satsumabiwa.com Blog

I often wonder at how the staff at educational institutions interact with their students. Oftentimes, I used to find it was one of looking down the length of their nose at them. However, somehow there is a slide to opposite extreme in many instances these days, I feel. Educators seem afraid to criticize, to let people know the real truth out of fear that it might not be the best thing for the student. I guess I am guilty of it to some extent, too (that is, if it is something one should feel guilty about). I think that the simple truth told in a frank manner with the best intentions of the student at heart would be a nice direction to go in. At least that is what I hope would be said to me regarding what I do or attempt to achieve.

I started working at this University (University of Creation; Art, Music & Social Work) at the end of March. It is quite a tough job with long hours and a considerable work load, but I am enjoying learning new skills expecially with relation to advertising part of the University Advertising and Promotion Team. I also look forward to making new contacts at universities abroad as I am responsible for the University Student Exchange programme with other universities around the globe.

I stay at the university lodgings which are about two minutes from a catholic church with a respectable choir organ. I practice there from 6:50am to about 8:15am most mornings. Of course, I must play at the Sunday masses to get to practice on the instrument. At the moment I working on Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue BWV 582.　This is a piece I have always wanted to play, but never had the opportunity to really sit down and challenge it. It is a very fine composition, I find and more difficult than it appears on paper. Trying to keep a sense of the whole of the piece alive when there is so much variation in the counterpuntal texture throughout, is harder than one might think.   

My teacher, Yoshinori Fumon used to often speak to me about many different aspects of biwa playing. One of these was how the smallest amount of pressure applied to the string could alter the pitch of the sounding string by a considerable amount. Of course, at the time I had only agreed and tried to keep upwith the conversation in the hope that I might be able to drag a clue or hint out of him that might make playing the biwa a little easier for me. Now three years after his death, I am starting to see aspects of the biwa that Fumon told me were impossible to explain. One of these relates to the above – the amount of pressure applied to the string. No matter how hard I tried to keep the pitch constant, it would invariably go out of tune. The sound would die away very quickly, too. Eventually, though, I came to realise that in order to keep the string sounding longer I had to alter the pitch, in a somewhat similar manner to vibrato, but considerably different in one way. I think that a lot of people, not all but a lot, would think of vibrato as variance of the pressure applied to the string. On the biwa, this is rarely the case though it does happen sometimes. Usually, this vibrato is rather like releasing and catching continuously. Catching the string makes it ring out ever so slightly once more.

I now realise that Fumon was not describing this in a negative manner. My western classical upbringing had taught me to see it as such.

I usually teach biwa eight to ten times a month in Tokyo and three times a week at the University of Creation in Takasaki. I have always enjoyed teaching. One of the most interesting aspects is how different students require completely different approaches. Another is how different students find different aspects of the biwa interesting. Thus, though they may not be able to perform a piece in tune or musically well, it can still be rewarding as a teacher to hear the fun they get out of playing.

This is the first time for me to make a blog. I hope that it proves a useful place to promote further knowledge and understanding of the satsumabiwa, and affords me a chance to get to know who might be viewing my homepage at www.satsumabiwa.com. For your information, I am a lecturer and instructor of Satsumabiwa at the University of Creation: Arts, Music & Social Work in Takasaki, Gunma, Central Japan. I am also an organist and was organ scholar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge University from 1991 to 1994.