Friday Fun: Not-so-traditional traditional music
28 May 2010 37 Comments
in Japanese Culture, Life, Music, News Tags: Celtic music, fun, Otakon, otaku, shamisen, Yoshida Brothers
Hey guys! I’m so excited about this new shamisen band find that I had to share it with you! Shamisen usually brings to mind, well, old ladies who sing through their noses…for example, the traditional singing you can hear in this video I took of traditional dancing at a geisha dinner a few months ago:
This kind of shamisen/singing combo is called 
nagauta. Nagauta literally means “long song” and originated from long poems and set pieces from kabuki plays in central and southern Japan (there’s an interesting mini-article with further reading list over at BookRags if you’re interested). While I’ve come to appreciate nagauta (through long periods of un-avoidable exposure, as it were ^^;;;) what’s really caught my attention is tsugaru-jamisen, a lesser-known style that comes from the extreme north of Japan, played by wandering blind musicians called bo-sama. Tsugaru-jamisen is much faster and played in triple-time as compared to the slower, more sedate pace of nagauta. One of the trademarks of tsugaru is the way the bachi, the plectrum, hits the body of the shamisen so strongly and so often, lending a distinct “twangy” sound to the music. Because the style of the music is so tough on the instrument, shamisen used for tsugaru songs are made of dog skin instead of the more 
delicate cat skin… ^^;;
…
…….
But let’s avoid the subject of construction materials…. the real reason I’m writing this post is to introduce the Yoshida Brothers!! I am totally in love (love!!!) with the Yoshida Brothers, who will in fact be touring the US this year, and stopping at Otakon, my favorite east coast convention in July! Sadly, I am no longer on the east coast… oh the irony! Come back to Japan soon boys!! ::cough cough:: Anyway, strangely enough I was introduced to them through my students’ second year English textbook, which features a conversation about shamisen in a city called Hirosaki. One of the characters says they are a fan of the Yoshida Brothers. I never realized they were real until my partner-teacher brought one of their DVDs to show the kids in class one day. This is the track that hooked me, it’s called “Rising”:
This is a really impressive track, but really it’s one of their least creative. They manage to mix shamisen with so many styles of music, including new-age:
Spaghetti Western:
Salsa??
And of course their more traditional pieces are just as stunning:
Anyway, hoping y’all give shamisen a go and enjoy it as much as I have! Have you been listening to any new groups recently? I’d love to hear what you’ve found! My music collection needs expanding!
~MS the Younger
PS: Found this amazing video while searching for videos for y’all, it links my two obsessions, shamisen and Celtic music! Monsters of Shamisen… strange, but very compelling…
PPS: I’m headed down to Echizen, the center of traditional paper making in Japan, this weekend. Look for fun updates about washi making!
Weekend Paragliding Adventure!
25 May 2010 2 Comments
in Japan, Life, Thoughts Tags: paragliding
This weekend 13 of my friends and I jumped off the mountain at Sky Shishiku for charity! We were raising money through JustGiving for Cambodian street kids. We ended up raising over 2200 British pounds using the website and taking donations from our friends and co-workers.
Pac-Man anniversary
23 May 2010 2 Comments
in Digital art, Life, Thoughts Tags: google doodle, Pac-Man, video game memories
Google offers a free online Pac-Man game to celebrate the game’s 30th anniversary. To play Pac-Man on the Google home page, click “Insert Coin” and when the word “Ready!” appears, use the arrow keys to control your Pac-Man. Only hurry! The interactive game is posted through Sunday May 23rd only.
Table top Pac-Man game
It’s hard to believe Pac-Man turns 30 today, and while it wasn’t my first video game (that honor goes to Pong), Pac-Man still holds a special place in my heart.
My wife and I played Pac-Man in video game arcades, on our Atari 2600 video game console, and on the table top version I gave her as a gift. And yes, both games are stored safely away in my bedroom closet. And they still work!
Care to share your video game memories with us? I recall riding my bike with my high school buddy to Long Island’s Roosevelt Field Mall to play the only Pong game in Nassau County. We poured quarters into that machine, playing for hours. At that time in the 1970s the mall had enclosed walkways connecting the stores. It was usually deserted on Saturday mornings in the summer.
Pac-Man links:
Google Celebrates Pac-Man’s 30th Birthday with an Awesome Playable Google Doodle from Geekosystem
Celebrating PAC-MAN’s 30th birthday from The Official Google Blog
Atari 2600
~MadSilence
Big money
14 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in Art, art criticism, Life, News Tags: Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns, Flag, encaustic and printed paper collage on paper laid down on canvas, Painted in 1960-1966
A Jasper Johns painting of the American flag from the estate of author Michael Crichton sold for a record $28.6 million on May 12th in New York at Christie’s International’s biggest contemporary art auction in two years.
According to Bloomberg.com:
Johns’s “Flag” was created between 1960 and 1966 with wax encaustic and newspaper. It was expected to sell for as much as $15 million. New York dealer Michael Altman, better known for such American oldies as Winslow Homer and Andrew Wyeth, said he bought it. “It’s an iconic quintessential masterpiece,” Altman said in a phone interview after the sale. He declined to say who he was bidding on behalf of. The previous Johns auction record was for “Figure 4,” an image of the numeral 4 that fetched $17.4 million at Christie’s in May 2007.
The National Gallery of Art offers interesting insights:
From his first flag paintings, Johns has relied almost exclusively on found images and motifs, such as the American flag, light bulbs, numbers, or the flagstone pattern he saw on a painted wall in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Johns has persistently re-used motifs throughout his career, a practice through which they change and can accumulate meaning and even form. He is often described as a cerebral artist whose complex paintings defy interpretation, but he has explored certain themes frequently: the relationship between perception, language, and art; the fusion of the literal and the abstract; the body; mortality; how art acquires meaning; and the very materials and processes that produce works of art.
According to PBS’ American Masters:
In the late 1950’s, Jasper Johns emerged as force in the American art scene. His richly worked paintings of maps, flags, and targets led the artistic community away from Abstract Expressionism toward a new emphasis on the concrete. Johns laid the groundwork for both Pop Art and Minimalism. Today, as his prints and paintings set record prices at auction, the meanings of his paintings, his imagery, and his changing style continue to be subjects of controversy.
Over the past fifty years Johns has created a body of rich and complex work. His rigorous attention to the themes of popular imagery and abstraction has set the standards for American art. Constantly challenging the technical possibilities of printmaking, painting and sculpture, Johns laid the groundwork for a wide range of experimental artists. Today, he remains at the forefront of American art, with work represented in nearly every major museum collection.
For me, Johns’ Flags are instantly recognizable, his artistic style difficult to label, the artist an enigma who lived during a pivotal era in the evolution of American art. He is there, for better and for worse, profiled in every survey of 20th century American art. But his place in the pantheon of great American artists is not assured. I wonder how the $29 million price tag will look twenty years from now…
~MadSilence
Pursuit of cleanliness
12 May 2010 5 Comments
in Japan, Life, Thoughts Tags: Kanazawa visit
A CBS Sunday Morning News report, Japanese Cleaning Camp, brought to mind the high level of cleanliness I experienced while visiting Japan. And no wonder if, starting at a very young age, children are taught to keep their environment neat and clean.
I was impressed to learn that Japanese students work diligently to maintain their schools: an important lesson in cleanliness and communal effort. The practice may be rooted in Buddhist traditions that associate cleaning with morality–a concept that contrasts sharply with the Western notion of cleaning as a menial task best left to the lower classes. This You Tube video seems to capture the practice well:
The emphasis on cleanliness appears to touch all aspects of daily life. In Kanazawa I witnessed shopkeepers washing the pavement in front of their shops with brush and water, twig brooms deftly wielded with consummate skill. Warm and sunny spring days yielded crops of futons and bedding sprouting on windowsills and balcony railings.
Shinto, the nature-based religion indigenous to Japan, places great emphasis on the concept of purity. Shinto shrines often provide hand-washing basins for the cleansing of hands and mouth before approaching the shrine.
The custom of removing the outdoor shoes before entering the home or school, and daily ritual of immersing in a hot bath at my ryokan in Kyoto, also speak to this emphasis upon purity.
Cleanliness is next to Godliness? For me cleanliness is just another facet to that engrossing mixture that is Japan.
10 abstract expressionists
11 May 2010 3 Comments
in Art, Life, Thoughts Tags: postage stamps, stamps, US Postal Service
Digital finger painting
05 May 2010 1 Comment
in Art, Digital art, Life, News Tags: Brushes, David Hockney, iPhone, Jorge Colombo, New Yorker cover, Photo editing, Photographic concepts
Is digital art the wave of the future? Will computer technology define the art of the 21st century? In a previous post MadSilence paid tribute to the artistic power of the mouse. Now we pay homage to the “digital” digit. Can the fingertip replace the brush and palette knife?
Artist Jorge Colombo believes it can. Colombo has taken digital art beyond the mouse, wired or not, to a place where he can “draw and see the image in the same place.” Colombo sketches covers for the New Yorker magazine on his iPhone using the Brushes application:
Brushes is a painting application designed from scratch for the iPhone and iPod touch. Featuring an advanced color picker, several realistic brushes, multiple layers, extreme zooming, and a simple yet deep interface, it is a powerful tool for creating original artwork on your mobile device. Brushes allows you to choose any color (including transparency) using the hue/saturation color wheel. With a generous level of undo and redo you never need to worry about making a mistake or backing up too far. Brushes records all of your actions when painting. These actions are stored in a .brushes file which you can download directly from your iPhone or iPod touch via Brushes’ built-in web server.
Amazing! A digital application that does what the physical brush always did for the artist. According to Colombo, “There’s something tactile about working with my fingers directly on the [canvas]. You can be just as organic and casual as you would be with a brush.” Hmmm… Seems a bit unusual to use the adjectives tactile and organic for a digital application.
The Brushes application offers the portability of watercolors without the clean up, and accessibility due to low-cost and ease of use, at least for the iPhone owner. But how does a Brushes “painting” compare with a traditional painting? Check out this video of Colombo sketching a gas station on his iPhone with Brushes.
Jorge Colombo Sketches Covers For The New Yorker On His iPhone. Image source: if it's hip, it's here.
Of course, Colombo isn’t the only artist that creates iPhone mini masterpieces. Even British artist David Hockney has added this app to his artistic repertoire.
For more information:
iPhone Artist Jorge Colombo from MyFoxNY.com
Jorge Colombo’s iPhone cityscapes (6 pictures)
~MadSilence
Recent Comments