{"id":130,"date":"2020-03-03T02:42:40","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T17:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/?p=130"},"modified":"2020-03-03T02:42:47","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T17:42:47","slug":"why-does-ureshii-hinamatsuri-sound-so-japanese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/2020\/03\/03\/why-does-ureshii-hinamatsuri-sound-so-japanese\/","title":{"rendered":"Why does \u201cUreshii Hinamatsuri\u201d sound so Japanese?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Short answer: Because, despite being essentially common-practice in structure, it makes ingenious use of traditional (post-shamisen) Japanese tonality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long answer: In Japan, the 3rd day of the third month\u2014which means March 3 in the modern age\u2014is Hinamatsuri, a.k.a. Girl\u2019s Day or Doll\u2019s Day. Like all such observances in Japan, Hinamatsuri is associated with several children\u2019s songs. The best known of these is probably \u201cUreshii Hinamatsuri<\/a>,\u201d (\u201cJoyful Hinamatsuri\u201d), composed by Kawamura K\u014dy\u014d \u6cb3\u6751\u5149\u967d with lyrics by Sat\u014d Hachir\u014d. \u201cUH\u201d is also my favorite of the seasonal kids\u2019 songs, mostly because of its distinctly\u2014but not exclusively\u2014old-timey Japanese feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question is, why does it have that feel? Consider the melody for \u201cUH,\u201d presented below in C minor with fairly standard harmonization (I\u2019m not sure what, if any, K\u014dy\u014d prescribed):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Rough and ready lead sheet for \u201cUreshii Hinamatsuri\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As you can see, it\u2019s in C minor, starts on the fifth, ends on the tonic, is sensibly harmonized in i, iv, and V, and doesn\u2019t even contain any accidentals. Nothing on the page jumps out as exceptional or strange, and yet it sounds unmistakably different from peers like \u201cKoinobori\u201d or \u201cOsh\u014dgatsu.\u201d Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider the first phrase (mm. 1\u20132 above). As written, it\u2019s just doodling on G while the harmony works its way from tonic through subdominant to dominant. But it is also exactly the sort of phrase that would be played on a shamisen, or a post-shamisen koto\u2014what I want to call \u201cShamisen Practice Tonality\u201d (SPT).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t want to get into too much detail about this right now, but suffice it to say this is basically the in<\/i> scale<\/a>, except (and this is a crucial difference) viewed as two notes a fifth<\/em> apart, each accompanied by one note a tone lower and another note a semitone higher. So the example on the Wikipedia page above would be made of [C, D<\/b>, E\u266d] and [G, A<\/b>, b\u266d]. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In mm. 1\u20132 of \u201cUH\u201d we have the notes [F, G<\/b>, A\u266d] and [C]. In other words, it is noodling around the center of one area, with a brief detour to another, higher area. That higher area might be [B\u266d, C<\/b>, D\u266d], or it might be [C, D<\/b>, E\u266d]\u2014at the end of m. 2, we don\u2019t yet have enough information to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, the answer is immediately provided in mm. 3\u20134, which is in the area [C, D<\/b>, E\u266d] with a brief detour up to [G].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What this means is that the first four measures of \u201cUH\u201d also contain only notes we would expect to find in a piece based on SPT, in areas around [G] and [D]. In other words, the tune is both<\/em> a common-practice melody in C minor, and an SPT melody in G.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, almost. The wave function kind of collapses with that final C, which (for me, at least) is so strongly tonic that the SPT feel completely evaporates. It no longer becomes possible to \u201cfeel\u201d C as leading up to the D-as-dominant\u2014it\u2019s just C, tonic. (Shifting to a new temporary tonal center a fifth lower than the original tonic was also a thing in SPT, but that\u2019s another story.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make a musical analogy, most people reading this are probably familiar with the song \u201cSakura\u201d (or \u201cSakura sakura\u201d if you like). Here it is in G\u2014or, at least, using exactly the same notes in much the same way as other SPT pieces that clearly have G as tonic\u2014to match the \u201cUH\u201d sheet music above:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
First few bars of \u201cSakura\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now imagine if, instead of ending on the D, it went down to C instead:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
First few bars of \u201cSakura\u201d with C as final<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

See (hear) how that final C immediately flips the tonality and whole feel of the piece to \u201cJapanese-influenced melody ending in C minor\u201d? The third measure of that modified version is basically \u201cUH\u201d in miniature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, that\u2019s why \u201cUH\u201d has that haunting old-timey sound yet still resolves as we expect it to: Because its C minor melody is built of notes and phrases from the shamisen-derived music of Edo (in G!), but composer Kawamura K\u014dy\u014d made sure to collapse the ambiguity when he returned to the tonic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Short answer: Because, despite being essentially common-practice in structure, it makes ingenious use of traditional (post-shamisen) Japanese tonality. Long answer: In Japan, the 3rd day of the third month\u2014which means March 3 in the modern age\u2014is Hinamatsuri, a.k.a. Girl\u2019s Day or Doll\u2019s Day. Like all such observances in Japan, Hinamatsuri is associated with several children\u2019s … Continue reading “Why does \u201cUreshii Hinamatsuri\u201d sound so Japanese?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[67],"tags":[71,68,70,69],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-koto","tag-music","tag-shamisen","tag-spt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bLCp-26","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138,"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}