A blind monk sings a story, the children laugh, and a samurai plays Biwa for moral and mental
training, NANI?!
That’s right, Japan used to have blind monks traveling around playing music and telling
stories.
Hey everyone, I am back again hijacking Linfamy’s channel.
Linfamy: Mm—mm—mff!
Today another instrument, another tradition.
The Biwa.
My name is Shawn Renzoh Head and I am a licensed shakuhachi teacher, composer, and lecturer
on Japanese aesthetics and music.
Biwa is one of those tough ones to talk about.
There is a long period in Japanese history where there seems to be little or no writing
about the Biwa, roughly from the 1500 to the mid 1800’s.
But let’s start with the first question, what is a Biwa?
This is what it sounds like.
The Biwa is a Japanese high fretted lute.
It has a large base and these high raised frets called chu which allow for the strings
to be bent down and manipulated to change the pitch.
The overall length of the instrument is about 60 cm but can be as long as 106 cm.
For the uncultured, that is 24 to 42 inches.
The body of the instrument is shaped somewhat like a water drop, or a really angry Pokemon.
On a typical biwa, you will have four strings.
It’s played with a large plectrum called bachi (撥).
Think of it like the most epic guitar pick you have ever seen ever.
This thing is massive.
The strings are plucked with the sharp top edge of the bachi.
Because of the size of this bachi and shape, you can actually create a wide range of effects
and sounds.
There are even performances of the musician striking the body of the instrument with the
bachi.
Okay, how did the instrument come into Japan?
The biwa found its way into Japan around the 7th century and was most likely the son of
the Chinese pipa.
The first version that made its way over was known as Gagaku Biwa.
Remember Gagaku?
There’s a video about it if you haven’t seen it yet, go check it out.
We aren’t entirely sure on how the biwa spread, but what we do know is that it was
used commonly for ceremonies at religious sites.
To make a long long story short, there was a big reconstruction of the Japanese government
and many musicians and people suffered from it.
Musicians were forced to basically rebuild their lives.
One such way was to seek refuge in Buddhist temples.
Many of these musicians would end up becoming monks and encountering the moso-biwa, a much
smaller and lighter version of the gagaku biwa.
Moso means blind priest.
To make an even longer story short, they mixed the gagaku-biwa and the moso-biwa and created
a new instrument called the heike-biwa.
Now this isn’t to say there weren’t other attempts in creating different types of biwa.
There were many other musical styles and instruments developed but it seems that by the end of the Kamakura
Period (1185 to 1333) heike-biwa had become one of the most popular versions.
And here is when we hit a wall.
Not much was written from here until the middle of the 1800’s but here is what we do know.
The blind monks I was talking about were called biwa hōshi (琵琶法師), or "lute priests."
They were the travelling performers in the era of Japanese history preceding the Meiji
period.
Many earned their ryo by singing and playing biwa.
They also adopted the bozu look and wore robes common to Buddhist monks.
Linfamy: Mm—mm—mff!
What’s that?
Oh, why were they blind?
Because they had to gouge their eyes out to show devotion to the craft.
That’s how Buddhist monks roll.
I’m just kidding, it was because music and performance were popular career paths for
the blind.
They couldn’t pursue many of the other typical professions like farming.
Also, the public associated blind people with magic and mystical powers.
They saw a different world from sighted people.
They were almost separate from the mundane physical world.
The blind often performed magic rituals to heal people or shoo away evil spirits.
Music also had ritual meaning, so it was natural for the blind to pick up a biwa and play.
There were even guilds of musical and theatre performers that only accepted the blind.
So Biwa hōshi (琵琶法師), the lute priest.
Hōshi (法師) means the one who teaches buddhist doctrine.
The two characters hō (法) and shi (師) mean "Buddhist doctrine" and "teacher."
Hōshi were the main group of people to perform heike-biwa.
These pieces that they were playing were primarily about legendary samurai, famous wars, historical
events, and mythologies.
But when we mention hoshi, there is one person that we have to mention, and his name is Shobutsu.
Shobutsu was apparently one of the first people to recite the heike monogatari (平家物語)
with biwa, but that’s a whole entire video in itself.
I encourage you to look him up and read his story.
Shobutsu’s musical style would later be referred to as heikyoku (平曲), which literally
means "music of heike."
Although performers like Shobutsu definitely existed way before the events of the Genpei
War, they eventually became famous for narrating and singing the story of the heike monogatari.
Before biwa hōshi sang heikyoku, they were entertainers and ritual performers as mentioned
before.
They had a lot of different jobs, including reciting poetry and song, even something as
intense as plague prevention, and also spiritual purification.
Though there is no evidence to support this next claim, it is probably because of the
fact that the monks had these important roles that they were kinda given this authority
on the heike monogatari and they became the main people as the record keepers for this
historical event.
The biwa hōshi are considered to be the first performers of the Tale of the Heike, which
is one of Japan`s most famous epics.
The Tale of the Heike is about the epic battle between two clans, the Minamoto and the Taira,
right at the end of the Heian era.
Linfamy: Mm—mm—mff!
But why was this art form so popular?
I’m so glad you asked.
Like many other countries, in ancient times, most people couldn’t read or write.
These performances were not only historically informative but really entertaining.
The stories were detailed and had colorful descriptions of events due to the biwa’s
dynamic capabilities.
It was able to portray the battles and love scenes with ease.
But biwa has lost interest over time in Japan since the Heian Period.
There are many reasons why, but we’ll find out the main reason is political.
Before the big lost in interest slash practicality, interest in the biwa was absolutely yuuuge
in the Edo Period.
When Tokugawa Ieyasu unified Japan and established the Tokugawa shogunate.
Ieyasu favored biwa music and became a huge sugar daddy unlike for the shakuhachi…
He basically gave them a bunch of money and special privileges.
At this time, many musicians actually switched to biwa because of how financially beneficial
it was.
With this, it brought many new pieces and many new styles to the biwa.
The Edo period holds the title of the most artistically adventurous for the biwa.
Let’s move on to the fall and rise of the Biwa.
So the Tokugawa government falls and the Meiji rises.
In Meiji, the samurai class was abolished, and along with them, the biwa also suffered.
Basically, no money for boba.
Biwa players basically became on their own.
They were responsible for their own well-being now that patronage was out of the question.
From the beginning of the Meiji to the start of Showa, we see a huge decrease in biwa performers.
This is because there was no money, no concerts, and lots of war.
While many styles of biwa flourished in the early 1900s, Shihan Deshi (master student
relationship) was broken.
Even today, there is no direct lineage to study these ancient biwa music.
Many of the old players have either passed away or are no longer able to play.
Only a few videos and audio files are available.
There is a branch of biwa that still has a fair number of followers called kindai-biwa.
But sects like the zato, heike, and moso-biwa styles are all gone.
However there is light at the end of this tunnel.
Since the 1960s, there has been a huge resurgence of traditional Japanese music, primarily thanks
to Tōru Takemitsu, who we have mentioned before in previous videos.
His work that put biwa back on the map was November Steps.
Take a listen to it, it also has shakuhachi in it.
This sparked interest in having biwa in other genres of music as well, such as J-pop, jazz,
and even hard rock.
Now there is a lot more to biwa and I really only scratched the surface.
I highly recommend going deeper.
The war times of biwa are particularly interesting.
Not to mention I didn’t even get to talk about samatsu-biwa or chikuzen-biwa.
There are many other musicians today who perform biwa actively and one of my personal favorites
is Kumada Kahori.
I recommend checking out her performances of Nasuno Yoichi, the famous archer.
Alright, that is it for biwa.
See you guys soon.
Linfamy, you’re free to go!
Linfamy: I really gotta change my locks.
The man’s out of control.
You guys should get back at Shawn by invading his YouTube channel at Renzoh Flutes.
Alright you ready for today’s quiz question?
What is the name of the yokai that likes to rub up against your legs on rainy nights and
make you stumble?
Answer correctly and you may be randomly chosen as the winner tomorrow.
You’ll get to choose one of these babies.
The last winner was Andres Lozano.
And if you like musical history, I have a playlist on it here, see ya there.
I wanna thank this week’s new patron Paulo Javier, I really appreciate it Paulo.
Alright much love you guys, and spread the knowledge!