Gagaku – why does it sound out of tune?
雅楽 (gagaku), traditional Japanese court music, doesn’t have so-called music sheet, doesn’t rely on a completely tuned pitch, nor follow a consistent rhythm. Songs are usually taught verbally and musicians play by looking at fellow musicians to determine the right pitch and tempo as they go.
If you are not used to it, it may sound too slow or out of tune. But with a little bit of patience, you may start feeling what ancient people found moving and beautiful.
Gagaku tuning system
Over the last thousands of years, music theory evolved significantly in different parts of the world, but some elements have been common. One of them is that people tend to divide an octave into 12 intervals (C, C#, D, D#…). Back in ancient days, people divided them using Pythagorean tuning system, which was easier to do by ear. However, it created a remainder (just like when you try to divide a year into 365 days), which caused some dissonance when you played certain notes together. Later on, they discovered the way to divide them completely equally, which is called equal temperament. It is what modern European music theory uses, which is the global standard today.
Gagaku is based on Pythagorean tuning system, in which intervals are not equal – some are wider, some are narrower. As your ears are too used to equal temperament, you may feel gagaku is dissonant.
However, in gagaku, intervals are not that important. As a matter of fact, the subtle dissonances seem to create cosmic, another world-ish, eerie atmosphere that fits what gagaku attempts to express.
Gagaku instruments
If you play music, you may know that there are many regional instruments that have similar functionalities. For example, almost every region has some variation of guitar, harp, flute or drums.
As for gagaku, there are three instruments that provide voicings and melody: 笙 (sho), 篳篥 (hichiriki) and 龍笛 (ryuteki).
It is said they originally came from the regions somewhere on the Silk Road about 1,500 years ago. According to Hideki Togi, one of the most recognized gagaku musicians, sho, an instrument that plays a role of guitar or piano as it plays “chords,” has kept its original form ever since it came to Japan 1,500 years ago. However, the original instrument already vanished long time ago. There is no way to know how it was played or what kind of songs were played before it came to Japan.
Whereas Japan is pretty much the only place that still keeps sho alive, some believes that the original instrument also moved westward on the Silk Road to eventually reach Europe. They believe that European people invented pipe organ and accordion inspired by it.
Gagaku instruments: 笙 (sho)
Sho is a wind instrument that uses reeds. There are 17 bamboo tubes, of which 15 are used. You can play a single note or multiple. It also makes the same sound when you blow or inhale (which is really unique). You definitely hear pipe organ in sho.
Gagaku instruments: 篳篥 (hichiriki)
Shichiriki is like oboe as it is a double reed instrument. It’s made of a bamboo tube and has seven holes in the front and two in the back. It plays melody using pitches that are not too high, not too low (similar to our voices). It can produce a loud sound for its size, but it can only produce about an octave-worth pitch.
Gagaku instruments: 龍笛 (ryuteki)
Ryuteki is like flute or piccolo. It plays higher notes. The name suggests dragon’s flute: it represents the sounds that go up in the sky.
Ryuteki solo. It has cosmic sound that makes you feel like
you are taken to another world.
What kind of music is gagaku?
Historically, gagaku was played at royal events and religious events or ceremonies.
Ancient Japanese worshipped nature as deities and believed that their leaders came from the sky/heavenly world ( although it’s not equal to the “Heaven” in Christianity). It is inevitable that gagaku pursued to create music of supreme world lived by natural deities.
It is also natural that gagaku was used for religions events, as religions inevitably dealt with “another world” that was inhibited by gods or dead people.
It will be safe to say that gagaku sounds like music of non-human world. As a matter of fact, sho is often called “an instrument to represent lights coming down from the sky,” and ryuteki is an instrument of dragons that clime up high in the sky.
It starts with a short tuning-session like intro, and then the instruments join one by one. The music generally sounds like on a minor scale (that heavily depend on 6th note), but it also sounds like rootless, as sho takes care of the voicing without a clear bass note.
Speaking of religious ceremonies, Buddhist priests are often gagaku players. When they play in Buddhist attire at a Buddhist temple, it definitely gives you the feeling that the music is about “another world” that doesn’t belong to us – YET.
Gagaku and modern music
The unique part of gagaku is that whereas it sounds like it came from another world, it still makes you feel like “I’ve heard this before.” There are a variety of collaborations between gagaku and modern musicians, although it’s not well known.
Here is the “Tong Poo” by Ryuichi Sakamoto & Asuka (Tenchi Garaku). Note that Sakamoto uses a lot of 7th, 9th, sus etc like that used often in jazz, which work really well with root-less gagaku voicing.
Here is Hideki Togi, one of the most well known gagaku musicians today. Close to modern music, so probably easier to digest.
