| ■Tokyo National Research
Institute for Cultural Properties |
■Center for Conservation
Science |
| ■Department of Art Research,
Archives and Information Systems |
■Japan Center for
International Cooperation in Conservation |
| ■Department of Intangible
Cultural Heritage |
|
A scene from the record concert
A public record concert was held on March 28 at the Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The Department has been collecting sound sources related to traditional performing arts from the days when the present Department was named the Department of Performing Arts. Among these sources are a great number of valuable 78-rpm records. This record concert was held as an opportunity to have the public consider the issues surrounding the transmission of traditional performing arts by listening to these records, particularly of noh and kyogen, made from the Taisho to the early Showa periods. Due to the size of the room, the number of participants was limited to 21, but everyone was greatly impressed by the diversity of expression heard in these old records.
Data that can be retrieved from the database on traditional Japanese instruments (accessible from the website of the Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage since May) has been doubled and renewed. The database is based on information obtained through questionnaire survey on traditional Japanese instruments conducted since 2001. In addition to replies from the boards of education of the prefectures and municipalities, responses from museums throughout Japan have been included. Until now the data centered on instruments designated as cultural properties, but with this addition of data from museums, it has become possible to retrieve information about outstanding instruments and unusual instruments held by museums in various parts of Japan. Items and method for retrieval have not changed, but there are more data on instruments like shamisen, koto and tsuzumi., making formation retrieval more interesting.
The Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage started a joint research with the National Museum of Japanese History on the Kishu Tokugawa family collection of musical instruments that the Museum owns. These instruments, mainly ones used in gagaku, were collected by Harutomi, 10th Lord of the Kishu Tokugawa family. The Museum owns more than 157 instruments, many scores and related documents, and published an illustrated catalogue of these materials in 2004. Based on this catalogue we plan to conduct a more detailed study with experts on traditional Japanese musical instruments. The study of wind instruments that began from July has revealed the possibility that the nokan, or the transverse flute used in noh, called “Gasho” is the “Kokyo no Nishiki” mentioned in Meikanroku, a list submitted to the Tokugawa shogunate in the late 18th century of famous transverse flutes.
Page from the database on traditional Japanese musical instruments
Data on traditional Japanese musical instruments can now be retrieved from the “Database on Traditional Japanese Instruments Designated as Cultural Properties” (ed. Department of Performing Arts, March 2006, in Japanese), which was introduced in TOBUNKENNEWS Vol. 25. From 2001 questionnaires on traditional Japanese musical instruments were sent to museums throughout Japan and boards of education of the prefectures, cities, towns and villages. This database is based on replies to those questionnaires from the boards of education and information obtained from the web sites of prefectures and cities. It is composed of 4 items: type of instrument, name of instrument, designation, name of prefecture. Categorization of the type of instruments is based on the Sachs-Hornbostel system and classified into chordophones, aerophones, idiophones, membranophones and excavated instruments. With regard to the names of instruments, it is possible to retrieve information by part agreement search, for example by inputting tsuzumi instead of kotsuzumi or fue instead of ryuteki (fue used in gagaku). There are 6 kinds of designation: by nation, prefecture, city, ward, town and village. However, recent changes due to the merger of cities, towns and villages are not reflected on the database. Data will be updated from time to time so that it will be possible to confirm the location of traditional instruments.
