What’s happening at the Uta Sanshin Circle.

Moshiwake Gozaimasen

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:30:27 -0700

Sorry for the lack of log entries. It’s harder to take notes at the meetings and write them up than I thought.
Also guys - you’re not helping out 8-)

We are taking a summer break for the Obon season - performing and vacations. We had an uchiage party yesterday at the Shin Okinawa Izakaya in Torrance with great food and sanshin and singing.

Now some of us are preparing for Teruya Katsuko Sensei’s 40th anniversary koto concert in October. There will be guest performers from Okinawa including the National Living Treasure,Terukina Choichi Sensei.

I am revising the site sanshin.org to cover some other topics, so more apologies for possibly messing up the site navigation.

Wesley Ueunten at the Uta Sanshin Circle meeting

Sun, 2 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Wesley Ueunten’s presentation was in the form of Talk Story (Hawaiian) or Yuntaku (Okinawan). His story included bits of the life stories of other emigrants and artists from Okinawa. Welsey was born and raised on Kaui, as were his parents. His mother had studied Okinawan dance while pregnant, so Wesley heard Okinawan music before he was born. His grandmother liked to listen to Okinawan music and when Welsley was young he copied his grandmother doing eisa dance. When he wanted to learn martial arts in Kaui, his mother said to learn Okinawan dance because it had a lot of martial arts in it. So he studied with Toshio Yamasato in Kaui.

(Yamasato-Sensei had learned Okinawan dance when young. He lived in Hanegenchu in Peru. During WWII he was taken to Crystal City, Texas with many Peruvians of Japanese descent. However, after war they had to leave the US because they were not citizens. So Yamasato-Sensei went to Hawaii to live with his relatives.)

In the 1980’s, Wesley went to Okinawa on a KEMPI scholarship to study at Ryugaku for 2 years. He studied with Oang-Sensei. He also studied the Okinawan language. He then went back to Hawaii and obtained a Masters degree in Sociology. He also met his future wife who was from Ishigaki. He received a scholarship to study in Japan. He got married. He studied sanshin in Kawasaki where there was a large Okinawan community (Tsurumi, Yokohama). He studied with Nadoyama Kenichi-Sensei who was also a karate sensei (200 lbs). At that time 1989-1995, Okinawan music not popular yet.

Currently he leads the Okinawan music group, Genyu-Kai in Berkeley

Notes from Wesley’s Talk

Some features of a high quality sanshin
The neck is made of wood called, Ryukyu Kuruchi, a kind of ebony. It is the best for sanshin. Traditionally it came from trees growing in the Yaeyama islands. The trees were around 100s years old when they were used. Now there are very few trees like this on the islands. Only the middle of the trunk is black. They could only make two sanshin from one tree. These were called Kyodai, brother & sister. One sanshin would be good and one not so good. This is because wood that is too hard or too soft is not too good. Need both dark and light wood in the sanshin neck. To make a good sanshin, the tree had to grow where wind blows. It had to go through the trials and tribulations of life.
“SHIN ga tsuyoi”
Some people used ebony from structural timbers of an old house to make sanshin. Sometimes Philippines kuruchi trees were used.

Be careful if you have good sanshin in your family from the old times in Peru or Hawaii. Be careful when you take an old sanshin back to Okinawa to be repaired. Sometimes a good old sanshin gets switched for a low quality one by warui hito.

In old days very few people had sanshin. In Yaeyama they sang acapella. When Okinawans, who had emigrated e.g. to Hawaii, had money after WWII, they would go back and buy high quality Keijo sanshin. In Okinawa the sanshin was the most precious thing in family. It was placed in the tokonoma. In the Ryukyu kingdom, if the king heard of a really good sanshin, he would send his men to get it. These were called Keijo sanshin.

Comments about playing the sanshin. Treat the sanshin with respect. You never walk over a sanshin. After you finish playing, always wipe our fingerprints off the sanshin with soft cloth.

The uma (horse) is the bridge under the strings. Lift strings when inserting the uma, don’t scrape it on the strings or snake skin. The bridge position is about 3 fingers or 3 ½ fingers from the bottom edge of the body. If the bridge is too close to end, it will give hard sound. If you have a bamboo uma, the shiny side (from the outside of bamboo) is toward the neck of the sanshin, and the giza lines are toward back.
If the uma is put in the wrong way, it may fall or slap over. Don’t leave the uma (bridge) set up under strings when you are finished playing because can cut snakeskin. Take uma off every time or lay it on its side under the strings at the hard edge of the body.

Tuning of the sanshin. For common tuning, Hon Cho Shi, usually Do fa do (BEB). In Okinawa often CEC is used. When women and men sing together, ADA may be used.

When sitting hold the sanshin with the neck at a 45 degree angle. All people in group should hold their sanshin with the neck at same angle.
To help with left hand fingering, try to hold sanshin at the correct angle with only right arm.

Miijiru female string
Ujiru male string
Don’t left thumb behind tenjin
Right hand most important
Play as if you have a fan

Bachi
Thumb is close to tip
Hold like a pen
Don’t put finger in hole, only a little bit
Play straight down
Play nakajiru and rest on miijiru

Play with bachi at certain place in head
Not too soft or too hard a sound

Ushi ni
(osu)

Tinsagu nu Hana
San sagi
ADG

Kafu bushi
If we could get together to talk, all the world’s problems could be solved
Sing like you are angry

First Meeting a Success!

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 19:01:47 -0800

Well, I hope all the participants would agree with me.
A great group of people. What a lot of enthusiasm for the sanshin! There were 26 of us, more than expected and we had to continue to make the circle of chairs larger and larger as more people walked into the room
We opened with an introduction to the Uta Sanshin Circle and its place within the Okinawa Association of America explained by Yuko. Aiko-Sensei welcomed everyone on behalf of the Culture Committee which she chairs. Allyson summarized the mission of the Uta Sanshin Circle (see our home page).
Then, everyone introduced themselves and told how they became interested in the sanshin. The stories were interesting and varied, but there were some repeated themes. Some had inherited their grandfather’s sanshin and wanted to carry on the family heritage. Some were nostalgic for Okinawa and while they hadn’t been interested in learning music living there, now the music brought good memories and feelings. Some have been captivated by Okinawan music heard on CDs. There were five couples; in some cases the pair had equal interest in the sanshin, in others one was the chauffeur. A couple drove all the way from Santa Barbara (that must be 5 hrs one way)! About half of the attendees brought their instruments: from brand-new and hardly played to family heirlooms in need of a little repair. The high level of interest was shown by the many questions asked. Some questions could be answered, but some requiring more research will have to be addressed at future meetings. (The most frequent question seemed to be whether it is legal to bring a sanshin with real python skin into the US. There were differing opinions and experiences. Certainly it has been done often, but how it can be done legally and dependably is a question we have to research.)
The second half of the meeting was a presentation of the basics of uta-sanshin by George Asato-Sensei. He is the leader of the Nomura-Ryu Ongaku Kyokai Hokubei Shibu. He explained the distinguishing features of Koten Ongaku (classical Okinawan music) and how it is sung and played. Asato-Sensei described some of the nuances of singing that even those of us who have played for several years didn’t know. He demonstrated singing and playing Kajadefu Bushi and Aha Bushi. It turned out that there was more material than we could cover before our time was over. We will have to figure out how to adjust for that in future meetings. Perhaps cover less material or extend the meeting for those who wish go into more depth and play themselves. Please give us feedback either here or at the next meetings. We want to make this beneficial for all. We will have to work on how to balance the wishes of some for hands-on practice with the desire of others just to learn about the cultural background.
Finally, Lynde gave us a preview of the next meeting on Mar. 2 with another guest speaker. More information will be placed on the schedule page.