apparatus of an obstacle” itself. According to Takemitsu (1995), this inconvenience is
potentially “creative” in the sense that “it is an intentional inconvenience that creates a part
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37
of the expressiveness of the sound” (p. 65). The resulting biwa sound can be described as
strong, ambiguous, complex, profound, and deeply resonant. Similarly, the sound
encompassing the noise produced by the nokan is, in itself, beautiful and creative, not
because of the instrument’s unfavorable unfunctionalism, but because of its favorable
inconvenience. The idea of leaving the inherent naturalness within the instruments
eventually brings more potential for the musician to be creative.
Performing on such instruments, one feels at one with nature. An example is
portrayed through Kakujo Nakamura’s experience. An experienced satsuma-biwa (a type of
Japanese lute) player, Nakamura describes his internal process of performing music and
storytelling, finding it congruent with the aim of otodamaho (Nakamura, 2002). He
acknowledges that the idea of performing on the satsuma-biwa is to incorporate one’s self
into the richness of its sound:
Broadly speaking, Japanese classical music tends to have certain distinctive
characteristics: an adhesiveness to a single sound, a variation of tone, a change of
its reverberation, and an irregular rhythm centered around a rest (ma). In this
music, the sound is not an object of operation but that into which we assimilate
ourselves. [When that happens,] the relationship between the subject and object
seems to be blurred. Especially in the music of the satsuma-biwa, which bears a
weak pattern of regular rhythm and is played and chanted based on the performer’s
breathing pattern, there is a strong sense of fusion between the self and the sound.
(p. 22)
For Nakamura, playing the satsuma-biwa is a means toward finding a spiritual sound.
Music therefore becomes vital if it captures the spirit of the sound, and it expresses the
universe, of which the self forms a part.
Artful Encounters with Nature
38
One can feel at one with nature through listening to those instruments. An example
is portrayed by Loori’s (2004) experience of Wadazumi Doso’s (1911–1992) shakuhachi
performance. Loori writes:
Doso didn’t use the highly polished lacquered and well-tuned flutes…. His flute
was much less processed and far closer to its natural state. The inside of the
section he used still revealed the bamboo guts. Most people, even experienced
masters, considered that kind of instrument unplayable. Doso’s music proved that
wrong. His playing always touched the very core of one’s being. Sometimes the
sound had a tremendous strength, like the driving force of a cascading waterfall.
Sometimes it roared like thunder. At other times it was gentle and sweet like
birdsong at sunrise. It always seemed to reach me, but not through my ears: It
entered my body through the base of my spine, moved upward, and spread
through my being. (pp. 171–173)
Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu also reports his “tuning-into-nature” experience
through Wadazumi Doso’s shakuhachi performance.16 Takemitsu was in a small room at a
Japanese restaurant listening to Wadazumi’s rare live performance over dinner. Wadazumi
used a bare bamboo flute that was as long as his height and made into the shakuhachi by
children. In about twenty minutes after Wadazumi started performing, he requested
Takemitsu to open the windows, despite the noises coming from the outside, as he felt that
the room was too small for him and lacking ki (qi or ch’i in Chinese) energy. Shortly into
Wadazumi’s performance, Takemitsu was once again mesmerized by Wadazumi’s serene
music so much so that he felt as if the sounds of the shakuhachi, the boiling water in a hot
pan, and the traffic passing by, all became one in harmony; yet his sensitized perception
captured each sound resonating even more clearly and vibrantly. Wadazumi stated after the
performance: “You must have been listening to the sound of boiling water.” Takemitsu
abashedly told Wadazumi that he, indeed, had been listening to the sound of boiling water.
Artful Encounters with Nature
39
Wadazumi answered assuredly and unhesitatingly, “That water sound you listened to is my
music.”17
Takemitsu (1995) explains that, because of the nature-like sound of the shakuhachi, it
became merged into the cosmos: The sound of the shakuhachi disappeared between the
phrases, followed by serene silence (called, ma), in which nature participated and started
vibrating musically.18 Because of the natural sounds of the shakuhachi and serene silence,
the music became merged into the cosmos. As a result, the sound of music disappeared, and
nature started vibrating musically. With such sensitivity, Takemitsu (1995) states,
the world is sound. Sound penetrates me, linking me to the world. I give sounds
active meaning. By doing this I am assured of being in the sounds, becoming one
with them. To me this is the greatest reality. It is not that I shape anything, but
rather that I desire to merge with the world. (p. 13)
The kind of tuning-into-nature experience is made possible particularly with the aesthetics
of shakuhachi: In fact, the ideal expression of the shakuhachi is a wind-like sound. Rather
than searching for a form of beautiful expression, musicians such as Doso Wadazumi tend
to accept the intentional inconvenience because they want to experience music close to
nature. This is a necessary condition for them to experience nature because that is how
nature is to human beings. For them, inconvenience is not an object of elimination but the
world itself. A work of expression is thus considered by them to be a manifestation of one’s
deep impressions of nature, a revelation of the unity between the artificial and the natural.
In summary, features of spiritual traditions of Japanese music have been described
in terms of aesthetics of a single tone and ma. The literature highlights nature as driving
force for aesthetic expression and spiritual experience through music. Engaging music
Artful Encounters with Nature
40
through nature (or nature through music) is integrated on each level of making instruments,
performing, and listening to music, typically explained through the shakuhachi.
Japanese Folk Pedagogy of Music
Studies on Japanese folk pedagogy of music highlight several features. Like other
art forms, Japanese music has been transmitted through the iemoto (head of household)
system. The iemoto system has been the dominant model of transmission of the performing
arts in Japan today. Students’ experiences of the arts often revolve around the masterstudent relationship through the iemoto system. Keister (2001) observes that the iemoto is
the physical embodiment of the tradition, the personification of the musical style practiced
by the school, and the symbolized authority who alone can set the artistic standard of the
school and grant licenses to teach and perform the art. For this reason, Trimillos (1989)
observes that “the status of sensei, teacher, is so high above the student” (p. 39). Hebert
(2005) observes that the iemoto model appears to have immensely influenced the
institutionalization of Western music in Japanese conservatories where “pedagogical
lineage” and “authority” are associated with the iemoto system of Japanese schools of
Western music.
With its negative association of feudalism, the iemoto system has been criticized
particularly with regard to its male dominant structure in such areas as tea ceremony and
flower arrangement. Although iemoto organizations in these areas thrive on a large student
base of female amateur hobbyists, the top iemoto and people high up are predominantly male.
Even in the androcentric hierarchy, some report that female practitioners who pursue the course
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41
of study with no professional aspirations—the main body of hobbyists in today’s “lesson
culture” (Moriya, 1994)—find the practice of the art emancipating (e.g. Kato, 2004).
On a different level, the secrecy of artistry in each school is described through the
concept of hiden. Somewhat similar to the sounding and meaning of “hidden” in English,
the word hiden signifies hermetism and esoterism of artistry transmission in Japan. A
message posted in front of a sweet shop, “This Rice Cracker is Made Out of the Hiden Miso
(fermented soybean paste),” means that miso is specially produced in a way the household
(or company) has been making for the best quality in a secret manner for hundreds of years.
In other words, the product is so special and thus not available elsewhere. Author of
Secrecy in Japanese Art: “Secret Transmission” as a Mode of Knowledge, Morinaga
explains that the secretive to produce the inaccessibility of knowledge is the source of
authority and authenticity in the Japanese arts. Only the head of the tradition, often the
iemoto, could access the hiden (or hidden) information about the artisty that has been kept
either orally or in written forms. Some of the currently available books about Japanese
aesthetics are actually compilations of such hiden texts; an example is Motoki Zeami’s
Fushi Kaden, which is a treatise of his writing about noh performance. In the tradition of
shakuhachi music, sheets of music have been preserved as hiden texts in each temple in
such a way that they were used not for teaching but for occasional references as sacred texts.
The texts were the proof of authentic tradition and practice.
Another aspect of Japanese music and artistry transmission is the primacy of
bodily form. Kata is the philosophical principle that underpins this transmission (e.g.,
Keister, 2004; Powell, 2004; Yuasa, 1987). Indeed, traditional Japanese arts have been
Artful Encounters with Nature
42
preserved and transmitted through kata, literally “form” or “mold,” through which students
learn structures of art, patterns of artistic and social behaviors, and moral and ethical values,
in accordance with prescribed fomulaic rules. Central to this pedagogy is the repeated
practice and imitation of the model through the body. The acquisition of kata is thus a
“discipline for shaping one’s body into a form” (Yuasa, 1987, p. 105). Trimillos’ (1989)
observation of a Japanese teacher epitomizes the characteristics of kata learning: “the
teacher seldom identifies the error, but waits until the phrase is played correctly and then
expresses approval” (repetition of practice) and “the goal is to perform the piece exactly as
the teacher has presented it” (imitation of the model) (p. 39).
Yano (2002) observes that the Western dualism between form and content, each of
which traditionally corresponds to the false and the true, dissolves as continuous and
interpenetrating parts in the theory of kata (p. 26). Kata is content attendant upon form. The
creative goal of kata-training is “to fuse the individual to the form so that the individual
becomes the form and the form becomes the individual” (p. 26). Thus, kata historicizes and
spiritualizes the individual. Kata is also social in that it involves the body in a social
practice: Through the correct imitation of formal patterns, students participate in the social
embodiment of behaviors. As the androcentric tradition of Japanese arts changes, some
female scholars recently view kata as an emancipating agency that help release the social
and class differences (Kato, 2004; Mayuzumi, 2006).
Ikuta (1987) discusses the transmission of artistry through kata that inevitably
involves a “non-step-by-step” process of learning, which often contradicts the school
curriculum in which contents are organized in a sequential manner from the easy to the
Artful Encounters with Nature
43
difficult. Students experience the whole from the beginning of their learning, not bit by bit
or piece by piece, utilizing their entire bodies. The first piece students learn may be as
difficult as the last piece in terms of technical demand, though emphasis on spiritual value
of those pieces may vary. A Japanese lesson is ritually structured in such a way that “the
ultimate goal may be spiritual rather than musical” (Malm, 1986, p. 24).
Throughout the process, verbal instructions and conceptual understanding are
intentionally avoided as they may distract a whole-body grasp of artistry (Hare, 1998).
Keister (2004) relates that “with training based on kata, there is no artistic content for the
performer to cognitively ‘grasp,’ but instead a surface aesthetic that ‘grasps’ or transforms
the performer, shaping the artist into the form of the art itself” (p. 103). Gutzwiller (1974)
observes that “any explanation from the side of the [shakuhachi] teacher in a medium other
than music imposes a progress on the student from without” (p. 155).
The emphasis on bodily learning over cognitive understanding is still practiced
today in traditional schools (ryu) of Japanese music—typically represented in noh music—
and also observed to some extent in formal educational settings. Sato (2004) testifies, on
the account of Japanese teachers in her ethnographic study, that the best learning relies on
taiken, an experience gained through the body, and karada de oboeru – to remember
through one’s body.
The embodied knowledge transmission is central to music teaching and learning,
ranging from the transmission of traditional music (Malm, 2000; Keister, 2001, 2004) to
that of popular music (Yano, 2002) and Western music (Murao, 2003; Peak, 1998). Peak
illustrates the influence of traditional Japanese pedagogy on the formation of the Suzuki
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44
violin method, highlighting the importance of repeated practice, imitation of the model, and
socially enhanced motivation of the students. Upon pointing out the difference between
traditional Japanese pedagogy and the Suzuki method, Murao examines how the kata of
violin technique is formulated in Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the first song of the repertoire
in the method, and learned through repeated practices of certain variations on the theme
that demand only little expressive artifice. Murao points out that the non-step-by-step
curriculum of the traditional pedagogy is also evident in the Suzuki method. The discussion
of kata further raises issues of individuality/originality/creativity, the role of emotion, and
democratic participation of students in the practice of music making (Murao; Peak; Keister,
2004; Yano).
Halliwell (1994) summarizes traditional teaching methods in the case of koto as
follows : (a) there is virtually no explicit ‘theory’ or teaching of theory as it is known in the
West; (b) there are no ‘exercises;’ the teaching of instrumental and vocal technique is
integrated with the teaching of musical ‘text;’ (c) there is no explicit conceptual distinction
between ‘text’ and ‘interpretation;’ one learns to play following the teacher’s example; (d)
there is very little verbal explanation, either of technique or of musical or expressive
content, (e) playing together with the teacher is fundamental, (f) teachers may use shoga
(oral representation of musical sound), or purely musical means to convey information to
the student; and (g) notation, of used nowadays, is nevertheless of relatively minor
importance .
Based on his fieldwork in Japanese middle schools, Hebert (2005) reports that some
features of Japanese traditional music pedagogy seemed to play an important role in music
Artful Encounters with Nature
45
instruction in the middle school band context. These include teacher authority, modeling
and strict imitation, ritualistic rehearsal structure, less use of verbal instruction and
conceptual explanation, and less emphasis on notational literacy. At the same time, Hebert
reports that a few aspects of Japanese traditional music pedagogy were absent from the
school band context, namely, positive reinforcement and feedback throughout the learning
process, and emphasis on spirituality.
Japanese Music in International Contexts
Based on traditional value systems and living cosmologies, many forms of
indigenous music have been developed independently of the Western tradition in various
parts of the world. In even highly modernized, industrialized countries, such as Japan,
many people, if not the majority, still maintain traditional values of music and spiritual
ecology that are ostensibly identical to those developed before Western influence. To a
greater extent in each tradition today, however, the influence of westernization and
modernization has been confirmed. Hardly would a pure form of native society be found.
The study of native traditions is thus primarily intercultural in nature (Leuthold, 1998).19
Outside of Japan, Japanese musical traditions are practiced and taught in various
settings by different types of cultural agencies representing cultural bearers, Japanese
immigrants, foreign practitioners, and ethnomusicologists (Trimillos, 2004). The
distinctions among these agencies can blur. For example, the body of ethnomusicologists may
include not only researchers as outsiders but also insider researchers who are actually cultural
bearers. Indeed, “ethnomusicology at home” is getting common (Nettl, 2005). The line between
cultural bearers and immigrants may also blurs, depending on the length of their stay in foreign
Artful Encounters with Nature
46
contexts. Also, depending on each situation, the role and responsibility of each agency may
shift. If a Japanese ethnomusicologist with an Indian music expertise, for example, visits a
foreign culture, his or her role may bear not only that of ethnomusicologist but also that of
cultural bearer of Japan. Furthermore, a foreign practitioner may be more an insider of a
musical tradition of a foreign culture (e.g. an American koto player who studied music at
Tokyo University of Fine Arts for 6 years) than an outsider compared to a native person
who is not a musician associated to that musical tradition.
Each agency may face the tension over the issues of authenticity and credibility and
negotiate their role as a cultural agency. Trimillos (2004) articulates this complex issue of
representing and appropriating a culture through his personal experiences of teaching
Japanese music in foreign contexts as an Asian descendant. According to him, the native
musician as a cultural bearer in a foreign context is expected to be a specialist of Japanese
music in every sense, beyond his specialization. As a result, “indigenous teaching practices
are necessarily reframed within and subjected to established Western norms of teaching,
learning, and teacher-student relationships. They contribute toward the construction of a
staged, if not managed, authenticity” (P. 39, italics added). The foreign practitioner seeks
credibility and authenticity as a cultural messenger. Whereas the cultural bearer embodies
immediate authenticity, the foreign practitioner tries hard to gain entitlement as a cultural
insider. Foreign practitioners spend a quite number of years in he native country (e.g.
Japan) to work with renowned native teachers and to establish a performance career within
and outside the host society. They may, at the same time, try to get certification and
licenses to teach and perform if any accreditation system is available. Finally, the
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47
ethnomusicologist who is normally a professor in school of music is subject to an
institutional expectation that puts priority on aesthetic values over religious, political, and
economic aspects. The tension comes from their rendering of indigenous music using the
paradigm of their own canon of music—typically Western canon in the academy.
In reality, the roles of these agencies overlap. Trimillos describes, when he was
teaching in a multicultural setting in Hawai’i, he did not have to think that he was
representing Japanese culture because many Japanese immigrants saw him as belonging to
their community and representing in some ways their cultural backgrounds. So the use of
“we” was natural for him in that context. However, he was unconsciously emphasizing the
Japanese traditionalism as geared toward “otherness” when he taught at a white-dominant
institution. Trimillos relates that “multiple positionalities are unavoidable in the crosscultural work” (p. 27). He states, the conflating of the "we" and "them," the "ours" and
"theirs” cannot be avoided.
Trimillos’ self reflective writing is one of few studies featured on multiple roles of
cultural agencies who represent and appropriate Japanese music in foreign contexts. Many
studies have looked at the process of identity formation through music among Japanese
immigrants outside of Japan.
An example is bon odori, a Buddhist-based folk dance in Japan, traditionally
performed at local summer festivals in the obon season when the spirits of the deceased are
believed to come back to the world of the living. Bon odori is a form of music and dance
that summons the deceased spirits and celebrates family gathering over generations (Terada,
2001). Examining social and musical aspects of bon dance performed among Japanese
Artful Encounters with Nature
48
communities in Hawai’I, Yano (1984) reveals that, although many aspects have been
conserved over a period of time, bon odori events in Hawai’i have seen several changes in
terms of the season, the nature of site, dress codes, and so on. Creation of new forms of
performance and new pieces was also confirmed. Yano observes that these changes
provided a way for Japanese immigrants to make the land of Hawai’i their home and that
the changes eventually became their new traditions. Issues identified among the members
of the communities, though these are discussed only implicitly, include the combination of
bon dance music genres from multiple places in Japan so that music represents the
demography of Japanese immigrants. The issue of authenticity was less of an issue.
Although the members were concerned if what they practiced was real in comparison to the
original form back in Japan, they were positive about their way of rendering the original
form.
A new form of bon odori is yosakoi dance. Its creation originated back in 1954 in
Kochi prefecture. Yosakoi dance may be an example of glocalization of Japanese music.
Unlike the regional format of bon odori in Kochi, awa odori, Yosakoi dance involves an
intensity of energy and feeling expressed through body movements. It is performed in
larger groups: units of group can be schools, companies, business groups, women groups,
and so on. Its style embraces traditional as well as modern elements of body movements
and music. Many young people are passionate creating their own dances and participating
in Yosakoi festivals across Japan. Izumi (2001a) observes that yosakoi festivals provide
young people a means of self-actualization and place of being (called, ibasho). In the past
twenty years, yosakoi dance has spread out both inside and outside Japan. The number of
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49
major yosakoi festivals has exceeded 20 within Japan, in some events sees more than
30,000 participants. It is also becoming international; it finally came to the University of
Illinois. The attendants of Japan Festival on May 3rd, 2003 saw yosakoi dance on the stage
of Foellinger Auditorium performed by the members of J-Net (Japan Intercultural Network).
That was a version of yosakoi dance brought from Malaysia.20 Among the members
included only one Japanese person.
At the same event at Foellinger Auditorium, a performance of the taiko, Japanese
drum, was provided by the University of Washington at St. Louis Osuwa Taiko Group. The
members consisted of Asian and Caucasian performers. According to some reports, there
are 100 (Izumi, 2001b) to 150 (Terada, 2001) taiko groups in North America like Osuwa
Taiko Group. Some are exclusively Asian in demography and others are racially mixed and
predominantly European Americans (Terada, 2001). Some are professional and have
produced a number of audio and visual recordings for sale. The taiko has been practiced
among Japanese communities since 1968 when the first group of the taiko was established
in San Francisco.
Yoshitaka Terada (2001) demonstrates a fine grasp of the history of taiko music in
North America, highlighting significant events and surrounding societal condition that have
affected the identity construction among Japanese Americans in North America.
Interwoven voices of taiko players in the text illustrate the way the taiko has been used as a
tool to search their cultural roots and overcome not only negative stereotypes imposed by
the society on Asian immigrants but also their result: self-depreciation and self-denial.
Terada also highlights features of taiko practice in North America in comparison to its
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50
original form in Japan, such as the dominance of female players (two third of the members).
One of the issues implicitly discussed in Terada’s work is the tension between artistic and
political-social dimensions of taiko practice. This appears to be an issue when Terada
explicates the gap between senior and young players in terms of their first-hand negative
experience as Japanese Americans. For young players,
the primary reason for playing taiko is the satisfaction of creating music together,
physical fitness, and/or individualized spiritual quest. While they find relevance in
the fact that taiko music derives from Japan, their motives for playing taiko are
more artistic than political or social, in sharp contrast to those held by early taiko
players. (p. 49)
The tension between the artistic and the political is not confirmed among non-Japanese
groups because their motives tend to be “physical fitness, spiritual growth, and
communalism” (pp. 51-52). However, as the taiko transcended ethnic boundaries of
Japanese communities to involve other Asian Americans, practice of the taiko has created a
space, for constructing a collective Asian American identity and culture. Taiko music is
increasingly becoming multifarious in its performing styles, repertoire, motivations, and
meanings.
Masumi Izumi (2001b) focuses more on the Canadian scene of Taiko music and
explores the process by which ethnic identity is created and reinforced among Japanese
Canadian taiko players. Repeated interviews with taiko players in Vancouver led her
findings much similar to those of Terada. Like Terada, Izumi observes that, whereas the
taiko in Japan is in most cases performed and enjoyed in traditional settings such as bon
odori festivals, many taiko groups in North America are creating their own pieces and
musical hybrids incorporating theatrical movements and other instruments’ sounds. The
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51
taiko players in her study showed no interests in “re-creating” Japanese culture in au
“authentic” way. But their intention was to express who they are. In her study, one person
remarks,
I started taiko because I had been in this band, Kokuho Rose, and we had a lot of
trouble. We wanted to be a kind of fusion band. And we originally started with
shakuhachi. But it’s a melodic instrument. And we had guitars, which is also a
melodic instrument [sic]. And the scales were different, so they never quite got
together. So we struggled with it and we tried to do it and we finally gave up…
Taiko was a way to combine, to do a fusion easier, because there was no scale.
There was just rhythm. So to me, this was the way to get my musical interests
joined, with my background which is totally Western, with a Japanese instrument.
(p. 43)
A formation of musical hybrid is confirmed as a means of expressing their multi-cultural
positionality as Japanese descendants living in the West. Izumi also highlights the
dominance of female players in the groups. The taiko in its original form and context in
Japan is normally performed predominantly by men and is commonly associated with
masculinity. Izumi describes that the physicality of playing the taiko includes the wideopen stance, the intensive action of beating a drum with two sticks, and kiai, the screaming
and shouting. The female players in her study reveal that the taiko is not only a way to
connect to their ancestry but also a medium by which they fight against discriminations,
claim their own multi-cultural positionality, and feel true to themselves. Women’s active
participation resulted in reclaiming their cultural representation and creating a counterdiscourse of Asian women against the dominant view of oriental women as quiet,
submissive, and gentle.
In her dissertation on teaching and learning of taiko music at San Jose Taiko group,
Kimberly Powell (2003) analyzes the processes of everyday learning and practice of the
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taiko and draws on its social and cultural meanings. Borrowing Basso’s (1996) and Feld
and Basso’s (1996) work that posit knowledge through music is place-based (the idea of
acoustemology in Feld’s word), Powell sees the taiko as a place where one’s social, cultural,
and artistic learning occurs through the body. She observes that Japanese folk pedagogy,
such as ki and kata, facilitated an embodied learning of Japanese drum music while
promoting social and spiritual formation of identities in an American context. Ki (earth
energy) is explained in the context of San Jose Taiko meaning construction as a way of
knowing and communicating with other people in the group, embodying the materials, and
understanding larger socio-cultural meanings surrounding Asian Americans. Kata (bodily
form) serves a means through which members can achieve “oneness” with the taiko:21 The
drum is not seen as separate from the body or the mind but realized through ki and kata
toward spirituality with other ensemble members. This process involves a loss of self and a
feeling of unity. As an education researcher, Powell argues that place should be an
important concept to consider for theories of learning. She suggests that we need to study
more closely “the processes through which place integrates mind and body” (p. 305).
The above-mentioned literature on the taiko highlights the issue of membership.
Terada introduces a voice of the co-leader of San Jose Taiko group whose members are
largely Japanese Americans. This person believes that ethnic affiliation of members alone
does not suffice. But members should be tied “with a sense of community and what’s
happening in the community” (p. 44). Similarly, Japanese Canadian taiko players in
Izumi’s study face a dilemma regarding the issue of membership: Although many Japanese
American families have seen inter-racial marriages of Japanese and European Americans,
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53
they find it difficult to identify European Americans as being able to share the same
cultural expression that is rooted in their history and experiences. As a result, they hesitate
to perform on the same stage with European Americans and claim a shared identity.
Because the taiko is practiced in a group, its practice often manifests a social and
cultural identity of Japanese immigrants reflecting their history and experiences in North
America. For this reason, the taiko has been researched in terms of Japanese Americans’
collective identity. In contrast, the shakuhachi involves a solitary practice: Although the
shakuhachi is often played in ensemble with other folk instruments such as the koto and
shamisen, it originates as a solo instrument and has been practiced for individual training
inside and outside of the institution context.
Compared to the research on the taiko, very few studies on the shakuhachi have
been conducted because Japanese immigrants—the majority of Japanese music performers
outside of Japan—were not as actively playing and learning the shakuhachi as they were for
the taiko. This is more so with 2nd and 3rd generations. Another aspect is that, whereas the
taiko is a rhythm instrument and thus involves group participation for a collective cultural
expression, the shakuhachi is a solo instrument that is technically demanding and often
necessitating a long period of hard training before being able to play with other instruments
or to make a public performance. Executing Western scales with the shakuhachi on the
basic five holes—a sort of requisite for multicultural musical hybrids—requires a great deal
of effort. Besides, compared to the taiko, the shakuhachi does not easily allow a beginner to
make new pieces. This means the shakuhachi involves a solitary process of self-training
and immersion into Japanese classical music. As a result, the shakuhachi is actively
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performed by non-Japanese in North America (perhaps more so than native Japanese,
Japanese immigrants, or Japanese Americans) whose orientation to the shakuhachi tends to
be musical rather than social.
Keiter (2005) observes that “a key factor in the overseas success of the shakuhachi
is precisely its historical link to “Buddhism and the ease with which philosophical ideas
based on Zen can be articulated or felt through the instrument” (p. 100). According to
Keister, foreign practitioners’ attachment to the spiritual aspect of the shakuhachi is much
stronger than the counterpart shakuhachi practitioners in Japan. Keister (2005) also
observes that North American practitioners tend to perceive spirituality gained through
Japanese music as a form of sudden epiphany, whereas the sources of spirituality in Japan
are social connections in the mater-student relationship as well as the aesthetic integration
of music with ordinary aspects of everyday life. The differences are the notion of
spirituality as lofty and that of everyday spirituality.
In a different paper, Keister (2004) explores some of the ways in which the
shakuhachi is recontextualized in the West as a tool of realizing Buddhist philosophy
through the examination of historical facts, documents, and interview data. One way to
understand this phenomenon, according to Keister, is to highlight the importance of an
individualistic kind of Zen for the appropriation and legitimacy of the instrument outside of
Japan. For Western shakuhachi players, the romantic notion of Zen that has little to do with
the social structure of monastic Zen is a useful strategy, Keister observes, to appropriate the
practice of the shakuhachi as “ours” and overcome the difficulty and awkwardness of
learning the instrument in geographically and culturally distant places from Japan. In fact,
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classical pieces of the shakuhachi, called honkyoku, have been transmitted from one
individual to another individual and thus learned outside of the institutional and
conventional context. Models of Japanese shakuhachi players who transgress conventional
social and musical organizations, such as Wadazumi Doso who in fact declined an offer to
become the head master of a shakuhachi temple, represent the spirit of self-development
and liberation gained from the shakuhachi training. Watazumi's development of his own
pieces based on honkyoku (called, dokyoku) has had a tremendous significance for the
appropriation of the shakuhachi by Westerners. Indeed, many shakuhachi practitioners in
North America study under the teachers in Wadazumi’s lineage who are major members of
international shakuhachi events.
Keister also reflects on the increasing popularity of jinashi shakuhachi, or hochiku,
in North America. Hochiku tends to lack the standardized tuning of conventional
shakuhachi because it is just a piece of bamboo with least modification. On the one hand,
this feature renders the instrument unsuitable for playing an ensemble and limits the
instrument to a solo performance of honkyoku. On the other hand, it displays a wide degree
of differences in terms of performance, sound, and intonation. “With less standardization
and a greater degree of variation from flute to flute, the unique quality of one's own
hochiku becomes desirable for the individual practice of ‘one's own honkyoku’” (p. 111).
Several voices of shakuhachi players are introduced in Keister’s paper: According to
Alcvin Ramos who is a shakuhachi player and teacher in Vancouver, "rawer is better."
Riley Lee, an Australian shakuhachi player, thinks finding a good quality instrument is not
an issue when playing a hochiku. “I think developing one's body (especially the
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embouchure) in relation to the instrument is most important in hochiku (p. 111). These
players challenges conventional notions of a quality musical instrument, raising a debate
between musical and spiritual values of the instrument.
In relation to the pedagogy of Japanese music transmission, Keister features one
American shakuhachi player, Michael Chikuzen Gould, whose orientation to teaching—
what he calls natural shakuhachi—is language-oriented. Unlike his shakuhachi teachers
who are known for their Buddhist approaches but maintain the non-verbal approach of
traditional Japanese methods, Gould takes an explicitly verbalized, Zen-inspired framework
to attend each aspect of sound, the self, and the existence in the world.
The above review on Japanese music practiced in foreign and global contexts
suggest that researchers need to look at the issues of authenticity, credibility, and agency of
performance (Slobin, 1992; Trimillos, 2004) as well as those of the performer’s identity
formation and the conflict of multiple epistemologies.
Perhaps, another important aspect—a thread underlying the body of research in
cultural ethnography and critical anthropology—is a market force. Keister (2004) observes,
for example, many professional musicians practicing the shakuhachi find themselves
compelled to promote themselves as teachers of Zen and alter their own methods to satisfy
the needs of the spiritual marketplace. In fact, many people in the West become interested
in the shakuhachi with its association to Zen. Emphasizing the Zen aspect of shakuhachi
music is one of the ways for professional shakuhachi players in the West to make a living.
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However, promoting the shakuhachi as a Zen instrument is part of a bigger picture:
Many forms of world sacred traditions, including yoga and the Zen, are now viewed as
promoting commodification of life in the consumer-driven society. Authors of $elling
Spirituality Jeremy Carrette and Richard King see the rise of “spirituality” in the market as
a means of colonizing and commodifying Asian wisdom traditions and as simplifying
“diverse cultural traditions, practices and communities in terms of an increasingly
homogenized, sanitized and socially pacifying conception of spirituality” (p. x). They
observe that Asian wisdom traditions are idealized and consumed so long as they satisfy
and promote the western image of an autonomous self and self-serving individual. Carrette
and King argue that, in Buddhist thought, the idea of an autonomous individual self is
precisely the problem to be overcome in order to deconstruct the fixed boundaries of the
individual self. The kind of hardship and transformation inherent to the training of each
tradition is ignored in favor of promoting a positive, healthy self-image. Aesthetics takes
over spirituality. The same probably goes for music: Sacred music is transformed to the
kind of concert hall music that is decontexualized from its cultural practice (Bohlman,
1997; Shannon, 2003). The expectation toward exotic yet nicely sounding foreign music
has created a market of world music with productions and consumptions of numerous CDs.
Steven Feld (2000) observes that “the promise of world music lies in its diversity; however,
it is suspended in the spectre of one world music” (p. 181). World music in school can be
seen in the same line: Despites its coverage of world regions, actual materials of world
music education sounds almost the same (Nettle, 2005). It may be important for the researcher
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to be aware of this bigger picture of consumer-driven society in which shakuhachi players
in the West are situated.
Finally, an issue implicitly discussed in the literature is that of essentialism. Izumi
(2001b) criticizes the essentialist approach to cultural representation that posits there is an
authentic, homogenous form of cultural expression. On the one hand, this attitude is
reinforced by colonizers who hope to preserve and restore the culture in a way that they see
as most desirable (Yamashita & Yamamoto, 1997). The essentialist attitude thus
perpetuates reductionist assumptions of authenticity, purity, and traditionalism that often
shape an external gaze upon the native people. Trimillos (2004) describes in his article that
people with an essentialist mind were surprised to find an indigenous musician (in this case,
a Burmese saingwaing drum circle teacher) was good at both traditional style music
performance and popular music with computer-assisted technology. Not only foreign
practitioners but also cultural bearers do contribute to the formation of essentialism through
orientalizing themselves. Self-orientalization (and self-exoticization) is an attitude of native
people who make themselves into, or see themselves as, the objects of Western desires and
imagination (e.g. Tobin, 1992). This leads to a formation of essentialism among the
audience of non-native people. The literature suggests that researchers needs to be critical
of their positioning as they themselves may represent or perpetuate one-sided views of
culture, such as culture as steady, culture as pure and monolithic, and culture as foreign and
other.
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METHODOLOGY
The type of epistemological standpoint I take in this work is a phenomenological
and constructionist position that places great emphasis on people’s lived experiences as
central to the knowledge validation process (van Manen, 1990; Denzin, 2002). Informants’
subjective experiences are analyzed and interpreted through qualitative research methods
that subscribe to multiple realities and “ethic of caring” as a necessary condition for valid
knowledge claim (Collins, 1991; Stake, 1995). Gained data will reveal what it means to
practice the shakuhachi to each individual as well as to the current scene of education.
In this work, I also subscribe to the position that indigenous knowledge scholars
take (Dei, Hall, & Rosenberg, 2000; Semali & Kincheloe, 1999; Regan, 2005). The
indigenous knowledge framework supports local knowledge production and diverse ways
of knowledge evaluation, while questioning the domination of certain knowledge that may
bring about a misrepresentation and misrecognition of others (Dei, Hall, & Rosenberg,
2000). Indigenous knowledge is rooted in people’s everyday lives in a particular location,
history, and culture. A major feature of indigenous knowledge is thus its holistic character
(Gray, 1999). The indigenous knowledge framework celebrates differences—different
ontological and epistemological assumptions of music—beyond the level of differences in
form and style of music, and promotes the coexistence of diverse modes of thinking about
music in the field of education. Investigating the world of naturalistic shakuhachi playing
and making through the indigenous knowledge framework is to engage in the process of
decolonizing and deconstructing the canon of music in education through the accounts of
musicians-educators whose experiences are marginalized in education.
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The premise underlying this investigation is that, although native traditions are
diverse in nature and they normally do not serve as a monolithic epistemological concept, it
may be possible to identify sharable features penetrating native expressions and practices of
the arts (Dissanayake, 2000; Leuthold, 1998). This attitude may be justified when we
attempt to draw on critical contributions of such sharable features to our thinking about
education. Semali and Kincheloe (1999) suggest that “indigenous knowledge deserves
analysis on a global level with particular attention to epistemological patterns [italics
added] that emerge in a variety of cultural contexts” (p. 24). Such an attempt will help each
effort of questioning our taken-for-granted assumptions about music and anthropocentric
pedagogy. This work is part of a broader effort to seek an alternative pedagogy that
embraces and introduce indigenous practices of music into the field of education.22
Informants and Data Generation
Case selection is based on what Flick (1998) calls “gradual selection as a general
principle” that selects cases or case groups “according to concrete criteria concerning their
content instead of using abstract methodological criteria” (p. 68). According to this
principle, sampling proceeds according to the relevance of cases (to my inquiry) instead of
their representativeness (to the population).
In the initial search, I identified two groups of shakuhachi practitioners in Tokyo
(Japan) and Vancouver (Canada). Among many active shakuhachi players in the world, I
located these two cases for several reasons. First, the shakuhachi practitioners in the two
cases are involved in instrument making and bamboo harvesting. They organize workshops
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for instrument making and make tours for bamboo harvesting every year. Second, they use
the jinashi shakuhachi. This type is traditionally made out of a single piece of bamboo with
minimal artificial modification in order to maximize the character that the individual
bamboo segment naturally bears. Unlike modern shakuhachi instruments that come apart
into two pieces in the middle, the traditional ones are one-piece flutes. Whereas the modern
type of the shakuhachi is made with a filling material, called ji, put inside the bamboo
segment in order to control the diameter of the inner bore of the bamboo and thus to
produce tuned pitches, such process is not identified with the traditional shakuhachi. 23 Thus,
the traditional ones are called jinashi, literally meaning “no ji” or “without ji” as opposed to
jiari, or “with ji.”24 Differences are identified not only in terms of methods of making but
philosophies regarding the extent to which nature should is controlled.25 Finally, the
experience through jinashi making and playing is expected to be organic: Since the
instrument is much less processed and resembles closely to its natural state, the
practitioners can incorporate nature into their experience of music.
In each group, there are at least five active members in addition to fringe members.
My preliminary investigation in the two cities this summer (three weeks of fieldwork in
each site) led me to an understanding that the practitioners tend to develop a strong sense of
belongingness, not only to the tradition and lineage of shakuhachi teachers, but also to the
lands wherein their organic processes revolve. Every winter they travel to specific locations
to harvest bamboo. For example, this November the practitioners in Vancouver will make a
five-week trip to four sites across Japan for the purpose of bamboo harvesting, in addition
to Kyoto and Tokyo for shakuhachi lessons. They see it as part of their sacred journey as
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the name of their trip “Bamboo Roots Pilgrimage” suggests. Participating in the voyage is
essential to their identity formation as shakuhachi practitioners. As a researcher and
translator I will be in an excellent position to join their entire trip and observe closely their
experiences of harvesting bamboo, taking lessons with shakuhachi teachers, and
constructing a sense of rootedness in the lands of Japan. The extended engagement with
and intensive exposure to their everyday activities, followed by in-depth interviews, will
provide me with rich data as to what it means to practice the shakuhachi in an ecologically
sensitive way.
Similarly, I will conduct a case study with a group of Japanese shakuhachi
practitioners in Tokyo. Tokyo is a highly modernized city, probably more so than other big
cities in the world, given the affluence of material goods, technological advances, the rapid
pace of changes, and the dehumanizing environment. It would naturally make sense if the
shakuhachi is practiced ecologically in old villages or environmentally rich places where
people live close to nature. But Tokyo is never the case. Selecting a case in Tokyo is the
result of my thought of the least desirable environment for ecologically-sensitive musical
activities.
Selecting a case in Tokyo was no less difficult than spotting a case outside of Japan.
First, there are many different types of shakuhachi players and practitioners in Tokyo
whose approaches and orientations to music are diverse and dynamically different from one
another. My eyes were placed upon the type of players who are more into the spiritual than
the musical. These people are not as prominent and famous as other types of players whose
orientation to the shakuhachi is highly musical. Based on my initial visit to Tokyo, I found
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two vibrant shakuhachi players-teachers. These people plus their students and colleagues
may consist of my case(s) in Tokyo.
With each case I will be spending three months in order to explore the research
questions. In addition to participatory observations and individual interview sessions, I will
organize focused-group interview sessions among the members as an important source of
data.
It became clear that there are more people in the world who are engaged in organic
activities through the jinashi shakuhachi. As far as I observed, about 10 people are actively
promoting organic activities in such countries as Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany,
Denmark, and the United States. Also, there are a number of jinashi practitioners and
makers in Japan. Rather than excluding these people, I include them in my research and
incorporate their insights into my data analysis. I may ask them to join email conversations
and phone interviews. Some have already contacted me through email as they came to
know about my research interests. The number of this type of informants will probably
exceed twenty.
Once I finish the fieldwork, I will share emergent issues with shakuhachi players
through email discussion lists and attempt to facilitate their discussions among them. This
may bring an opportunity for further interpretation and enrichment of data. The purpose of
doing this is not to seek a monolithic, convergent understanding of the shakuhachi practice,
as the sounding of “triangulation” implies, but to draw on a diverse view of the practice.
The result will be what social scientists call “bricolage” or “montage” in which the inquirer
assembles diverse images into the text (Denzin, 2001; Wolcott, 1995).
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More About Data Sources
Main data sources are interviews and participatory observations, as explained
earlier.26 Participatory observation is not merely a passive observation but involves active
participation in the practice of music. In this work, it signifies joining shakuhachi practices
and activities. This stance distinguishes ethno-musicological inquiry, or arts-based research
to use a recent term in social science, from disembodied, "sight-based" research. The
underlying belief is that we may be able to understand other people's experience (of music)
only when we experience the event through our bodies. In ethnomusicology, understanding
through performance has been central to ethnomusicologists’ data analysis at least since the
time of Mantle Hood and Charles Seeger who promoted not only “speech knowledge” of
music but also performance-based “music knowledge” (Hood, 1971).
Social science scholars have also explored other people’s (sometimes their own)
cultural values in a more engaged way—not in the sense of researcher-participant
relationship but in terms of embodied, corporeal relationship with the researched. By
reviewing Lincoln and Guba (1985) position of naturalistic inquiry, Carspecken (1999)
questions the sight-based orientation to fieldwork and claims the role of the body is missing.
In fact, the body as a research method as well as a research site was not highlighted in the
early development of qualitative inquiry in education (such as Educational
Connoisseurship). However, the issue is now widely discussed by many scholars in
education (Powell, 2003; Bresler, 2006). Bersler (2006), for example, argues that narrative
is multi-sensory and connection-oriented, like musical communication, and that embodied
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narrative inquiry as a methodological field is a way to highlight processes and spaces in
which people achieve empathetic understanding of lived experience. Researchers bring
their verbal, non-verbal, visual, temporal, visceral, multi-sensory sensitivities in the process
of communicating research.
The body as a methodological tool is particularly important when investigating
Japanese music as explained by the theory of kata (form) earlier. Kata is the philosophical
principle of embodied learning that underpins artistry transmission. Japanese arts have been
preserved and transmitted through kata through which students learn structures of art,
patterns of artistic and social behaviors, and moral and ethical values. In kata learning,
verbal instructions and conceptual understanding are intentionally avoided as they may
distract a whole-body grasp of artistry (Hare, 1998; Keister, 2005). Traditionally, the nature
of artistry of the shakuhachi has been transmitted through a repetition of practice and an
imitation of model. The researcher needs to be prepared to understand its bodily orientation
to knowledge. This becomes highly important when knowledge is not verbalized and
explained explicitly. Researcher’s subjective experience often serves as a source of data
and a site of analysis and interpretation.
The Researcher
Anthropologists distinguish between the insider (or emic) and the outsider (or etic)
perspectives as a means of generating and interpreting data. Employing both insider’s and
outsider’s perspectives, the researcher engages in the “process of unfamiliar familiar or
making familiar unfamiliar,” as is often said. However, the concept of insider and outsider
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and their relationship are becoming complex, especially for people in urban cultures who
belong to multiple communities (including those in cyberspace), travel beyond the
boundaries of traditional societies, and possess more than one type of music that they
identify themselves with. What cultures do scholars qualify as insiders? Nettl (2005)
reflects, “In our earlier history, the emphasis was almost inevitably placed on the
strangeness of the host culture, while more recently, the ethnomusicologists who have been
working “at home” emphasize the points of identity” (p. 187).
The field of my research is in some sense my own culture (Japan) and a foreign
culture (Vancouver). However, my identity horizon as a musician-researcher-educator is
more complex than how it is assumed on my nationality. I am both an insider and an
outsider to the Japanese music community. Musically, I am trained in both musical
systems; namely, Western classical music and traditional Japanese music. The shakuhachi
has been my instrument for 10 years since I started learning and belonging to one of the
oldest shakuhachi traditions based in Kyoto (called, myoan ryu taizan ha). Both kinds of
music are but two of several that are important to me. My backgrounds in both Japanese
and Western music enable me to create a liminal space in which tensions between my
Japanese and Western selves are constantly negotiated, contested, and recreated, to analyze
and interpret data. This study is in some sense auto-ethnography in that it reveals and
questions my own values shared by others. Investigating my experience itself becomes a
site of investigation and provides perspectives for intercultural dialogues.
It is thus important to be aware of any preconception that would affect my analysis
and interpretation of data. Although it may be impossible to raise all the biases and
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67
prejudices I may have, being aware of and highlighting my own values that guide and
condition the process of my thinking makes a significant difference when conducting a
study like this in which researcher’s subjective experience plays an important role.
Given an array of information about overly individualized Zen and
(mis)appropriated forms of Asian spiritual traditions from the literature, I was extra
cautious about how the shakuhachi is appropriated and approached in the West. Coming
from the oldest tradition, I already possessed some kind of tension between traditionalism
and modernism in the current approaches to the shakuhachi. My mother practices the
modern tradition (tozan ryu) in which people learn a repertoire of highly Westernized,
modern pieces through Western music theory. Whenever a negative impression about the
modern tradition arises inside me, I tried to remind myself of what my shakuhachi teacher
once said to me, “Speaking ill of other traditions is a way to give credit to your own
tradition.” Indeed. not only myself but also other people whose shakuhachi training
maintains the old style tend to share a similar feeling, even though the number of these
people is quite small (perhaps, less than 5 percent of the whole population of shakuhachi
practitioners). My American friend who studied with me back in Japan in the same, old
tradition was feeling the same tension: We were not ready to face modernization,
westernization, globalization, internationalization, and any sort of forces swallowing our
old tradition.
With this mindset, I was curious to observe how people in Vancouver and from
across North America would approach the Japanese tradition. To what extent, for example,
are they free from the essentialist mindset? As described earlier, the essentialist attitude is
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an external gaze to look at a native culture and to perpetuate their views of culture as pure,
authentic, and unchanging. Fortunately, my actual encounter with North American
practitioners gave me an impression that my concern was not an issue. They are quite
serious, often more so than Japanese learners,27 finding Japanese music as part of their
identity. Their approach to music is syncretic, meaning they try to learn as many different
aspects of shakuhachi history and traditions as possible in a flexible manner beyond the
boundaries of conservative schools. Although they may not be Japanese experts, their
understandings of the shakuhachi and of other aspects of the culture are not homogenous
but go beyond the level and the scope of what Japan House at the University of Illinois
hopes to preach to American people though a monolithic, purified lens.
This realization makes me aware of the discussion on nihonjin-ron,
“discussions/theories of Japanese uniqueness.” It is a cultural discourse that focuses on the
peculiarities and distinctiveness of Japan and its people from all perspectives (Befu, 1993).
The discussions are driven, in part, by the desire of the Japanese to identify their national
“Self” in relation to the essentialized and ideologized image of the West.28 Books on
nihonjin-ron and those celebrating unique characteristics of “anything Japanese” (including
physical traits of the Japanese) tend to sell well in Japan, satisfying the expectation of
general public who want to believe the country is unique, unlike other nations, with its
unique language (Haga, 2004), aesthetics (Takashina, 1986), philosophy (Sakai, 2005),
sensitivity (Minami, 1980), way of brain functioning (Tsunoda, 1978), and more.29
Nihonjin-ron thinking, on the one hand, champions the uniqueness of Japanese culture and
mentality. On the other hand, it leaves an image that Japanese culture is very unique so
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much so that it cannot be understood easily by outsiders and outsiders can never get the
essence of the culture. It is almost as if Japanese are born with special qualities of thinking,
dexterity, sensitivity, and aesthetics.
I may have been steeped in the discourse of nihonjin-ron as my writing may have
suggested in one of my publications (Matsunobu, 2007). With this critical perspective, I
now see two directions of discussions on Japanese music: One is to emphasize
epistemological differences of music and emphasize (or at least to suggest) the
incompatibility of Japanese and other music (e.g. Imada, 2003; Kikkawa, 1979, 1984). The
other one is to seek shared realms of cultures, assuming culture is flexible and able to
incorporate aspects from other cultures. I think the latter position is the ground I should
stand on in this study, for North Americans’ learning experiences through the shakuhachi
are intercultural, which cannot be captured and understood through the essentialist
framework. At the end of the essay that I wrote, I concluded the discussion with the
following statement: “Rather than merely highlighting exclusive aspects of the East and the
West, future ventures should start with the recognition that there has already been a
foundation in the West as well as the East on which the aesthetics of a single sound, noise,
and cosmology, can be explored” (Matsunobu, 2007). I should keep reminding myself of
this axiom in the field.30
Getting into the Field (A Report from the Field)
For researchers conducting field research, getting to know the field is one of the
most difficult tasks. Finding gatekeepers, informants, establishing a rapport with the
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members, and balancing between the outsider’s and insider’s roles are some of the
difficulties.31 Nettl (2005) illustrates his “Come Back Next Tuesday” experience with a
native musician who wanted to avoid the intrusion of the researcher into his life and tested
if the researcher was serious (enough to come back to him next Tuesday).
Although my research field is not a sheer foreign culture to me (where I do not
understand the language, music, and people at all), still the initial stage of getting into the
field is exciting yet worrisome. No email response from my participants often brought me
about complex emotions of anxiety and uncertainty. Despite some small problems, my
encounter with my informants was smooth from the researcher’s perspective. In Vancouver,
I was gratefully welcomed by the members as a guest who came all the way from
Illinois/Japan with a spirit of comradeship. For my first visit to Vancouver, I attended a
two-day long workshop on hochiku (or jinashi, naturalistic shakuhachi) making in June,
2007. A total of ten participants came from not only the Vancouver area but also Seattle
and New York to work with a professional shakuhachi maker invited from Japan. Seven of
the participants including myself stayed in a Zen monastery over two nights where all the
guests were required to participate in a two-hour meditation session every morning and
evening. Although the host of the workshop who is an American professional shakuhachi
player has many years of experience of living in Japan and thus speaks Japanese well, he
was in need of someone who could serve the participants as a translator because he was too
busy taking care of many other things (preparing foods, tackling with unexpected raining,
etc.). I was in the right position. Because of my role as a translator, the guest teacher and
participants kept staying around me because they needed my translation. Not only did I
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receive professional level knowledge about shakuhachi instrument making more than other
people, but also I gained a deep trust from the participants: The guest teacher invited me to
his house in Japan (I actually visited this summer, and we joined together the annual
festival of International Shakuhachi Training Center). One of the participants invited me to
his apartment in Seattle where I eventually visited two months later (after I visited
Vancouver again).
This mutual trust, strengthened further by my second trip to Vancouver in July,
brought me an opportunity to “lead” and organize their annual trip to Japan for harvesting
bamboo and visiting sacred places. My position as a cultural bearer, translator, and tour
guide, put me in a position to keep frequent communications with the members not only
about the trip but also other things including their musical preferences and daily concerns.
For example, we are in the process of deciding what kind of pieces they (or we) want to
work on and learn from the Japanese shakuhachi teachers we are going to visit during the
trip, which reveals their musical backgrounds and orientations to the shakuhachi practice.
Deciding the schedule for the five-week trip to Japan involves a complicated task for
anyone who works full time. Understanding their schedules is to get a sense of their life
situations. Particularly interesting is to know their cultural preferences: They are hoping to
experience tofu making, hot spring, noh and bunraku appreciations, tea ceremony, tea
shopping, visiting temples and shrines, and more, besides bamboo harvesting. With these
opportunities, my position taking as a researcher is that of cultural translator who lives in
North American and speaks their language.
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In Japan, I met many shakuhachi players and some shakuhachi makers, professional
and amateurs, senior and young, in multiple places. I joined weekly activities of a group of
young shakuhachi players/makers in Tokyo (young means under forty in the Japanese
shakuhachi circles). One day we performed the shakuhachi in an open space close to a
station, one of the busiest stations in Japan, for two hours while the temperature was close
to 100 F. Not at the first time but the second time I joined their practice and public
performance, I was taken to their usual place for drinking. This probably means I was
acknowledged by the members as a trustworthy person.
One thing I noticed throughout my trip was that there are many different opinions
among shakuhachi players, and they are often exclusive in nature from one another. Unlike
North American practitioners who are positive about learning multiple traditions from
different teachers, Japanese people tend to stay within the boundaries of their schools (ryu)
and stick to their own lineages. Even among jinashi, naturalistic shakuhachi practitioners
and makers, there is a wide range of differences in terms of musical preference (over pitch,
tone, shape) and philosophies (the level of nature to be controlled). Tension may be one
characteristics of shakuhachi communities in Japan. While conducting initial research and
interviews in Japan, I needed to be careful not to offend people in each group by
challenging their own philosophies and approaches from a perspective of others. I tried not
to speak up my own belief and approach to the shakuhachi, either, until a mutual trust was
established (Exceptions were when I talked to the people in my own lineage). In contrast, I
could express my standpoint as a researcher and my orientation to the shakuhachi tradition
much freer in Vancouver where a syncretism of different traditions and multiple musical
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73
styles is naturally observed and thus opposing views are positively considered. Interestingly,
I found a Japanese shakuhachi player/teacher residing in Vancouver for many years, one of
my informants in Vancouver, kept reminding me that he has been in good relationship with
other shakuhachi players in Vancouver. Clearly, he was implying that my talking with him
would not offend other people and risk my positive relationship with them. It seemed
building a healthy relationship is the basic condition and the most important element for
getting into a Japanese music community.
I also noticed that conducting research “at home” generates different kinds of
tensions that are not fully discussed in the literature. Normally, reflections on fieldwork
experiences are written by cultural outsiders who are less familiar (at least when they
started research) with the customs that govern social interactions in the culture. This is the
case for the edited volume, Dong Fieldwork in Japan, with no article written by a native
anthropologist. Authors of twenty essays discuss a variety of issues that they have faced in
Japan, including “white privilege,” women’s self-effacement and subordination to men, and
gaining access to restrictive institutional spaces. Accounts of Japanese descent American
researchers reveal that native Japanese expected them, because of their Japanese looking
appearances, to behave fully in the Japanese manner, even though the culture and language
were no less foreign to these scholars than they were to white American researchers. In the
same way, native Japanese expect a native Japanese researcher to naturally understand their
intentions without much explanation, while enforcing their own social customs that they
would not apply to non-Japanese foreigners. Typically, Japanese social customs seem in the
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eyes of cultural outsiders to be oppressive, impenetrable, and ruled more by form than
content (Keister, 2004), and I found this is equally so to cultural insiders.
I was actually vulnerable in the field, especially when I was meeting and
investigating different traditions. This August I attended the 20th anniversary of the
Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan (International Shakuhachi Training Center) in Japan, a
three-day event that featured public lectures, honkyoku (classic music) lessons, workshop
on plastic shakuhachi making, and public performances of individual players (12 nonJapanese and 3 Japanese) and ensembles in which all the participants joined. Although most
of the participants knew each other through their lineages, I hardly knew any people except
some non-Japanese players and the shakuhachi maker whom I met in Vancouver. I was
greatly intimidated by the reality that I was hardly able to play their music, the repertoire
compiled by Wadazumi Doso and transmitted by Katsuya Yokoyama. I was nobody there.
(Perhaps, I could claim my positionality as an outsider), and I was simply looked down by
other participants as a beginning learner. (Of course, that was okay. I was not ready to face
that).
This group represents the shakuhachi outside of Japan, and their presence in the
international scene is quite strong (so much so that other traditions are almost non-existent
under their shade). They are close to serving as gatekeepers for non-Japanese who hope to
gain credential as shakuhachi players. Indeed, most of non-Japanese players have
experiences of learning from Yokoyama and his students. This international visibility is
partly brought by their more musical orientation to the shakuhachi than spiritual. One
teacher said to me, “Our music is more developed and more advanced compared to the
Artful Encounters with Nature
75
music of other traditions.” In fact, they are very good both technically and musically. I was
like a person who just got out of a village and encountered an identity crisis in a big city.
At the same time, I found it liberating to go beyond the boundaries of lineage-based
traditions and meet many people from different traditions. Being a researcher enabled me to
talk and interview with the kind of people whom I would not have had any opportunity to
meet with in my life. In fact, it has been my own education to conduct this research. “Doing
research is a form of self-cultivation,” said a Professor of Education and Hermeneutics at
University of Illinois. He meant that the researcher may experience a repetition of
reframing his or her thinking in hermeneutic circle. If it were not on October 6th 2007 but,
say, five years ago when I came across Brian Ritchie’s Jazz shakuhachi performance on
Krannert Performing Center Stage 5, I would not have appreciated it as much as I actually
did because of my narrow perspective about the shakuhachi at that time.
Perhaps, the internationalization of the shakuhachi is an emergent context
surrounding many shakuhachi people. It creates a space for inter-traditional and intercultural conversations. One shakuhachi player who attended the semiannual international
shakuhachi festival in New York remarked that he could meet people from different
traditions whom he would never have expected to see in Japan.32 Another professional
shakuhachi player said, “When I started the shakuhachi thirty years ago, I never thought
that I would end up learning English.” I am also part of this process of internalization of the
shakuhachi. Engaging in this process gives me an opportunity to learn what people are
trying to achieve and how people would react to internationalization. Joining the trip this
Artful Encounters with Nature
November with the Canadian group will give me further opportunity to observe and
understand the above-mentioned issues closely.33
76
Artful Encounters with Nature
77
Notes
1
What is unique about the shakuhachi is its international popularity. Like the Indian tabla
and African djembe (Polak, 2000), the shakuhachi is broadly practiced and appreciated
outside of Japan by non-native people. The semi-annual international shakuhachi festival
has seen an increasing number of attendants from many countries (as of 1998, participants
of World Shakuhachi Festival are numbered over 300. In 2008 the number is expected to
exceed 500). This phenomenon was typically observed, for example, at the seminar on
Japanese music held at SOAS at University of London in 2006: Whereas most of the
invited koto and shamisen players were Japanese, more than half of the invited shakuhachi
players were non-Japanese from North America and Europe. Indeed, there are a number of
shakuhachi players who are not Japanese but highly acknowledged both inside and outside
of Japan.
2
Not everyone makes the instrument by him- or her-self. Nor does everyone approach the
shakuhachi in the same way—some consider a great deal of musical/aesthetic aspect of
shakuhachi practice over the organic, holistic, and ecological aspects.
3
For these reasons, many scholars have looked to religions, traditions, and old values of
native societies—prior to the impact of Western modernization—and their ecological ways
of life in formulating an ecological worldview. The emerging ecological worldview
celebrates the relational positioning of human lives in the ecosystem and the ontological
indifference of all beings (Lovelock, 1987; Riley-Taylor, 2002). This worldview posits that
human activities, including music making, are not set apart in any way from the processes
of nature (Capra, 2005).
Denyer (1994) goes so far as to say that “modern industrialised societies are far from
being inherently pluralist. On the contrary, they exert powerful pressures that neutralise
most serious pluralist tendencies” (p. 47).
4
5
The dualistic view of art as opposed to nature is overcome by anthropologists who are
familiar with indigenous cosmologies. Nature is broadly seen as culturally and socially
construed and defined (Ellen, 1996; LaFargue, 2001). Nature is not “out there” but
experienced in the same way culture is constructed and experienced. The relationship
between culture and nature shifts and merges. Sometimes the distinction may seem wholly
irrelevant. Thus, to be either anthropocentric or cosmo-centric is often to truncate the
interconnectedness among the divine, the human, and the natural.
6
Implications and contributions of Zeami’s philosophy and aesthetics to music education
are articulated in Palmer (1994).
Artful Encounters with Nature
7
78
See the note 10 below.
8
From a more philosophical perspective, Bateson (1972) and Capra (1996, 2005) suggest
that human mind activities are connective to the ecological patterns of a large system and
thus situated in, interrelated to, and dependent on the environment. For this reason, Capra
(2005) argues that the basic principles of teaching and learning need to be congruent with
the characteristics of ecosystems such as interdependence, sustainability, ecological cycles,
energy flows, partnerships, flexibility, diversity, and co-evolution.
9
There are other attempts to promote instrument making in education. But these tend to
take the same stance as Coleman. Also, the targeted audience of these attempts tends to be
“juvenile audience.” Examples may be Apsley (2000) and Turner and Schiff (1994).
10
Miller’s criticism on Dewey may apply only for half of Dewey’s argument. Miller seems
to have ignored spiritual, ecological, holistic aspects of Dewey’s argument observed in
Art as Experience (1934) and instead relied solely on Dewey’s early work, such as
Democracy and Education (1916), which focuses the significance of scientific approach in
education.
11
Ichion-jobutsu is a characteristic Buddhist feeling. This sensitivity is made possible by
the Buddhist belief that the sound of instruments is “to embody the sound of spiritual
enlightenment itself” (Asai, 1997, p. 63). However, the idea of ichion-jobutsu itself does
not solely pertain to Buddhism, for it is also rooted in Japanese sensibility (Takemitsu,
1995). It is not uncommon, as Shimosako (2002) explains, for Japanese people to listen
attentively to the tone of a big bronze gong suspended in a temple: “They first enjoy the
unique timbre of a single sound and then enjoy ma, the ‘space’ created after it” (p. 551).
When engaged in this moment, they unconsciously practice the aesthetics of a single sound.
12
In contrast to our typical notion of creativity that refers to mental processes that lead to
solutions, ideas, conceptualizations, artistic forms, theories, or products that are unique and
novel (Reber, 1985), Japanese and Asian aesthetics suggest that creativity is non-purposeful
and is geared toward creating space for self-cultivation via the achievement of an
enlightened perception (Kuo, 1996).
13
Hay and Nye (1998) draw on the concept of tuning used by Alfred Schutz, who
“understands tuning as the kind of awareness which arises in heightened aesthetic
experience—for example, when listening to music” (p. 62). Listening deeply to music
involves a direct inner time shared by the composer and the listener, which is distinguished
from hearing someone talking. Hay and Nye believe that heightened aesthetic experience
involves tuning that is similar to spiritual awareness.
Artful Encounters with Nature
79
The notion of ki may be similar to the notion of the Gaia hypothesis that posits “the
biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by
controlling the chemical and physical environment” (Lovelock, 1987, p. xii). Lovelock
further describes Gaia as “a complex entity involving the Earth’s biosphere, atmosphere,
oceans, and soil: the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an
optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet” (p. 11). He actually
posits the existence of a collective living entity in which human beings and all living things
participate.
14
15
The Japanese experience of ki, explained by Ichikawa (2001), is shinshin ichinyo,
meaning that the mind and body are integrated into the whole existence of the human being.
“As ki, the material force, is divided into the body, it takes on subjectivity and becomes the
mind” (p. 22). Hence, it represents “a state of total mind-body awareness” (Cox, 2003, p.
90) and constitutes an essential part of the Japanese self (Rosenberger, 1992; Yuasa,
Nagatomo, & Hull, 1993).
Takemitsu is generally regarded as Japan’s most important contemporary composer.
Takemitsu first studied Western classical music and later turned to Japanese music. Hence,
his works crystallize Eastern sensitivity as well as Western traditions.
16
17
Details of this story are reported in Takemitsu (2000).
18
Musically speaking, the moment of serene silence is highlighted by the concept of ma,
the time between events—often a silence between phrases—in which a moment of hereand-now is brought about, a sense of focus and flow is renewed, and a breath in the middle
of artful space is taken. “Ma describes neither space nor time, but the tension in the silence
and in the space surrounding sounds and objects” (Galliano, 2002, p. 14).
19
The distinction between native and indigenous is ambiguous and complex (Kuwayama,
2004). Currently, indigenous tends to refer to people of minority in their own homeland
especially in developing countries, who have suffered oppression in the context of colonial
conquest. But the earlier meaning of the term, a more general one, is native to a place
(Leuthold, 1998). In this work, native is also used as indigenous because of its inclusive
meaning as original, local, and situated in a particular place. Native traditions of music thus
mean aesthetic practices that express place attachment and local knowledge.
20
A video clip of the last year performance of Yosakoi Soran is posted on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg0jQGFftGc
Artful Encounters with Nature
80
The following statement included in Powell’s (2003) interview with a San Jose Taiko
player is similar to a story that I have heard from a shakuhachi player in Japan. “[Taiko] has
it’s [sic] own spirit, and we bring out that spirit, with our attitude and technique. It’s not just
an instrument. You, too, are the instrument. We, together (she circles between the drum and
herself), are taiko.” (p. 289)
21
22
Thus, throughout this paper, I deliberately avoid using the terms multicultural education
or world music education in fear of perpetuating Western perspectives of music and its
cultural hegemony. The European value system enjoys its supremacy over indigenous, local
cosmologies, not only in the West but also in non-Western countries such as Japan.
23
The modern type of shakuhachi is commonly used today, much more than the traditional
type, for both spiritual and entertainment purposes. However, the popularity of the
traditional type of the shakuhachi is increasing in the West (Keister, 2004).
24
Other names of jinashi are kyotaku and hochiku.
American shakuhachi maker, Tom Deaver, says, “Shakuhachi is shakuhachi. Hochiku
[jinashi] is hochiku” to mean they are different instruments embodying different
philosophies and approaches to nature
( http://communication.ucsd.edu/shaku/hochiku_shaku.html).
25
26
I depend my understanding of active interview on Holstein and Gubrium (2002) who
suggest that interview is active, collaborative, and creative, which requires the researcher to
be an active participation in the interview process. “Meaning is not merely elicited by apt
questioning… but it is actively and communicatively assembled in the interview encounter.
Respondents are not so much repositories of knowledge…as they are constructors of
knowledge in collaboration with interviewers” (p. 113).
27
My statement is echoed by a Japanese shakuhachi player and teacher in Vancouver who
has been impressed by Canadian learns.
28
Naoki Sakai (1997) argues that the discourse of nihonjin-ron is also supported by the
desire of Japan experts in North America who want to see Japan as exotic, ideal “Others.”
These people tend to love the discourse of Japanese uniqueness.
In the 1970’s, scientists proved the uniqueness of the Japanese language in terms of its
facilitation on a specific brain function that promotes listening to natural sounds as well as
sounds of Japanese instruments on the left hemisphere of the brain, unlike Westerners. This
phenomenon is believed to stem from the brain’s capacity inherent to Japanese speaking
29
Artful Encounters with Nature
81
native people to process and discern a wide range of vowel sounds (Tsunoda, 1978).
Leading scholar Tadanobu Tsunoda’s book was a best selling book. Today, this finding is
under severe criticism by experts, even though the myth is still widely believed.
30
Knowing this problem, I wrote another paper emphasizing the possibility of intercultural
learning (Matsunobu, in press).
31
Not only the beginning but succeeding processes may be a series of challenges and joys.
Japan expert William Kelly (2005) elaborates,
The temporal pace of fieldwork itself has frequently reminded me of the jo-ha-kyū
rhythms of nō drama—the slow and stately beginnings to find and settle into a site;
the long, fitful middle months of developing relationships and knowledge; and the
brief, frenetic ending of nonstop activity when many things suddenly and
unexpectedly come into focus. (p. 144)
In fact, the festival was aimed toward providing “a diverse program of classes…from the
top teachers and performers of all the major schools and styles: Kinko-Ryu, Tozan-Ryu,
ChikuHo-Ryu, Ueda-Ryu, Neza-Sa-Ha (Kinpu-Ryu), as well as Dokyoku, Myoan (Meian)
Style and pieces played by Jin Nyodo.”
(http://www.bigappleshak.com/bas/festivalhighlights.html)
32
33
I have to admit that there is a lack of unity throughout this argument. It is due partly to
the fact that I have conducted only a little bit of fieldwork. As Vidich and Lyman (2003)
point out, “a description of a particular method of research usually takes place as a
retrospective account, that is, a report written after the research has been completed” (p. 57).
As my research goes on, I will put more detailed, down-to-data accounts into the text.
Artful Encounters with Nature
82
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