Celtic Song Workshop at Field

ケルティック・ソング・ワークショップ by レズリー・デニストン

2010年7月23日 金曜日 7:00p.m.～8:30p.m. by Leslie Denniston at Kyoto Field Irish PUB

2005年5月から続いているロングランシリーズの体験講座「アイルランド＆スコットランドの歌を歌おう！」ケルトの歌…その魅惑的世界。本年は奇数月第4金曜日に開催予定。

●これまで、アイルランドのダンス音楽や楽器に関しては各地で様々な講座が開かれてきましたが、歌の講座は関西一円でもほとんどありませんでした。そこで、今回初の試み！ＵＳＪや各種イベント、国際交流舞台等に出演し、演奏活動を続けているレズリー・デニストンが、アイルランドやスコットランドの歌を、その歌の歴史や背景の解説も交えながら紹介し、皆さんにも数曲体験していただきます。また、レズリーはバウロンとボーンズの奏者でもあります。ご興味のある方はどうぞ！ 受講料￥1,700（会場費、教材費込み） メモ用紙、筆記用具。参加ご希望の方は事前にメールでご連絡下さい。fieldまで直接。　

Youtube videos

vids of us on Youtube...
Samurai Celt Mine & Felicity
- Bertaeyn
- Mouth Music
- Johnny be Fair
Felicity & Tomoko @ Singing Around the Table
- Suil a Ruin
- Shiretoko Ryoujo
- Do You Love an Apple
- Instrumental
- JJ Dancing

Song related Japanese vocabulary

Source: Websters Online Dictionary et al

by kanji

歌 (uta) : song

歌謡 (kayou) : song

演歌 (enka) : enka

歌詞 (kashi) : lyrics

歌手 (kashu) : singer (lit. song hand)

曲 (kyoku) : tune/number

民謡 (minnyou) : old/trad folk song

by sound (incl. homophones)

ぞくよう (zokuyou) : ditty, folk song, popular song, wordly matters
ぞっきょく (zokkyoku): folk song
ぞっか (zokka) : ditty, folk song, popular song, popularization, secularization, vulgarization
かよう (kayou) : available, caring for the sick, comely face, floral leaf, in such a manner, like this, lotus leaf, lower leaves, solubilizing, soluble, song, taking care of oneself, to attend, to commute, to go back and forth, to ply between, Tuesday

りよう (riyou) : application, barbering, folk song, haircutting, hairdressing, popular song, use, utilization

Where have all the flowers gone 花はどこへ行った

Pete Seeger's Where Have All the Flowers Gone has been covered (in Japanese) by three Japanese bands:
Mr Children, Yellow Magic Orchestra, The Water of Life

International List of Covers
Wikipedia (J)
Mr Children YOUTUBE

Ethno - a second album from Mine

Launch gig Oct 25 at Uzura Gallery (Showa era Dental Surgery) details here.

Mine just released their new second album "Ethno".
The band members are Shimizu Shunsuke on flutes, Tsuyoshi Tatebe on wood bass, Genta Fukue (also of Butterdogs) on guitar and Kouji Tamura on fiddle. Guesting on two tracks each are Issaku Yamamoto on fiddle and Felicity Greenland (that's me) on bodhran and vocals.

Mine are usually called an Irish band, and indeed their first album, Minability, was based on Irish trad melodies. However, although they were clearly captivated by the contemporary recordings (such as Lunasa and Flook) they had learned from, at times they made you ponder what else might become of trad music without its cultural reference points.

Ethno takes a step towards answering that question. By the time Mine reach this second album, the 'Irish band' suffix denotes the music's ambience rather than provenance. With a wider range of influences, all original tunes, and two sets of songs from France and the Hebrides, this album is about as Irish as, well, as a Japanese man with an Irish flute. It does trace familiar rhythms and shapes - hints of an old air, glimpses of dancing, a sense of flight - and as a result it could certainly be said to seem Ir-ish, but now with Japanese harmony between the leads, vivid street guitar, a jazz sprite in the bass, it is all cast in a more varigated light. Their original influences are still clear, but they are less encumbered by them. That is how the songs are approached too: Bertaeyn is patches of two French songs tied by a common walking-maid motif - neither tale is complete but together they make a new story; Mouth Music (a three song set) has been learned through a Chinese-whispers chain of non-speakers of the original languages (Hebridean and Irish) - it may retain fragments of the original meaning but more likely it has taken on a life of its own.

Mine grew out of the Irish sessions in Kansai area, but I think they are only called an Irish band for want of a better word now. Their music is neither traditional nor Irish, yet it plays no small part in the warm reception, particular perception, and evolution of Irish music in Japan.

Two tracks from the album Ethno released Oct 2008
Track 3: Bertaeyn: Le Garcon Jardinier/Hanter Dro (Desous les Lauriers Blancs)
Track 6: Mouth Music

Gig at Field - Review

Leslie Denniston & Felicity Greenland at Irish Pub Field Kyoto 2008年4月24日木曜日、by うみさん
出演者／楽器
Felicity greenland／Vocal、Guitar、Bodhran
Leslie Denniston／Vocal、Bodhran
もはやすっかりおなじみとなった唄の翁レズリー＆歌姫フェリシティ両氏によるfield平日ライヴシリーズ！イングランド、スコットランド、そしてアイルランドの紀元前から続く(ウソ)伝統的な歌の数々を心ゆくまで堪能出来るこのイベント、さすがに平日とゆう事で相変わらずアイ研メンバーの視聴者は少ないわけだが(泣)、ワタシは以前から二人の大ファンなのだ！既に入神の域に達しているこのヴォーカルユニットの独特のハーモニーは、たとえどれほど超ヘコんでいようが一発で立ち直れる程の魔法のヒーリング効果を秘めているのよ。もちろん今回も、朗々と歌い上げる二人の歌声が穏やかにfieldを包み込んでゆく。その空間の静謐さ加減は、普段のおもちゃ箱をひっくり返したような雰囲気しか知らない人はきっとビックリする事であろう。曲の合間にはこちらもすっかりおなじみ、デニストン婦人の秀子さんによる解説が入り、ちょっとした勉強にもなってしまうという親切設計！アイリッシュ音楽を志向する人なら、ホント一度は聴いておくべきよなあ。ってゆうか、いっそアルバム作ったりしないすかね？スゲエ人気出ると思うのでスが。ちなみにこの日のPA担当は、今年から加入した新人スタッフのおーしま君。彼も大いに感銘を受けていたようだったのがとても印象的ですた。

Twa Corbies 二匹のからす

Audiofile (Recording: London 1995 with Rory Campbell)

スコットランドの大分古い歌
1. 一人で歩きながら　/ 二匹のからすのカーカーを聞て、
一匹はもう一匹に / 今日はどこへ食べに行こうかと言うた。
2. あちの土壁の向こうに / 殺されたばっかりのナイト爵がいって、
だれも知らず… / タカとイヌと奥さん以外。
3. タカは狩猟して行ったり / イヌは捕らえた野生鳥を持って帰ったり
彼女が新しい恋人と合ったり、/ ポンポン食べても良いよ。
4. あなたが彼の白い首の骨に座って / 私は彼のきれいな青い目をつつく。
金髪の毛で / はげた巣をふく。
5. 彼のためにうなり声でも / どこに行ったか知らず
白くてはげた骨に / いつまでも風が吹く。
Japanese translation by Felicity Greenland (draft)

Mouth Music/Twa Corbies 口音楽／からす二匹

Two songs with Rory Campbell in London (1995)
二つのスコットランドの歌 (ロンドン1995)
MP3s
MOUTH MUSIC　ー　口音楽
Learned from "Broken Hearted I'll Wander" by Dolores Keane and John Faulkner
TWA CORBIES　ー　からすの二匹
Learned from Les Denniston. Japanese translation 日本語

Green Grow the Rushes O

An old home recording from Camden, London
Recorded 2000? - thanks to Gervais Currie
MP3
Robert Burns' GREEN GROW THE RUSHES O　ロバートバーンズ

ケント州の四つの古い歌

Four songs related to Kentish travellers
MP3s　
Recorded 2004 - thanks to Neil Anderson at Portobello Music
THE HARTLAKE BRIDGE DISASTER　ハートレーク橋の災難
(Anon. from Jasper Smith)*
RIDING DOWN TO PORTSMOUTH 　ポーツマス
(Anon. from May Ann Haynes)*
POOR LEONARD　かわいそうのレナード君
(Trad. from Mary Ann Haynes)*
BORSTAL BOY　ボースタル男の子
(Anon)**

Song sources:
* field recordings made by Mike Yates on 'Here's Luck to A Man - Gypsy Songs and Music from South East England', Musical Traditions' MTCD320
** graffiti photographed by Simon Evans in EFDSS' 'Root and Branch 1

Simon Evans is a BBC Radio Kent presenter specialising in Gypsies and folk music. His excellent programme about the Hartlake Bridge disaster is here. His Open Productions page is here.

三つのイギリスの歌

Three songs with Les Denniston in Kyoto, Japan
Recorded 2007 - thanks to Sugaki-san and Anime-san at Field
THE GREY FUNNEL LINE　ネズミ色の煙突船線
( Cyril Tawney - copyright Gwyneth Music)
SOUTH AUSTRALIA　南オーストラリア
(Trad.)
THE FALSEHEARTED LOVER　不忠実な恋人
(Trad.)

Karaoke: regional Britain カラオケ

I recently read that, compared to the rest of Britain, karaoke caught on much quicker in Scotland and Ireland - "that's where they had the tradition of collective singing...and more of a tradition of the ballad," Simon Frith proffered in the article in the Guardian.
I can't dispute the statistics, but it's illogical to conclude from them that karaoke is the evolutionary successor to ballad and collective singing traditions, and that the relationship is causal. Besides, collective singing in the British Isles is not the preserve of only Scotland and Ireland. It's a trivial issue in the grand scheme of things, but I think that what the statistics are purported to reflect is spurious. Here are a few reasons....
Collective singing The Welsh are world famous as singers. And in both England and Wales - aside from the old traditions of ballads and work songs - there is singing in schools, church congregations, football crowds, rugby teams, working men's clubs, scouts, coaches, hen-nights, birthdays, Christmas carols, folk clubs, open-mics, and community choirs; there are thousands of applicants for TV talent contests, and uncounted millions of singers in bathrooms and cars. Has karaoke been tried and failed all over England and Wales?
Market forces The spread of karaoke has many influences. Unlike the kinds of singing mentioned above, karaoke is a commercial enterprise and hosted by another commercial enterprise - its spread surely depends more on market alternatives/competition and the economic vicissitudes of pubs than on any ballad or collective singing traditions. Pubs and karaoke alike have a social role, sure, but economics determine their birth and survival.
Demographics There are loads of Scottish and Irish people in England and Wales, and other people from other countries with rich song traditions - surely enough to get a bit of karaoke off the ground.
To make any attempt at explaining the regionality of karaoke we need more details about exactly who is singing and where - there may even be an inverse relationship between singing traditions and karaoke.

As for karaoke itself, the British Isles' style is quite different from that in Japan. I wrote about that here.
There are a few Japanese-style karaoke bars and boxes in London (one box, coincidentally, in Frith Street). The bars are small and tend to be expensive business account type places. Boxes, on the other hand are cheaper and open to everyone. They really are the next generation. Being dedicated venues, boxes are more of a commitment for owners than either karaoke bars or the machine-hire variety but if karaoke boxes were more widespread in the UK, the regional propensity-for-a-sing-song as measured by karaoke uptake would probably look very different.

Enka 演歌

Enka 演歌 is a popular kind of Japanese sentimental singing using elaborate ornamentation and melodramatic vibrato. I notice that if I ask Japanese people if they like enka, they either say Yes! or they laugh. Its nostalgic qualities, variously maudlin or clap-along, make it the karaoke style of choice for the best middle-aged after-parties. Its origins and influences are probably mixed: minyo (Japanese traditional folk song), Korea, China have all been cited. It even sounds a bit like Portuguese fado (Portuguese influence in Japan is huge due to historical sea trade) and certainly plays a similar social role. It was popular throughout the Showa period (1925- 89) though it has morphed during that time - gradually acquiring orchestral backing and glamour post-war - but retained Japanese instrumentation and an intense and celebrated old-Japaneseness. It is supposed to have its roots in earlier 'disguised political' street-song of the Meiji period (1868-1910) which was also called enka. To distinguish the Meiji and Showa forms the latter is sometimes called Kayoukyoku 歌謡曲 which means 'ballad music', but it refers only to the 'pop' part of the enka spectrum and mainly distinguishes the older style crooning from the more youthful 'J-pops'.
Kitajima Saburo 北島三郎 (1936- ) was a wandering entertainer ( nagashi ) before he became the most popular male enka singer. Due to parts of his movie portfolio he is a favorite singer of the yakuza. He also appears on the Red and White Show on TV at New Year - the Japanese equivalent of the Andy Stewart or Jools Holland New Year Shows. The most famous female enka singer is the amazing Misora Hibari 美空 ひばり(1937-1989) whose last song, Kawa no Nagare no yo- ni 川の流れのように (Like a river flows) was voted the best Japanese song of all time in an NHK poll in 1997. No doubt the voting reflects the immense pleasure to be had giving it your all in karaoke - it's a full-flighter! The Misora Hibari Kan memorial museum in Arashiyama, in which her records, films, costumes and dressing rooms were on display, closed down in 2006 - the exhibits transferred to the Edo-Tokyo Museum in Sumida. She was a child film star (see Tokyo Kid) and is known as the queen of enka and an icon of the post-war reconstruction. Here is Misora Hibari singing Yawara (dressed as a bloke). She also recorded a Japanese/English version of la vie en rose and a macaronic L.O.V.E. among her 1,200 records.
New enka singers are still emerging. Hikawa Kiyoshi is perhaps the best known of the younger ones. Here is Kiyoshi pitched against Kitajima Saburo in a TV show.

Violin enka バイオリン演歌　In 2005 there was an article in the Daily Yomiuri newspaper about a violin-enka-singer (fiddle-singer) in a Tokyo park. I went in search of him but on the day I went it was raining so no music. A year later I couldn't find him. His name was Ken? Morita 森田銀月, and he wore Meiji-era clothes - flat cap, kimono and hakama. I'll dig out the article and fill in the details. PS Just found his picture on a website (click parag title).
Other violin enka links:
Yousan02 violin day
Tanosiki violin enka
Teds3d
Teidaisei Yumeji 帝大生ゆめじ

Bibliography - Western Song in Japan

Information in English about Western songs in Japan
- on the web
Music education in Japan by Kensho Takeshi
Music in Japan Today by Takako Matsuura
The Beginnings of Western Music in Meiji Era Japan by Ury Eppstein
Japanese Children's Folk Songs before and after contact with the West by Elizabeth May
Tokyo Kodomo Club 東京こどもクラブ 1965-80
History of Japanese Music @ Far Side Music site
Irish Music and the Experience of Nostalgia by Sean Williams
Asia Pacific Database on Intangible Cultural Heritage
Common Repertoire - a related article on this blog
- in print
TACHI Mikiko, Representations of American Folk Music in Japan: A Study of Heibon Punch Magazine, 1964-1970:- International Popular Culture Association Conference, Aug. 2005, Swansea, Wales, U.K.
TACHI Mikiko, American Folk Music in Japan: Crossing Cultures and Reconstructing Authenticity, 1960-1970:- American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Nov. 2004, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.
- audio
Misora Hibari - 不死鳥パートＩＩ全曲集ＩＩLabel: Ho Son. Catalog#: J-013. Track 19 Bara-iro No Jinsei is a version of La Vie en Rose made popular by Edith Piaf, with alternate lyrics: Verse 1 of 2 is in Japanese, Verse 2 of 2 in English.
Misora Hibari sings L.O.V.E.

Nagashi 流し

Nagashi is the Japanese word for a kind of wandering minstrel (lit. flow-er/drifter). In their current form nagashi are closely linked to enka, a song style that developed in the early 20th century. Lately nagashi are rare but they may be spotted in the areas frequented by the older generation in Osaka, Tokyo and Kyoto, moving from bar to bar (usually singly) with their guitar taking requests for popular songs, particularly enka (hence the generational preference). They will either sing themselves or, more likely, play for customers who want to sing (they were a pre-cursor of karaoke). Formerly, nagashi were not the only wandering entertainers. Street musicians played enka for passers-by and storytellers with a picture box (often fixed to the back of a bicycle) told illustrated tales. Among the musicians were accordionists, and fiddle-singers playing 'violin-enka' well known for using their music as a medium for political subversion. Recordings of Japanese street performers are not very easy to find - the UK distributor Far Side have some.
Related post: Enka

Tokyo Kodomo Club 東京こどもクラブ 1965-80

Tokyo Kodomo Club (Tokyo Kids Club) 東京こどもクラブ 1965-80 produced records and books for kids with songs and stories from around the world, including the song London Bridge is Falling Down and Are You Sleeping (which I guess is Frere Jacques). Among the stories were an adaptation of Aesop's fable Town Mouse and Country Mouse called Country Mouse and Tokyo Mouse, Little Black Sambo and The Merchant of Venice. Two 'Folk for All' albums were produced containing: Danny Boy, Waltzing Matilda, Auld Lang Syne, Early One Morning, Rock-a-bye Baby and Greensleeves. For the full track lists click the links above.
A related article on this blog - Common Repertoire

British Songs in Japanese Schools 1962

Today in a second hand book shop I found a set of 3 thin textbooks from 1962 for the Junior High School curriculum (years 1,2,3) published by the Monbusho (Ministry of Education). They contain quite a few songs listed as Irish and Scottish (and Spanish, German and Italian) folk songs. The text is all in Japanese, including the lyrics (not translations but Japanese alternatives), but I could make out the tune of The Minstrel Boy and read Hotaru no Hikari (Auld Lang Syne), so I have had the set put aside. I am very excited and plotting to go through them with my fiddle and a wodge of post-its as soon as I can go back to the shop with my Y5,000 tomorrow. It'll be reinventing the wheel - there must be a list out there already - but I'll enjoy it.
By the way, this little experience really made me think about literacy - my reading of both Japanese and music is pretty basic but if I hadn't been able to read them at all I would have missed the opportunity altogether. There are always ads for EFL teachers like me to work on literacy programmes in Africa. At 43 I felt acutely the benefit of simply being able to read.
Bibliography: Western Songs in Japan

セシル・シャープのアパラチア民謡集 +++

Dear Companion: Cecil Sharp's Appalachian collection et al on this....
上のリンクで色々な音楽と歌の情報。。。man's blog.

Les Denniston レズリー・デニストン

日本語
Leslie Denniston came to Kyoto from Glasgow in 1975 to study kendo. He is still here!
He was probably the first unaccompanied traditional-type singer I ever heard - around 1989 I learned loads of songs from him, here in Kyoto - Jock Stewart, Twa Corbies, and General Taylor among them. Along with Bob Barraza, Les started me off on the bodhran and I got my first and favorite one by sea-mail from Les's maker Eamon Maguire. In the end everyone wanted one and I ordered six - Eamon told my friend "stick with her - she's rich!" (He didn't and I never have been.) The number of people playing Irish music in Kyoto in those days
was pretty small.
Now me and Les do a lot of singing together including Scottish Nights where Hideko (Mrs Denniston) explains the songs and background in Japanese. Les also plays every Saturday night at Hill of Tara in Kyoto (Oike-Kiyamachi) with Taro Kishimoto.
Les is a great interpreter of Robert Burns' poetry - without the book!
More about Les in his own words here (his photos include Akazawa Atsushi, Jay Gregg and John Matthews) or watch this 1983 kendo video of Les on the BBC documentary Way of the Warrior (this link is Part 4; he is actually introduced at the very end of Part 3 - if you can watch that too Part 4 makes more sense)

New Year Music お正月の音楽

Happy Shogatsu! It's New Year (of the rat) and all the BGM has miraculously switched to trad. (BGM is background music. Did you know? I didn't. Here such acronyms abound.) At all other seasons Kyoto shopping is fuelled by Western and J-pop, but for New Year it has all been replaced by koto (a giant 13-string zither) and shamisen (3-string 'banjo') pinging out warabe-uta, traditional Japanese tunes such as might normally be heard only in school concerts and tourist traps (oh, and pedestrian crossings). Today I was browsing (mainly for a woolly toilet seat cover - a strange but necessary invention - no CH!) to these old national favorites. I knew most of them as, earlier in the year, I had availed myself of a CD of 'Children's songs' from the local 100 Yen Shop (= Pound Shop). Imagine shopping to Hot Cross Buns and the like. I wonder if the Arndale Centres would be game?
Click on title for lyrics and translations of these tunes/songs.
Later...it occurs to me that some of these songs were originally street cries anyway - cf. Hot Cross Buns.