Manuscripts of Traditional Japanese Music Notations Transcribed by Mr. ASADA Masayuki, known as Asada-fu: Digital Images Released
The Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage organizes and makes available to the public valuable materials that serve research on intangible cultural properties. Digital images of the manuscripts of traditional Japanese music notations, transcribed by Mr. ASADA Masayuki (1900-1979), have been made available for viewing at the TOBUNKEN Library.
Asada-fu is the result of Mr. ASADA’s continuous transcription of a wide variety of shamisen music genres, including melodies of voice (jōruri or uta) and shamisen accompaniment. It is estimated that more than 100 notations were privately published over a period of 23 years. Because the original manuscripts require careful handling, only the bound versions (copied and bound from the original manuscripts) were previously available to the public. However, with the completion of the digital imaging of manuscripts (Kiyomoto-bushi in FY2021 and other genres, including Icchū-bushi and Miyazono-bushi in FY2022), image data for all genres have been made available in the TOBUNKEN Library from July 2022. This allowed us to examine at our discretion details not reflected in the photocopies, such as traces of detailed modifications to the voice passages made by cutting the paper out of the manuscript.
Those interested in viewing materials can refer to the TOBUNKEN Library Visitor’s Guide and reserve a dedicated computer. A list of Asada-fu manuscript holdings is available (Japanese only). We hope that these images will be utilized by a wide range of interested people, including researchers, performers, and enthusiasts.